Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Choice in Childcare and Early Learning) | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Bell has submitted a proposal, under standing order 75, today, which has been circulated and is shown on the Dynamic Red:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The need for the Albanese Labor Government's to address its failure to fix the cost-of-living crisis, under which the price of basic staples like milk and bread, everyday groceries, petrol at the bowser, gas for heating and electricity to keep the lights on continues to rise, forcing working families, pensioners and small business owners across Australia to cut back on essentials, skip meals and choose between paying for food, fuel or power, and the need to deliver immediate relief for Australians just trying to meet their most basic needs.

Is consideration of the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

With the concurrence of the Senate, the clerks will set the clock in line with the informal arrangements made by the whips.

Sean Bell (NSW, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The need for the Albanese Labor Government's to address its failure to fix the cost-of-living crisis, under which the price of basic staples like milk and bread, everyday groceries, petrol at the bowser, gas for heating and electricity to keep the lights on continues to rise, forcing working families, pensioners and small business owners across Australia to cut back on essentials, skip meals and choose between paying for food, fuel or power, and the need to deliver immediate relief for Australians just trying to meet their most basic needs.

The bad Albanese Labor budget passed this week. Australian families are not sitting around the kitchen table and celebrating it. They are looking at the bills in front of them, the grocery receipt and the petrol gauge. They are looking at the power bills, the rent notice, the mortgage repayment and the insurance renewal, and they know the truth: Labor's tax and spend policies are making our country poorer and are making our families poorer. Across this country people are paying more just to keep a household running.

A generic brand two-litre bottle of milk is listed at $3.55. A two-litre bottle of Norco full cream milk is more than $5. A loaf of Tip Top or Wonder White, the bread millions of families actually buy every week, is now $4.70. The cost of basics goes up while Labor raises taxes, punishes businesses and spends more. Aussies know that this is driving inflation. After years of rising bills, rising rents, rising power prices, rising grocery costs and rising mortgage pressure, the Albanese Labor government want a victory lap when they should be doing a walk of shame. Labor has lost touch with the cost of everyday life.

Increasingly, everyday life for millions of hardworking Australians looks like this: a mum putting things back on the supermarket shelf, a worker filling the car with just enough to get through the week, a pensioner leaving the heater off for longer than they should. It's a small-business owner opening another bill and wondering which staff member to cut or even if they can afford to go on. Food is up three per cent, dairy is up five per cent, electricity is up 21 per cent, petrol is up eight per cent and will go up again from today as Labor pulls the plug on fuel excise, rents are up 3.6 per cent, insurance is up 5.5 per cent and housing costs are up 6.5 per cent over the year. For mortgage holders, the comparison is even more brutal. Just one more rate rise would add $114 a month to the average mortgage. Is there any doubt that Labor spends more and more of taxpayers money, and is it any wonder that they need to raise another $77 billion in tax from this bad budget?

Australians are angry because they can see what Labor is doing and they are watching their bank accounts getting drained while Labor wants credit for a big new tax grab. Working families are doing what they have always done: They are working hard, paying tax, raising children and doing the right thing. But they now feel they are running faster just to fall further behind.

Pensioners face a particularly cruel version of this crisis. A pensioner can't simply pick up another shift because the gas bill has jumped. They have spent their lives working, paying taxes, raising families and contributing to this country, and now many are being forced to make choices no Australian pensioner should have to make.

Small business owners are being squeezed from both directions. They are being hit by the same household bills as everyone else, and then they are hit again through their business. Power, rent, insurance, transport, stock, wages, compliance and borrowing costs all feed into the pressure. At the same time, customers have less money to spend. And then, one day, the door closes and a community loses a shop, a cafe, a service, a sponsor and an employer—precisely what happened yesterday, in South Bowenfels, to the Triple 8 Cafe and to Yancoal, in the Hunter, which axed 60 jobs.

Australians need a government that puts Australians first. They need a government that puts Australian households ahead of global agendas and woke ideology, a government that will address the heart of what's driving inflation and scrap net zero—the obsession that is driving up power prices. Australians are not asking for luxury; they are asking to be able to afford the ordinary essentials of life—food, fuel and power in the home. All they ask is that they are left with enough money to spend so they have the ability to live with dignity.

