Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Industry, Infrastructure and Industrial Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to put on the record the fine activities of the Australian Labor Party Family Watch Task Force. It has been travelling around the country, and we have been meeting and talking with people about the pressures that their families face on a daily basis. It should be of no surprise to members or senators that families are doing it tough, regardless of what the government says about a great economy. It is true that most people have a job—in fact, most of them have several jobs—but they are too busy to stop and breathe, and they have a number of significant issues that this government simply does not understand.

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Hunt interjecting

Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Industry, Infrastructure and Industrial Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Maybe members interjecting could have a bit of a think about this: families are now paying more for petrol than they have ever paid before. They are paying more in school fees, public or private, than they have ever paid before. They are paying more in health care costs than they have ever paid before. They are paying more in childcare fees—if they can get a place to start with—than they have ever paid before. They are paying more in grocery and household bills than they have ever paid before. This is all supposedly under the best possible economic circumstances that this country has ever had—at the very peak. If we are at the peak—and things are about to start to get worse—then you do not need to be Einstein or an economist to work out what will happen to these people already paying record bills for all of their utilities and day-to-day living.

Worst of all, they are paying the highest amounts in mortgage interest rate payments that they have ever paid in their lives—in Australian history, in fact. And those are increasing. We had good news today: the Reserve Bank of Australia did not raise interest rates. That is good news, but it will be of little comfort to people who are struggling to meet their current payments. They have been dudded by this government. They were dudded in the false sense that because of rising house prices—something that this government pushed higher and higher—they were much wealthier and therefore could borrow more money. That was the clear message, just like the financial advice given by this government to ordinary mums and dads about buying Telstra shares in the T2 sale at $7.40. That was very good financial advice! I am sure all of those mums and dads who bought shares back then will have a different view of the T3 shares.

The reality about what this government have done in economic terms is that they are driving up inflation. They are driving up interest rates. They are putting pressure not only on the economy and on our foreign debt but also on ordinary mums and dads, who are finding that meeting the cost of living today and buying a house is almost out of reach. This government will have a legacy after 10 or 11 years in government, but it will be a sad legacy. They will be the first government in history to put a whole generation of young people out of even dreaming of owning a home at all. As I have moved around the country and have asked people, they have told me that they do not even consider it as a possibility, because this government have made it out of their reach—and the government should be ashamed. (Time expired)