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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister representing the Treasurer (Senator Gallagher) to a question without notice asked by Senator Hume today relating to the economy.

I know those opposite are still adjusting to what we know as government. They've spent so long in opposition, and we know they've spent the majority of time in opposition since Federation. But what they do need to start to understand is that they actually are in government now and that being in government is actually about governing. It's about taking tough decisions in tough circumstances. Now unlike those opposite, we will demonstrate some grace and acknowledge that there are plenty of global influences creating cost-of-living pressures that many, many Australians are experiencing. But what that means is it is even more important the government, which is, again, those opposite, be proactive in their response. We need to make sure that the government is making decisions that are going to have the best possible outcome for Australian families as they face the challenges that cost-of-living pressures are creating.

Our role over here is to hold those opposite to account. We need to have a look at what is being proposed and, outrageously, we will make suggestions. We will propose, having had a great depth of experience in government, some of the solutions that would make an immediate difference. One of those that we talked about today would allow pensioners, on both the disability support pension and the age pension, to increase the number of hours that they are able to work without impacting their pension. We suggested this back in June 2022, so over 100 days ago. The idea apparently has now filtered through, not in as an effective way as we proposed but now, through their jobs skills talkfest with the unions, they've come to some thought process that it might actually be worth considering. The Labor Party need to understand that they need to put the national interest first, not their interests, not just the unions' interests. They need to put all Australians' interests first and that includes small businesses, that includes families, that includes people who don't pay union fees, because the people who pay union fees are about 10 per cent of the workforce, not the 41 per cent of the workforce who are employed by small businesses, who were represented by one person verses the 33 people representing unions at the skills talkfest held last week.

We know we won't see any action taken by this government unless it gets sign-off by the unions. Their tummy gets scratched by John Setka and there they go, they say, 'The unions say we can do it.' I did note with much interest Senator Farrell's comparison between the South Australian government and the Albanese government. Well, the South Australian government gave the donation of the CFMMEU back after the ABCC's claims became public, unlike the Albanese government.

We saw in question time again today the ministers who are responsible—we know there are only four of you, because the Albanese government didn't put much weight on this chamber, so only appointed four ministers. Estimates are going to be cracking long days and weeks for you. I'm looking forward to them. Senator Polley, I hope we're there together. You know I like to give it a bit of interest for you.

They're just obfuscating when it comes to questions. They like to look back. The rear view mirror is where they're focused, because they don't have a solution and they don't have a plan. As they told us through the election campaign, they had a plan for a plan. We're just waiting to see what the plan is. They don't have a plan to address inflation, but hilariously today here they are talking about the indexation of the pension. For a very long time the policy has been that the pension has been indexed every six months in line with inflation. It's going up so much, because inflation is so high.

In fact, the last time we had inflation this high was back in the days—unfortunately, I don't go back to Woomera. I don't go back as far as Senator Farrell, but I do go back—when I was at school—to the recession we had to have. The last time inflation was as high as it is today was the recession we had to have under Prime Minister Keating. I'm looking forward to those lines coming again, because the Albanese government looks like it's insistent on emulating the failures of the Keating government. This skills fest wasn't in the way of Hawke. It was a Rudd 2020 special that's going to produce a whole lot of nothing yet again.