That should be the first responsibility of government, to be patriotic enough to say Australians come first. Our resources should power Australian homes. Our farmland should feed Australian families before it's locked up because of climate regulations to satisfy international bureaucrats. Our economy should serve Australian workers, families and small businesses not the interests of foreign climate targets, activist causes and political fashions. That is what building an Australia for Australians means—a country where young people can afford a home, families can afford the weekly shop, pensioners can turn on their heaters without fear and small businesses can keep their doors open. It means putting the national interest back at the centre of every decision. One Nation stands up for working Australians, pensioners, small-business owners, and those who are sick of the lies, sick of the spend and sick of the arrogance of this Prime Minister and this Labor government. One Nation says Australian households deserve a government that puts them first.

Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Choice in Childcare and Early Learning) | Link to this | Hansard source

Anyone who spends any time engaging with the community, talking to real people—not just the people here, not just talking to the bureaucrats, not just talking to the economists, but actually talking to real mums and dads, people across Australia—knows that Australians are doing it tough. While Australian parents are tightening their belts, this Labor government continues their class act in this place on their so-called generational tax reform.

But everyday mums and dads won't be fooled. They know the truth. They know the truth because they are living it every single day. Every payday, parents are sitting around the kitchen table making impossible decisions—decisions about what bills can wait, whether they can afford child care, whether their last rent increase will be the one that forces them to have to move. Australian families will not be sold the dream by this Labor government that everything is getting better, because they know the truth. They know that it is not the fact. Yet we hear it, time and again, whether it's in question time or whether it's in contributions to speeches. No doubt, whoever gets up after me on the Labor side will try to give the impression that everything's okay and that their prudent management of the Australian economy is actually assisting Australians make ends meet. But Australians know that they're not able to make ends meet because of the poor economic decisions that this government is making.

The reality is that the cost of raising a family has gone up under this government. It's a sad day when Australians are forced to do double-takes at the supermarket, when their electricity bill arrives and every time they pull up at the fuel bowser. They know that the stats are there, because they feel it every day. The latest ABS data shows that, from May 2025 to May 2026, meat and seafood prices increased by 5.4 per cent. How do Australians know that? Because they're paying it all the time, every time they go to the supermarket. Dairy products rose by 5.2 per cent, fruit and vegetable prices increased by two per cent and clothing and footwear costs have risen by five per cent.

Before the election, Australians were promised $275 in lower power prices, a promise the Prime Minister repeated 97 times. Instead, electricity prices have increased 21.1 per cent over the last year alone. The reality is that Australians are no longer just cutting back on discretionary spending, like their weekly coffee run. Many are struggling to afford those very basic household necessities. This is what Australians are facing.

As one SBS Insight participant, Chris, simply put it, 'I have never earned more but felt so broke.' We keep hearing that wages have gone up. Well, not real wages. Real wages are the difference between what it actually costs you to live and the money you're earning—the amount of discretionary fund power that you've got with your salary that you're earning. We know that Australians are not actually, in real terms, earning more, because they're struggling to make ends meet.

If you think it's bad, don't get me started on child care, my favourite little area of policy at the moment. Australians are paying more. Over the last 12 months, costs have gone up 9.4 per cent. Since this government came into power and said that it's going to promise cheaper child care, guess how much it's gone up? Acting Deputy President Cox, do you know? I can tell you: costs have gone up 27 per cent. Yet they promised cheaper child care, this lot over here.

Australians are feeling it every day. Many people are having to engage with child care because it's necessary to get back into work. Two people have to work in a household now, just to pay the bills, just to pay the mortgage, just to pay the rent, just to put food on the table. Yet it's costing more now to go to child care than it would to put your kids in one of the top-end schools in any capital city in this country. It's actually cheaper when your kid's in year 1 in primary school at a high-fee-paying school than it is in many childcare centres across the country. Their poor management of this economy is hurting Australians, and Australians deserve so much better than this Labor government.

Josh Dolega (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I might just start by saying it's pretty ironic that Senator Bell has brought forth this urgency motion today on the cost of living. It's sheer audacity from those who are doing the bidding of a billionaire that showers them in cash and gifts. Seriously! They're talking about cost of living! Senator Bell speaks about this government's failure to address cost-of-living pressures and the need for urgent action, yet his own party, Pauline Hanson's One Nation, always votes against measures designed to support everyday, hardworking Australians.

