Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Homelessness) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator O'Neill for that. I appreciate her interest in these matters. (quorum formed) It is very clear that the government does not have much of an economic agenda, and the reason that the central casting people are giving these talking points to the government about their economic record is very telling. I imagine what it says is that the Australian people should be very grateful to live in the world's greatest economy and should every day do a big thank you to Dr Chalmers, as he styles himself, for the magnificent economy he has created with rising unemployment, rising inflation, low levels of investment and an economy in which 85 per cent of the jobs created last year were in the non-market sector.

So we have a very sick economy in Australia. If you're in a small business, you know that. Many millions of Australians know the economy is not well. Things are not so good. So the bragging from the government that they have created the world's best economy is grating beyond belief. That is why the government established a roundtable after the election—because they had no policies. They had a policy to have a meeting in Canberra, in the cabinet room. Very democratic to have meetings in the cabinet room—a very Labor approach. Having a meeting in a small room with no air in the middle of Canberra gives you great capacity to hear from the real people. Fantastic. So they had this meeting, and after that meeting—

Very sensitive, aren't they? Another sensitivity. We've have touched a nerve! Very interesting. Very telling. Thank you very much for those interjections.

They had the meeting in the cabinet room, and the outcome we've had so far from that meeting is nothing. Nothing has changed. We have a government still rudderless, without any economic policies that will improve employment and reduce inflation, and so we are rudderless. Inflation now is biting. We see it in the housing space. We see it in the first month of the five per cent deposit guarantee scheme, which has driven the biggest monthly increase in house prices in living memory, according to all the independent agencies who monitor this. Why is that? Well, the answer is that if you increase demand in a supply-constrained market, you get higher prices. You know what? The Australian people are smarter than Labor imagined they are, because they understand that. They understand that these gimmicky posts on social media, these unbearable posts from the Labor government members, saying they have solved the housing crisis with their five per cent guarantee scheme, is a cruel hoax. People are not stupid. They know that a government that has failed to build houses but opens up a government insurance scheme to everyone, including the children of billionaires, is a cruel hoax and a con. That is what we are seeing now in the inflation numbers.

We have high inflation, we have rising unemployment, we have a sick economy and we have a Treasurer that is doing a victory lap, saying he has created the world's best economy. It is beyond grating and beyond embarrassing. The government ought to do a better job for the Australian people.