Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations) Share this | Hansard source

The reason it's so important to get your house in order is that you never know what is just around the corner, and inflation data that was released this week hammered home the point that the RBA governor, Michele Bullock, made just a week ago, which is that inflation in this country has not been tamed. It is not mission accomplished. That's why the RBA has been forced to deliver its 14th interest rate rise under Labor. The cost-of-living crisis that has persisted for so long continues under this government.

In four years, Australians have experienced the biggest fall in their living standards in the developed world. Inflation is higher in Australia than it is in every major advanced economy, and that inflation is being driven not by events overseas but by decisions made here, in Canberra. Government spending is at a 40-year high, outside of a recession, and that spending is keeping inflation higher for longer. Every economist will agree that, when inflation stays high, interest rates stay high. Higher government spending equals higher inflation, which equals higher interest rates, and Australians are paying the price. The government has no plan to deal with inflation. It has no plan to do its fair share of the heavy lifting to get inflation under control.

We now have a crisis in the Middle East. That's feeding the fuel inflation fire. Here's the problem: the economy was already weak, and, in four years, Treasurer Jim Chalmers has failed to tame inflation. He's presided over a collapse in the standard of living. He's seen 14 interest rate rises, and Australians were already hurting. Now fuel supplies aren't guaranteed, and rather than manage the crisis the government has lost control. Rather than delivering a plan Minister Bowen, the man who's overseen the 40 per cent rise in energy prices, now has delivered more pain to Australians—real pain for families, real pain for businesses.