Time and time again, when legislation has come before this parliament to provide relief—whether it's to lift workers' wages, reduce the cost of medicines, expand bulk-billing and access to health care, increase housing supply or lower energy bills—One Nation has chosen to oppose it. They have repeatedly voted against policies aimed at helping families keep up with rising prices. They have refused to back measures that would put real dollars back into people's pockets, and they have turned away from opportunities to support Australians that are doing it tough. While the words we hear today may sound concerned, the record tells a very different story. Australians aren't interested in rhetoric or political point scoring. They are interested in results that make their lives easier, and that's exactly what we are delivering.

These are some examples from today. The Albanese Labor government is taking practical steps to ease pressure on households. We're giving every taxpayer another tax cut as part of our plan to deliver a series of five tax cuts and, ultimately, save a worker up to $2,800 a year. We're expanding paid parental leave to a full six months and helping new parents spend more time at home with their newest family member during those important early months. We're backing in minimum wage and award wage increases to boost the pay of three million workers. We are permanently extending the $20,000 instant asset write-off for small businesses, giving them confidence to invest and to grow.

We're also strengthening our healthcare system by making Medicare urgent care clinics a permanent part of Australia's health system to help deliver patients the best care and to take pressure off households and hospitals. We're injecting an additional $25 billion into public hospitals to help states deliver care. We're expanding services at endometriosis and pelvic pain clinics to include menopause and perimenopause. We're improving patient outcomes by requiring pathology image providers to upload tests to My Health Record so Australians can access their information more easily and securely.

Beyond this, we're opening the new National Environmental Protection Agency—the very first in Australia's history—and establishing the new Veteran and Family Wellbeing Agency to improve outcomes, access and wellbeing. We have legislated payday super so workers start earning returns sooner and to reduce the risks of unpaid entitlements. Whilst some in the Liberals and the Nationals are fighting the temptation to bend the knee to One Nation, Labor is fighting the big supermarkets by banning supermarket price gouging with the new, mandatory food and grocery code that prohibits very large retailers from charging excessively high prices.

We are focused on practical, targeted action to ease the cost-of-living pressures. By contrast, what do we see from One Nation? More cuts, more chaos and more division. This is not the change that Australia needs. They propose a complete overhaul of our workplace laws that are delivering higher wages for workers. We know their policymaker and donor-in-chief wants to pay workers $2 an hour. Shame. They say it's too hard to sack workers at a time when Australians need job security to pay their bills. They opposed our same job, same pay laws that are literally delivering tens of thousands of dollars to workers who were employed through sham, shoddy, dodgy labour-hire arrangements. They've even called for massive cuts to health spending when families are already struggling with rising costs. We know Senator Hanson went on the record. She made her views on paid parental leave very clear. They want to get rid of it. They can't stand it. One Nation voted against it. It's one thing to voice their approval in public, but their actual actions in parliament are what matter.

One Nation is very good at making complaints. They are really good at it. But they're very bad at putting forward real solutions. Every time—every single time—they have an opportunity to make life easier for Australians, they vote with the Liberals and Nationals to make it harder. Shame!

Penny Allman-Payne (Queensland, Australian Greens) | Link to this | Hansard source

The Labor government is letting this cost-of-living crisis happen. Every time you're gouged at the supermarket or have to skip a meal, remember that Labor could make price gouging illegal. If your landlord raises your rent, remember that Labor could have frozen it. If you're living on welfare payments that are below the poverty line, remember that Labor could raise the rate at any time.

Every time there is a choice to be made between investor returns and ordinary people, the Labor Party chooses the corporations and the landlords—every single time. That's because students, pensioners and working-class renters don't give massive donations to the Labor Party like their corporate masters do. But the irony is that this motion was introduced by One Nation, who take the same money and serve the same interests. One Nation would like us to think of them as outsiders, but they will continue the same corporate friendly policies as Labor and the Liberals. When the Greens put forward our policy for a rent freeze, One Nation didn't think about the needs of renters. They instead worried about the rights of property investors.

One Nation couldn't even be bothered to turn up to vote for a bill to ban supermarket price gouging, because, when it comes to cost of living, One Nation are just more of the same. They're blaming migrants and diverse communities for this crisis when the truth is that it's their friends at the big end of town who are the ones to blame. This cost-of-living crisis is just a convenient time for One Nation to push the same backwards-looking rubbish they've been pushing for decades. One Nation can dress it up however they like, but that's what they care about, not you and whether you can put food on your table. The big corporations know the Australian people have realised that the Labor and Liberal parties are old news, so they're putting their money behind their new mouthpiece, One Nation. Don't buy the spin.

Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

There's no doubt that the cost of living is a real issue. There's pressure on families, which is why it's been front and centre on everything we've done since coming to office. But it's frankly absurd to see One Nation bringing forward a cost-of-living motion of urgency in light of their record. Of course, they gave no policy announcement in this urgency motion. They gave no solution. They just turned around and carried on defending the status quo, because, when you vote for the status quo, you are defending the status quo.

One Nation, the Liberals and the Nationals, better known as the uniparty of the right, have never supported any of our cost-of-living measures, let alone treated them as urgent. The only urgency the uniparty of the right has ever shown on cost of living is when they've rushed to oppose our measures to help working Australians. It's always interesting to see them get worked up when their uniparty gets called out. But, when three parties keep voting the same way and pushing the same old policy issues and the same old ideas, be it smashing workers' rights or voting against cost-of-living relief, it's hard to know what else to call it.

Take a look at the voting record in parliament. In December 2023, we put forward laws to protect same jobs, same pay, to make sure that wage theft is also illegal and to make sure that labour hire workers aren't getting ripped off, and of course the uniparty voted no. In February 2024, we made it easier for millions of working casuals to convert to permanent work and introduced a right to disconnect and minimum standards for the gig economy, and the uniparty voted no. In March 2025, we voted on our Free TAFE Bill to help hundreds of thousands of Australians train for jobs in nursing, construction and aged care. The uniparty voted no. Just last week, once again, we put forward reforms to deliver a tax cut for every taxpayer, and the uniparty—guess what?—voted no.

If their voting record weren't enough to show that One Nation, the Liberals and Nationals are in the same group together, the same far-right group, they love using the word 'uniparty' because they like describing everyone else, but the fact is that the Right—the coalition and One Nation—are happy to turn around and vote against all the sorts of arrangements that have dealt with the cost of living that have made Australia a little bit easier whilst we're taking the challenges on across the economy.

Last month, at the National Press Club, the One Nation leader called for a complete overhaul of Australia's industrial relations system. She went on to describe workers as lazy and complained that you can't sack people these days. If it weren't enough, the One Nation leader also argued against paying women on maternity leave. She said: 'Fair enough. Why should businesses pay them?' Of course, she's flipped that before she flops back. Now compare that with the shadow treasurer, Tim Wilson. When asked about Senator Hanson's take on workplace laws in an ABC interview, his response was simple: 'I agree with that.' He went on to say, 'Before she said it, I said it first.' The coalition against cost-of-living relief are the people sitting over there—the mates in One Nation, the Nationals and the Liberal Party. We've now reached the point where senior leaders of the uniparty are competing over who thought of their policy to smash workers first and to make it harder on cost of living.

Last week, independent research reported in theAustralian found that One Nation's workplace measures would leave health workers up to $34,000 a year worse off. That's $34,000 less for some of the most essential workers in our communities. The Health Services Union national president, Gerard Hayes, said that One Nation's measures were like dropping a cluster bomb on wages and conditions. That's what the uniparty of the Right actually believes should be happening. Low wages are a deliberate design feature of their economic policy, because, for the last 20 years, they've voted for it. Low wages are a deliberate design, all while turbocharging cost-of-living pressures. That's what their answer is.

Unlike the uniparty, our focus has always been on cost of living. That's why, starting today, the Albanese government is giving every taxpayer another tax cut. These are some of the measures, along with Medicare and with three million workers getting wage increases, that will make a difference.

Tyron Whitten (WA, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

The cost-of-living crisis is the daily reality facing millions of Australians. The Albanese government talks about economic success, yet Australians are living through an affordability crisis that is getting worse, not better. The government tells Australians that inflation is under control and that the economy is turning a corner. But Australians don't judge the economy by the Prime Minister's press releases. They feel it every time they walk into a supermarket to feed their families, fill up their car, open an electricity bill or try to balance their budget.

The simple truth is that Australians are working harder than ever, but they're still falling further behind. Families are buying less food at the checkout because they can't afford it. Parents are skipping meals so their children can eat. Pensioners are turning off the heater because they're frightened of the next electricity bill—electricity bills that keep climbing because of the Labor government's obsession with building wind turbines. Small businesses are watching their costs climb, while Aussies have less money to spend. Our office phones are ringing constantly with Aussies that are homeless and going hungry. Parents are saying their kids have gone to school hungry or missed school because they can't afford fuel to get them there.

