Terry Young (Longman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the motion moved by the member for Forde. The cost of living is the government's primary responsibility to the people of Australia. If they don't deliver an economic strategy that enables everyday Australians, like those in my seat of Longman, to not suffer financially, they are not fulfilling their duty. Unfortunately, we are seeing the exact opposite right now. People are losing jobs as the unemployment rate slowly starts to rise. We see homelessness increase as mortgages and rents rise and become unaffordable, and we see more families fall apart as the financial burden becomes simply too great. This lack of economic management simply damages lives—in some cases, forever.

Let's forget the politics here and look simply at the results since this government took office. In just over a year, food and grocery prices are up by 8.2 per cent, insurance is up by 17.3 per cent, electricity is up by 18.2 per cent, petrol is up by 19 per cent, and interest rates have increased 12 times under this government. Have there been factors that have driven this? Of course, but there always are. Whether it be an overseas conflict like Operation Desert Storm, Afghanistan, the Ukraine invasion, the seemingly never-ending conflicts in the Middle East, the GFC or a global pandemic, there always have been and always will be factors that can impact our economy. But it is the job of the government of the day to implement policies that mitigate and minimise the impacts that these factors will have on the Australian people.

Take the recent COVID pandemic. The former coalition government implemented initiatives like JobKeeper, increased the instant asset write-off, gave a one-off tax relief for small business, halved the fuel excise and introduced the $1,500 tax relief incentive for hardworking Australians, to name just a few.

The result? Real outcomes—like the lowest unemployment rate in five decades, the lowest personal and credit card debt as a percentage in decades, low interest rates of around two per cent, the highest personal savings in years and an economy that was booming. Governments must be judged on results. They must be judged on what they actually deliver, not what they say they will deliver. If you do this, clearly these results and history show that Australians are simply better off under a coalition government.

The data is irrefutable. A family in my electorate of Longman with a mortgage of $500,000 is now paying an extra $16,000 per year in mortgage repayments, or just over an extra $300 per week. This is simply unsustainable for many of these hardworking Australians.

So why are we seeing this cost-of-living crisis? There are many factors. However, a large portion of it is to do with a government led by a prime minister who has his priorities all wrong. Their entire focus in their first 12 months of government was the divisive Voice referendum. Instead of focusing on the real issue of the cost of living, they devoted much of their time and effort to a referendum that they were told very early on was not going to get up. There was $450 million spent on this referendum that could have been spent on cost-of-living relief—measures like halving the fuel excise, just to name one.

The government are claiming a budget surplus that is a result of the previous coalition government's excellent economic management during the pandemic. They fail to mention that, if we'd adopted all their suggested measures during the pandemic, there would have been an extra $80 billion in spending, which would have resulted in there being no budget surplus, just another budget deficit. Worse still, Labor has added an extra $188 billion in spending since coming to office, and this, of course, only feeds inflation.

The Reserve Bank governor has clearly stated that Australia's world-leading inflation is being driven by domestic factors right here in Australia, not by overseas factors. This is in clear contrast with the Prime Minister's and Treasurer's statements. They are blaming the rest of the world for their failures on inflation, instead of doing what strong leaders do, which is—instead of complaining and passing the buck—to get on with the job of finding solutions to the issues they face.

Only a coalition government will get Australia back on track through supporting, not hindering, small business, and by delivering lower taxes and a simpler tax system, along with cutting expensive red tape that drives inflation. They will support more Australians into work, instead of encouraging people to remain on welfare, which destroys their self-worth and value. Australians feel conned by this government and the promises that it made at the last election, and rightly so.

See this speech in context