QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE: TAKE NOTE OF ANSWERS

Senator PATERSON (Victoria) (15:13): I move: That the Senate take note of the answers given by ministers to questions without notice asked by Opposition senators today. I rise to take note of all answers provided to coalition questions. There are five major problems with the Australian economy right now.

In the next five minutes, I'll explain each of them. Firstly, inflation is now rising on the Albanese Labor government's watch. ABS data released today shows that annual inflation has hit 3.2 per cent in headline terms and even that miserable figure of rising inflation hides some shocking underlying results, including a 23.6 per cent increase in electricity prices in this country over the last year.

That is misery for Australian families and households who are struggling to make ends meet under Labor's cost-of-living crisis. Perhaps the worst thing about this shocking inflation result today is the implication it will have for interest rates. Market economists are already saying, 'Forget about any further interest rate cuts this year at the November or December RBA board meetings,' and 'Australians should even prepare themselves for the possibility that the next move in interest rates will be up and not down.' This is terrible news for mortgage holders, who, on Labor's watch, are already paying up to $20,000 more a year, on an average mortgage, because inflation and interest rates are out of control.

Secondly, unemployment is now rising, not falling. It's at 4.5 per cent, which is about one per cent higher than when this government came to office three years ago. That means there are thousands of Australians who want to work but can't find a job, who are out of the workforce, who are relying on support from the government and from the community and who would much rather have a job to support themselves.

That's about one per cent higher than when this government came to office three years ago. That's thousands of families who are finding it harder to make ends meet because unemployment is rising on this government's watch, and we shouldn't be surprised, given the policies it's pursued. Thirdly, debt is rising on this government's watch.

It is forecast to hit $1.2 trillion in gross terms by the end of the parliamentary term, according to the government's predictions and forecasts in their own budget. They also forecast that there will be 10 years of deficits to come over the next decade on this government's watch. I really think that Senator Gallagher needs to update her talking points when she continues to boast of Labor surpluses.

We don't have Labor surpluses anymore; we have Labor deficits as far as the eye can see. Fourthly, all of this is caused by spending that is out of control. Spending is up, on this government's watch, to 40-year highs as a proportion of our economy, outside the pandemic.

You have to go back to 1986-87 to find a government that spent as much as this government is spending as a proportion of the economy. And their record on spending is getting worse every year that they're in office. In Senate estimates it was revealed that spending in the last financial year increased by 5.5 per cent, or about four times the rate that the economy is growing, and Treasury officials had to reluctantly admit that the government is in breach of its own rubbery fiscal rules, which say that it should bank most of the revenue upgrades that it receives and that spending should be restrained until government debt as a proportion of GDP peaks.

Well, government debt as a proportion of GDP is rising—as is spending. Finally, Australians are paying higher taxes than they otherwise should be. Taxes are up on this government's watch.

Treasury officials admitted in Senate estimates that the average taxpayer will go from paying 20.6 per cent of their salary in tax—where it is now—to paying 23.6 per cent of their salary in tax by the end of the medium term. What that means is that taxes are rising. Australians are paying thousands of dollars more in taxes than they would have, because this government is allowing bracket creep to take more and more of people's hard earned income and using it to cover the spending that it's responsible for.

But even these high levels of taxes, which are at 25-year highs as a proportion of the economy, are not enough to cover the high spending on this government's watch. This is a government that has benefited from a revenue boom. On the government's watch, $37 billion more revenue has been collected than they, in 2022, had expected to collect, and they have squandered the benefits of that, with now higher deficits and debt rising again.

Australians are paying the price for this government's economic mismanagement, and the government is being called out for it, even by independent respected commentators like the Reserve Bank governor, who observed recently that spending on this government's watch is 'growing very quickly' and that there are 'substantial' deficits to come. The government needs to stop, reassess and change its reckless economic policies, and put Australia back on a path to prosperity.