Labor promised Australians relief. Instead, Australians received higher grocery bills. Labor promised lower power prices. Instead, Australians received climbing electricity bills. Labor promised to make life easier. Instead, life has become more expensive at every turn. Is it any wonder that our Fire the Liar campaign is doing so well? Everyday Aussies are donating what they can to help One Nation get control of their country back.

The Labor government continues to tell Australians that wind turbines lower the wholesale price of electricity. The issue with that is that we don't pay the wholesale price of electricity; we pay the retail price in our bills. The retail price includes the endless government subsidies and confidential contracts that continue to add $30 billion every year to our power bills. And these billions in subsidies are landing in the pockets of foreign shell companies. That is hardly comforting to someone deciding whether they can afford groceries this week or whether they can fill their car with petrol.

Then there is the backhand of the federal budget. The government congratulates itself on spending billions of dollars, while Australians ask a much simpler question: why am I still hungry? Why do I get a cup of coffee a week? Aussies are wondering when they will finally catch a break. Australians understand a simple principle: governments cannot continue spending borrowed money without consequences. Every dollar wasted by the Labor government is eventually paid for by Australians through higher taxes, higher inflation or more debt for the future generations.

The retail price of electricity affects everything. When electricity becomes more expensive, hospitals pay more, manufacturers pay more, farmers pay more, schools pay more, transport companies pay more and small businesses pay more. These costs are passed directly onto Australian families through higher prices on everyday purchases. Australians were promised cheaper electricity. They deserve to know why that promise has not been kept. The cost of building houses continues to rise. Insurance continues to rise. Council rates continue to rise. Yet Labor continues to insist that its plan is working. Working for whom? Is it working for Labor voters? I can tell you who it isn't working for. It isn't working for the pensioners counting every dollar before they go to buy food. It isn't working for families struggling to pay the rent. It isn't working for homeowners struggling to pay the mortgage repayments. And it isn't working for business owners wondering whether they can pay wages.

The Prime Minister promised to lower power bills by $275. Instead, we have seen the increase every time we open our bills. The 78,000 Aussies that have donated to our Fire the Liar campaign have something to say about being continuously deceived. They are asking how long it is until we have a vote of no confidence in this government. One Nation will deliver lower retail electricity costs, sensible management of government spending, a stronger resources sector, more support for Australian farmers and producers, help for small business and policies that put Australian families ahead of ideology.

Australians are resilient. They are prepared to work hard. What they should not have to do is work harder every year because of the Labor government's financial incompetence. Senator Bell's matter of urgency deserves the support of every senator because it reflects what Australians are saying every single day: life has become too expensive and too hard. This government has created generational debt for our children and grandchildren, and Australians deserve better. One Nation has a vision for building a stronger Australia.

Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) | Link to this | Hansard source

One Nation want you looking down instead of looking up. They want you blaming migrants while the billionaires and the big corporations who have been price-gouging and profiteering laugh all the way to the bank. I tell you what: you won't find the perpetrators of the cost-of-living crisis in migrant communities. I'll tell you where you will find them; you'll find them in their harbourfront mansions, in corporate boardrooms and in gated luxury estates. You'll find them on private planes flying to Mar-a-Lago, like Senator Pauline Hanson did. And you know what; these people will donate to political parties. They donate to One Nation. They buy influence, they hire lobbyists and they make obscene fortunes, while ordinary Australians wonder how they're ever going to get ahead. And who runs cover for them? Who runs cover by blaming migrants for all the ills of our society? One Nation, because One Nation are here for the billionaires and the big corporations who donate so massively to them.

One Nation knows that every minute Australians spend arguing with each other about migrants and migration is another minute the billionaires and the big corporations get to keep ripping us all off—and that is exactly how One Nation's corporate and billionaire puppet masters like it. If you want to bring the cost of living down, take on the people driving up the cost of living. Break up the supermarket duopoly. Stop corporate price-gouging. Tax billionaires. Tax excess profits of big corporations. Make the gas corporations pay their fair share of tax instead of robbing Australians of our own resources, and then use the revenue to help Australians afford the things they used to be able to afford. Tax the one per cent and fund a better life for everyone. Stop blaming migrants for things they are not at fault for.

Sue Lines (President) | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the urgency motion moved by Senator Bell be agreed to.