Sophie Mirabella (Indi, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Innovation, Industry and Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about a very pressing issue and concern in my electorate—that is, the ever increasing cost of living and the pressures that continue to make everyday life quite an anxious event for so many individuals and so many families. As I spoke to people right across my electorate during the course of the election campaign and since then, there was one theme that resonated time and time again, and that was the rising cost of living. Victorians have experienced extraordinary increases in the general cost of living under both state and federal Labor governments, which are simply out of touch and out of control. Not a day goes by that my constituents are not failed by both Premier Brumby and Prime Minister Gillard.

There are a number of things that feed into the general cost of living. As we know, interest rates are a key factor and, as we have seen over the last couple of years, this government have lost total control over interest rates and have lost total control over their spending. They are addicted to spending not millions but billions. It is as if they have a tube feeding their very survival through their addiction to extraordinary spending. That is putting pressure on interest rates out there in the marketplace. They might try and claim in public that they are doing something about banks, for example, and that they are trying and working to increase competition but, as we all know, this is all talk. They are behind the game on this and they were highly embarrassed by the coalition’s comprehensive nine-point plan. They are trying—not very well—to play catch-up, but it is too late and we know that.

The once great Labor Party that, as Beazley Snr had said, used to be full of the cream of the working class was now full of the dregs of the middle class. The Labor Party has gone even further and has been hijacked by the extreme Left. It is clear now that, while Labor might be in government, the Greens are most definitely in power. This is not good for country Australians and this is not good for every single individual and every single family that is suffering with ever-increasing costs of living. A party that used to stand up for the working family is now standing up for the elitist ideology of the inner-city Left. A party that used to represent the concerns of the Aussie battler is now representing the political activists who will, inevitably, spell the downfall of the modern-day Labor Party.

I mentioned before that Victorian families are amongst those who have been hardest hit by the increasing cost of living in the last few years. I think we need to look at some important details and figures. If you take one particular cost, the price of electricity in Victoria, under the Howard government in 2003-04 there was a zero per cent increase, in 2004-05 there was a fall in the price, in 2005-06 we saw a 0.1 per cent increase and in 2006-07 we saw a 1.2 per cent increase. After the election of the Rudd-Gillard government in 2007-08 we saw a whopping increase in electricity prices in Victoria of 9.3 per cent, and it got even worse in the following year, rising by a massive 13.3 per cent. This was and continues to be hugely damaging to many Victorians and many families. In the following year, 2009-10, there was a 15.5 per cent increase. These are extraordinary increases. It is one thing for the Prime Minister to stand up in front of cameras and say she is concerned about the increased cost of living; it is another thing to understand what pressures drive prices up and cause families to go without.

During the election campaign I am sure that Labor supporters across the country breathed a collective sigh of relief when the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister emphatically ruled out a carbon tax. After dealing with such sharp increases in electricity prices during the first term of a Labor government, the prospect of a tax that would further compound prices would have definitely pushed families over the edge. On 16 August, when the Prime Minister said, ‘There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead,’ people believed her. Again, when she was asked the question on the day before the election, the Prime Minister categorically stated, ‘I rule out a carbon tax,’ and she was lying at the time. She said anything that she knew would help her get elected. Who will suffer at the end of the day? Ordinary Australians who are struggling, who are at the margins now—they are the ones who will suffer because of this Prime Minister’s vanity and desire to win at any cost.

If people were in any doubt about the Prime Minister’s words, her deputy sealed the deal when he said on 15 August:

Well, certainly what we rejected is this hysterical allegation that somehow we are moving towards a carbon tax …

So anyone who even raised doubt that the Prime Minister was genuine was called hysterical, and these were the Treasurer’s words.

What is hysterical is that just one month after the Prime Minister said, ‘I rule out a carbon tax,’ when she was asked again she said:

I think the rule in, rule out games are a little bit silly.

And I am sure when she said that she tilted her head, very ‘Kernotesque’, from side to side and gave a little girly giggle, as if that was to excuse her very serious responsibilities of ruling for all Australians and looking after their concerns and their welfare, and that includes doing everything in her power as Prime Minister to keep prices down.

Is it any wonder that Labor’s popularity is at an all-time low, is it any wonder that union chiefs are warning Labor about the Greens’ rising power and is it any wonder that Australia has lost all faith in Labor’s ability to make basic decisions regarding easing cost-of-living pressures? Labor might be in government, but the Greens are in power. This could not be more true than at the federal level. And it may be—and I hope not—replicated at the state level in Victoria.

Last Wednesday the Prime Minister wrote a piece for the Sydney Morning Herald entitled Carbon price now or we’ll pay later. The article captured the political reality of the modern Labor Party: no heart, no soul and certainly no integrity; say one thing before the election and do the exact opposite afterwards. I would have thought that the Prime Minister would have taken a hint from the failure of Copenhagen. It makes no rational sense to impose a growth limiting tax on Australia’s entire economy before the rest of the world moves in that direction. A carbon tax now would destroy jobs, send investment offshore and further increase the cost of electricity. Essentially, what the Prime Minister’s article said was, ‘Let me make you pay more for electricity now or you’ll have to pay more for power later.’ It is one of those Orwellian arguments that we have come to associate with this particular Prime Minister. It was like reading talking points straight out of Senator Brown’s office.

After three years of astronomical increases in electricity prices, not to mention the rising cost of groceries and out of control interest rates, the last thing that people in my electorate in the outer suburbs of metropolitan centres and in country Australia want or can afford is a carbon tax. There is more than one way to achieve our goal of reducing emissions by five per cent—a goal that I might add is a bipartisan commitment. Just like there is more than one way to deliver universal and affordable broadband—also a bipartisan commitment—there is a better way. The Prime Minister will not take the hint. She will not look at a better way. In her vanity and her stubbornness, she is digging in her heels and refusing to consider other options, whether for the reduction of emissions or the introduction of better communications. You would think that she would have learnt from the failures of her immediate predecessor but she has not. You would think that after President Obama dropped his plans for a carbon tax that the Prime Minister would reconsider. But it is not her decision anymore; it is the decision of the Greens. As Victorians go to the polls this weekend, they face another very real choice: a coalition government committed to reducing the pressure on families or another Labor-Greens alliance. (Time expired)