Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Hume for bringing this very important matter before the Senate today. Earlier this year the Australian Labor Party promised to deliver responsible and meaningful cost-of-living relief to Australians should they be elected. Four months later, we've seen nothing of the sort. Day after day, week after week, we hear the same story: the cost of living is a huge issue. It certainly is, and it's affecting each and every Australian. Yet this Labor government has no solution. Worse still, it seems that they don't even want to fix it. Labor is the Michael Scott of economics: thinking that by shouting loud enough they can dodge the fallout of their reckless spending. If they believe blaming everyone else will erase this damage, they're indeed as delusional as that character himself.

This government's own campaign website promised that they would provide energy bill relief while putting downward pressure on inflation. Well, on the contrary, our headline annual inflation rate has risen from 1.9 to 2.8 per cent, the highest rate we've seen in over a year. The basic laws of economics do not change. Only by improving productivity growth can we sustainably raise living standards. And what is this government doing about it? Well, they called a roundtable to discuss it.

The one thing that came out of the recent economic reform roundtable is that this government finally realised that there is a productivity crisis in this country. But simply trying to spend their way to improve productivity is not the solution either. Robert Breunig wrote in the AFR:

You can't spend your way to productivity. A solid body of evidence underwrites the argument that big government is bad for productivity. Government spending can lead to higher interest rates making borrowing more expensive for businesses and individuals. This reduces private investment.

There are real and tangible things that Labor could be doing, but they aren't. They could be cutting red tape, encouraging private sector investment and creating an environment where small businesses can thrive. Instead, they're bailing water out with one hand while pouring more into the leaky boat with the other. Business Council Chief Executive Bran Black affirmed this by stating, 'You don't fix Australia's lagging productivity and investment by taxing business more and making Australians less competitive.'

Reduced private sector spending is already contracting and continues to do so under this government's watch. We know non-mining investment is already down 1.9 per cent over the past year, and in Victoria it's dropped 5.3 per cent. Private sector capital expenditure is now at its lowest contraction since 2020. So, rather than incentivise private sector investment, this government under its watch saddles it with more red tape and union-favouring industrial relations laws. National productivity will continue to plummet if this government thinks that it can just spend its way out.

When productivity is poor we all feel poorer for it. Our standard of living drops, and people feel they have less to spend in their back pocket. This is all happening under this government. This government have had 1,197 days to deliver on their promises to the Australian people. Sadly, they're failing. But, just like Michael Scott convinced himself that he's the genius manager while the office crumbles daily around him, Labor are full of deluded optimism, convinced that their antics will somehow work out while ordinary Australians foot the bill for their mistakes. The cost-of-living crisis is only getting worse, not better. It's time for them to stop making excuses and start taking real action.