Ross Cadell (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Perhaps 'subterranean' might work. I want to go to the matter of cost of living. To those at home and in the gallery, listening to the other side, you'd be thinking how good you've got it. It's an own goal to ask questions about the cost of living, because it is so good right now. It's so wonderful that $14.6 billion would solve all the problems. If only that was the case. There was a mention there about how the Greens and the coalition have teamed up here and stopped this bill that would fix everything. No, the problem is that this bill won't fix anything. That's why they've stood in and done this.

It's because people are waking up to what's going on. They're waking up to a government focused on talking points and not the basis points that raise their interest rates. We're talking about a government that got in and had a honeymoon because the Australian people are naturally optimistic, and had hope. So many things were promised and so few things are being delivered. When you're sitting here, or at home, looking at your gas bill—I must admit that I went a little off-focus in question time and I ordered my new gas bottle from Supagas, the one I was paying $68 for about two years ago and which is now $163. That's for my 45-kilogram gas bottle. If we talk about prices from March last year to March this year, milk is 16.1 per cent higher. If we talk about fruit, it's more than 10 per cent higher. But, 'Oh, how good you have it,' according to this government.

People had this hope and wanted a better thing—this thing, this policy, that allegedly we voted against on gas pricing. It wasn't a policy that worked, it was a short-term sugar hit. If we look at the world's gas prices, they're falling across the world. That was not done because this chamber and the other chamber voted on this. These people need our help and they are there. If they get someone into their house to help with a job and it takes more than 12 months—and we've had more than 12 months of this government—they start to ask questions. Can they trust this government to live up to what it said it would do to make their lives easier? Can they trust this government to look after the future? Are they confident that this government will make their lives easier? The answers are starting to be no.

We can be lambasted about what we didn't vote for, but it's what this government hasn't delivered. We can be told what we could do to make the cost of living easier, but, what's the government doing? In a year, 18 months or two years, the people of Australia will have their say again. Will it be that their lives have been made easier? Will it be that their lives have been made more affordable? Will it be that their children have the same or better options than when the government was elected? That's the question and that's what all of us in this chamber want. I'll be talking tomorrow about this in senators' statements, but I feel that our method of government, here for three years, is about the sugar hits. It's those sugar hits, where we look at the polling numbers as to whether we're doing well and not at the people of Australia as to whether we're doing well. Is Australia more equitable? Is it happier? Is it better? Those questions come second to popularity and voting intention—to all of those things.

There are many, many good people in this chamber who I like. There may be a couple who we think might be a little bit ratbaggy, but, as a whole, this is a good place. If we were in a football team and had these people on the field, and we were failing to deliver, we'd start to question the game and we'd start to question the coach. Let's not come in here and say it's because of how we voted on a bill or because we were in government then; let's look at the things that really matter. Let's get this country going better. Let's not pretend that Australians are having a great time out there and that everything has been solved by $14.6 million in the budget, or that it could be better if we voted on the housing bill or that it would be better if we gave $2 billion, $5 billion or $10 billion to homeless people. There are many, many problems out there which I personally feel that we need to address. We need to be more serious about them; we need to look at them and to stop pretending they aren't there.

When we go forward, we look at the cost of living—and times are tough. We get it, we hear it and we understand it. We've got to stop pretending it's anything else and we've got to stop pretending we can fix it overnight too. It will take time, but it will take more policy on this point and not just a couple of things that look good but don't do good.

Question agreed to.