MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE
Ms ALDRED (Monash—Opposition Whip) (15:53): In my electorate of Monash, families are not reading budget papers. They're not reading media releases. I'll tell you what they are reading.
They're reading energy bills stuck to the fridge, and they're wondering how they're going to pay them and afford groceries that week. They're reading every single one of those numbers, and it tells the same story: under this Albanese Labor government, Australians are going backwards. Let's start with the number that should worry every single person in this chamber: Australia's gross government debt today hit $1 trillion.
That's according to the Parliamentary Budget Office, who also gave a number of other sobering statistics. What does this mean for families on the ground in my electorate of Monash? I want to call out food banks because food banks are at the coalface of Labor's economic mismanagement right across this country—the food pantry in Corinella; the Wonthaggi Owl Ute Community Pantry; the marvellous volunteers in the area that run Baw Baw Food Relief; and the Neerim South foodbank, Judy and her team.
I won't mention the food bank, but I heard a story the other day about a lady who's sleeping in her car in the car park of a local food relief centre. That centre is going out of their way to look after her and do everything they can to support her. This is the Australia we are all living in under this Prime Minister.
The debt that we're looking at of $1 trillion is more than $37,000 for every Australian man, woman and child. By 2029-30, it's forecast to blow straight through the $1.2 trillion cap this Treasurer set himself. Labor didn't just miss this target.
They set the target and they ran straight past it. Here's the bit that should really concentrate minds. I referenced the Parliamentary Budget Office just earlier.
It says that interest costs are now one of the fastest growing items in the entire Federal Budget—not health, not Defence but interest. The cost of servicing Labor's own debt is eating the budget alive, and it's projected to keep rising for years yet to come. While the previous coalition government lives rent free in this government's mind four years after they first came to office, I'd really like to see them get on with the job of governing well and governing for Australians instead of flapping around and throwing insults.
Actually concentrate on the men and women in my electorate, the families who are doing it really tough. Let me put some of those numbers into context. Australians are now paying $27.7 billion a year in interest on Labor's debt.
That's $52,000 every single minute. Mr Moncrieff interjecting— Ms ALDRED: I'll take the interjection by the member for Hughes, because I think those numbers deserve respect. I think families in my electorate deserve respect for the challenges and deep hardships that they're facing.
Every minute I've been speaking to this motion, the government has spent more on interest than most families in my electorate earn in an entire year. Think about what that $27.7 billion could actually buy. Let's start with 200,000 more nurses or around 400,000 high-needs aged care packages for our elderly.
Let's not get started on the home care packages and the people waiting on them time after time who really need them and who end up in public hospitals putting more strain on an already stretched system. Or it could be $1,800 in tax relief for every single taxpayer in this country. Instead, it's gone.
It's evaporated, burned on the interest bill for Labor's spending, and when Labor spends Australians pay. What have Australians got for it? The worst collapse in living standards of any developed nation on earth.
Real wages are down, GDP per person has gone backwards in 10 of the last 15 quarters and power bills are up 40 per cent. In Monash, that's not a statistic. It's a farmer choosing between fuel for the tractor and fuel for the family car, it's a young couple who have given up the dream of owning a home, and it's an elderly couple who are watching their nest egg, their family home, shatter in value.
Australians deserve far better.