Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

It's pretty telling, really, that the Labor Party, who continually sought to undermine the economy at every opportunity whilst in opposition, now realise that there are a lot of things out of their control, a lot of things that occur globally, that impact what happens in our economy, and that government is hard and you actually have to be the ones to make decisions to put in place policies. On this side of the house, we don't ignore that there are global challenges. But what we're seeing from this new government is that, with every decision it makes, it makes a bad situation worse.

After long platitudes through the campaign from everyone who made an appearance, usually to tidy up Mr Albanese's most recent gaffe and then to make a promise that they would guarantee that Australians would see real wage growth, we now know that that's not going to be the case, and that is now being acknowledged by the Treasurer himself. They ran smear after smear after smear—and we just heard them continuing—against the coalition's record whilst in government, but they are now failing to live up to their own promises and guarantee Australians real wage growth. The hypocrisy is unbelievable, but, unfortunately, not surprising.

As I just said, we on this side of the chamber know that not every problem in the economy can be laid at the feet of the government—of either persuasion; not that you would ever give us that grace when you were in opposition—but we will hold you accountable for how you respond to these challenges. The fact of the matter is that it is becoming increasing clear that you have no plan. You keep reciting a plan, which is apparently a plan for a plan, but that does nothing to instil confidence in the Australian people that you will be there to support them and alleviate the current cost-of-living pressures that they're experiencing.

Today we saw Senator Gallagher also walking away from Labor's promise to reduce power bills by $275. I will acknowledge that Senator Gallagher is the first Labor minister who has perhaps moved off the talking points that offered a guarantee to lower power prices, but actually articulating a figure seems to be beyond the scope of this new government. We've seen that Senator Watt can't say a number, and Senator Gallagher here today could not mention the $275 reduction by the end of 2025 that was promised to all Australian households. She talked about being honest with the Australian people but danced her way around guaranteeing an exact figure.

But, again, the important thing to note here is that, for all of Labor's talk, during the election campaign, on easing the cost-of-living crisis, they don't have a plan to make this a reality. They don't understand how to address inflationary pressures. I just note Senator Brockman's contribution—that perhaps they're taking their lead from Josh Lyman in West Wing, and they've got a secret plan to fight inflation. Unfortunately, though, looking at the performance of those opposite over the last week and a half in this place, they may actually be trying to emulate Veep rather than West Wing.