QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE: TAKE NOTE OF ANSWERS

Senator DEAN SMITH (Western Australia) (15:08): I move: That the Senate take note of answers given by ministers to questions without notice asked by coalition senators today. There are two tales of two economies happening at the moment. There's the tale of the economy that Labor wants you to believe, and there's the tale of the real economy which was revealed this week in the minutes of the RBA meeting.

Labor wants you to believe and wants Australian families to believe that everything is fine and that, in fact, the Prime Minister is honouring his commitment of four years ago that life would be better under Labor for Australian families. That's not true if you look closely at the minutes released of the RBA's meeting which was held a few weeks ago to hold the cash rate.

This document makes crystal clear the risks and the poor performance of the economy being delivered by Labor. Let me just share with you a summary of what the RBA has said and what the RBA has revealed in the minutes of that meeting. It has said that international economies will continue to experience above target inflation and concerns about the inflationary effects of the Middle East conflict remain, and that is bad news for the Australian economy.

It goes on to say that expectations in Australia of increases in the cash rate—that is, interest rates—continue and will remain through 2026 and into early 2027. It then says that, because of ongoing inflationary pressures, Australian families will have to prepare for the worst. It goes on to say that the Australian economy is experiencing widespread inflationary pressures.

The RBA knows it, the government wants to deny it, but Australians live with it every day when they purchase their groceries, when they purchase their insurance and when they pay their mortgage bills. It goes on to say that consumer and business sentiment is weakening in Australia, that economic growth is slowing and that inflation will continue to exist outside the RBA's preferred range of two to three per cent.

That means Australians will be poorer. It means Australians will have to prepare for higher interest rates. The RBA then says that for a further two years Australians will have to experience higher inflation until inflation gets to a sustainable level.

It says that the inflationary impacts in the economy will continue to exist over the short term. Finally, it says what Australians already know, and that is that the Australian economy continues to experience poor productivity growth. And, unfortunately, it predicts potential material weakening in regard to the housing market and the negative effect that that will have on consumer confidence and consumption.

It is a tale of two economies. Labor wants you to believe that all is well. The RBA governor—the independent judge, the independent adjudicator of the government's economic performance—unfortunately is saying that things are going to get harder for Australian families because of the policies of the government.

There are two interrelated policies that the government doesn't want you to talk about, that the government doesn't want you to know about. One is record levels of government spending, which is fuelling inflation— (Time expired)