MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE
Mr TIM WILSON (Goldstein) (15:14): Australians around the country are wondering why it is they're going to the supermarket, swiping things into their trolley or their basket, and seem to always be paying more and getting less. We know why that's happened. It's because the Albanese government has an active inflation agenda that enables them to go on and make sure they take more out of the hip pockets of Australians by stealth—exactly as the Leader of the Opposition has correctly said—through forms of taxation.
Australians are living right now with the consequences of an active inflation agenda from the Albanese government. You just need to look at the numbers. Eggs are up 36.5 per cent.
Australians needing protein to be able to live and to support themselves and their families, and some of the cheapest ways are facing a more-than-a-third increase in the cost. Milk, a primary staple of so many kitchens around the country, is up 29.7 per cent. Bread is up 22.7 per cent, and food overall—one of those essential things that people need to live—has gone up 18.1% under the Albanese government.
This is established very clearly in the inflation data. I made the point yesterday that it was census day, so it was a good time to be able to compare what the underlying inflation rate was the last time we had a census. In August 2021, it was 2.1 per cent—barely in, I do acknowledge, the target band of the Reserve Bank—but it was on the lower side under a coalition government.
Let's fast forward to yesterday and ask what the underlying inflation was on this census day. It was above the target band at 3.6 per cent. I heard the Prime Minister come into the parliament yesterday and somehow run around thinking he can make funny comments about the fact that interest rates have been lower in the past.
They have been, Deputy Speaker. In fact, you just need to go back to 2020, when some of us were concerned about how low they were. They were 0.1 per cent.
He thought it was such a killer point to observe that. Since then they've gone up 4,350 per cent. This government run around boasting about their incredible economic management while Australians are getting poorer, real wages are going backwards, small businesses have record low confidence, households and consumers have record low confidence and we've had record small-business insolvencies.
They have the temerity, the hubris and the arrogance to come into this chamber and talk about their superior economic management. This is a government completely adrift. They like to blame international conflicts for their persistent inflation problem, ignoring the fact that the Reserve Bank increased interest rates at the start of the year off the back of data from last year before a single bomb was dropped in Tehran.
It has persisted during the on-and-off-again conflict and of course continues to rise up as a consequence of domestic factors. This is now abundantly clear to everybody except the smokescreen that manages to stop members of the Labor government from understanding the consequences of their economic agenda—to stoke inflation, to tax inflation—so they can then spend the inflation.
As the Leader of the Opposition correctly points out, this is not some accident of incompetence. It's deliberate, and it's an economic model designed to feed the Labor Party and the government not the Australian people. What we have is too much money chasing too few goods.
What we have is a problem of government spending. It's not government spending that's improving the lifestyles and dignity of Australians. It's spending that has gone towards corruption—corruption that feeds the Labor Party ecosystem, corruption that has gone towards feeding fraud in the National Disability Insurance Scheme, corruption where the Prime Minister and the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government has got out the taxpayer chequebook and written it out to projects in Victoria to go on and be fed to the CFMEU and to organised crime.
Yes, corruption is inflationary too. Of course, we've seen replicas of what happened in the NDIS, in the aged-care system and in child care. It's not something that needs to be referred to the National Anti-Corruption Commission, because it's deliberate.
It's designed and backed into the legislation that this government introduces into the parliament and into the decisions it makes. But Australians are paying the price for this. We've had 15 interest rate rises under this government while Australians have been looking at their balance sheets and saying, 'Can I afford anything more when we're already financially drowning?' Yesterday, following the release of the Statement on monetary policyafter the decision of the Reserve Bank to hold interest rates, a journalist simply said: 'At the last meeting, you didn't even think about an interest rate rise.
But at this one you're saying the only debate was whether to hold interest rates or increase them.' The Reserve Bank governor has confirmed that they are still looking at further interest rate rises and that 15 may not be the end. What we have is a government, through its active inflation agenda, that is playing a game of chicken with the Reserve Bank, seeing whether ongoing spending, handing over money and doling out cheques to corrupt interests will lead to further interest rate rises.
They're daring the Reserve Bank of Australia to continue to increase interest rates. I think this is one of the problems with this government and, particularly, this prime minister. He's forgotten where he came from.
He's lost empathy or understanding about what this means for people in places like public housing. He's forgotten what the impact of his policies is on young Australians who are aspiring to do better than their parents. Instead, we've seen—and we saw this in the budget—housing commission mums that save what little they have and put it in things like term deposits.
He's come along and said, 'That's not yours; that's mine.' This is the problem. The government have lost sight of the consequences of their agenda and, more importantly, who they are and who they're there to serve. What we've seen is an export of the corrupt Victorian model under Dan Andrews.
It's been brought to Canberra under this prime minister. They stoke inflation, and we know where this ends; the numbers speak for themselves. In Victoria now, business confidence and consumer confidence are so low that one in 10 jobs is created by private investment.
The rest come from direct and indirect public expenditure. Not to be outdone— Mr Taylor: It's more like socialism. Mr TIM WILSON: Well, it's not even socialism, Leader of the Opposition, though it is that.
It actively stokes inflation and makes Australians poorer because it does not attract the investment to grow the economy and to actually enlarge the pie. It turns Australians against each other, feeds social division and eats into young Australians' equity and opportunity and the hope and aspiration that they have for their future. Not to be outdone, the Albanese government has achieved two in 10 jobs being created by private investment and eight in 10 being created by public direct and indirect expenditure.
This is the export of the corrupt Dan Andrews model, brought to Canberra by the Prime Minister, and Australians will become poorer every step of the way because it stokes inflation—it feeds inflation—and that means higher interest rate rises for anyone who is just simply trying to get ahead. What Australians need now, more than ever, is a sense of hope. Australians, particularly households and small businesses, need to be able to look to the horizon and believe that things can get better.
But there will be no good economic news while the Albanese government stays in charge. We need a change of government and, in particular, we need our plan, which has things like the tax-back guarantee to back Australians and make sure that inflation is not the silent tax thief in the night, where the Treasurer can just rely on inflation to slowly increase the revenue that he gets to monopolise and spend.
What we need is a government that understands that the strength of this country comes from families, households, communities and small businesses that are strong and confident and that believe in a better future.