Mary Aldred (Monash, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The fact is that living standards have not just gone backwards under this Labor government; they have collapsed. In four years of Labor, Australians are working harder for less, they are saving harder and keeping less, and they are paying more and getting less. I see this every day in my electorate of Monash. There's the mum outside Druin Coles who told me she had to choose between paying her electricity bill on time or buying groceries for her family that week. There's the young tradie in Wonthaggi who told me he was taking every overtime shift available and he still couldn't save enough for a home deposit. There's the small-business owner on Phillip Island who said she could barely break even because every input cost, from electricity to insurance, had skyrocketed over the last few years. There's the farmer outside Leongatha who shared with me his anxiety that Labor's superannuation changes would destroy his family succession plan because the land was worth more than what their business generated in value. Australia has experienced the largest collapse in living standards among all developed countries, across the OECD, and people in my electorate of Monash are living with the consequences of this every day.

The volunteers who roll up their sleeves to help those people who are really struggling are finding it more and more difficult as well, and I give the following examples. In Warragul, Frankies Community Kitchen cannot meet current demand at its local food relief centre. It's a sad reflection of the level of struggle felt in our community—the choices forced on families and on vulnerable and low-income residents when money is tight and meals are sacrificed. They started out cooking 600 meals per week, and that figure has tripled to more than 2,000 per week. But it's not enough, with a gap of around 3,000 meals every week across the region. Baw Baw Food Relief has seen a nine per cent increase in demand in the last 12 months, feeding 4,560 adults and 2,825 children. Phillip Island Community and Learning Centre has been forced to limit access to its food pantry three days a week because of the sheer number of families seeking to put food on the table. The wonderful volunteers at Corinella & District Community Centre say that it needs to be open an additional day just to keep up with growing demand, and it has to meet rising costs with a tight budget. Despite the installation of solar panels and a battery, Corinella centre has been forced to pay significantly higher electricity bills. These centres don't want to turn people away, but they can't escape the growing costs and pressure.

The standard of living has dropped under this Prime Minister, but so too has every standard under the government that he's running. A good recent example, this week, was when the Prime Minister attended the wedding of his good mate Kyle Sandilands. It's worth mentioning in the context of standards that this is a guy who got a 14-year-old girl on his radio show and quizzed her about her sexual experiences, and it turned out she had been raped. This is a guy who called a female journalist 'a fat slag', said Christians were dumb as dog excrement and said on air to a female journalist:

Watch your mouth, girl, or I will hunt you down.

He said of comedian Magda Szubanski, who is of Polish descent, that she would lose more weight if she were in a concentration camp. Journalist Jacqueline Maley has put a number of examples together in the Sydney Morning Herald this week, and I think they are worth mentioning in the context of standards under this Prime Minister, because the standard that we walk past is the standard that we choose to accept. This is a prime minister who chose to associate his office with Kyle Sandilands by attending his wedding. What a guy.

So, when we're talking about standards in Australia that have fallen off a cliff under this Prime Minister, it is not just economics that have fallen off a cliff; it is everything from economics to values. I think the Prime Minister's choice to associate himself and his office with Kyle Sandilands is worth mentioning and worth highlighting. It is a disgrace for the government and the Prime Minister, bearing in mind the message that this sends to young women and girls across this country.

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