PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS
Ms BELL (Moncrieff) (12:36): The bluff and bluster from the member for Moore saying they won't take a lecture from this side and the tone that he had speaking directly to Australians was simply arrogant and was indeed a lecture. I want to remind the member for Moore, who has now scuttled out of the chamber, that there was this little thing called COVID in between.
Remember, we were almost about to go back into the black. Remember the song 'Back in Black'? The former treasurer Josh Frydenberg said that we were about to go back in the black, and then what happened?
Our country was hit with COVID. Would the member for Moore like to come back and actually say that he would prefer that we hadn't done JobKeeper for all of those small businesses and everything else that the coalition government did at the time? We saved some 40,000 lives by closing the borders early and responsibly taking care of families and livelihoods.
That would be my response to the member for Moore. I want to talk about the cost-of-living crisis that the member for McPherson put forward, because it is putting immense pressure on families. This government seems to be in their Canberra bubble.
They don't get it. They don't understand that you only get a few things for $40 at the checkout, like I put up last night on my Instagram: this is what you get for $40.76 or something like that. Thank you, Albo.
Thank you, Prime Minister, for spending, spending, spending. Australians understand that spending, spending, spending means that you run out of money eventually and it catches up on you. That's what's happened with this government.
They have amassed a debt of over $1 trillion, costing $52,000 a minute in interest. If you had a credit card—and I'm speaking directly to Australians—and you were only paying interest, which many of you probably are because you can't afford to pay all your bills under this government, you would understand that that is not sustainable. This government is addicted to spending.
It is spending for votes. That is what it is doing, and it must stop because there needs to be some responsible fiscal management that this Treasurer and this Prime Minister actually start to think about. One in two Australians are now agreeing with that.
They understand that if you keep spending it's going to make things worse, not better. Prime Minister, you cannot spend your way out of this cost-of-living crisis. What happens when the government spends is inflation rises.
That means that the Reserve Bank has to put up interest rates. We've seen 16 interest rate increases under this government, putting families under immense stress and pressure. It's extra dollars that families are having to hand over at the supermarket and rising costs of keeping a roof over their heads when it comes to housing.
For many Australians, there is simply nowhere left to cut back, absolutely nowhere left. People in my community who work hard—the Gold Coast is known for working hard. We have the lowest unemployment around the country.
People work hard. They're paying their bills. They're doing the right thing, and they are being punished, absolutely hammered, by this Labor government, which does not know how to rein in its spending.
Australians should be able to work hard and provide for their families. They should be able to get ahead when they're doing the right thing. But people in my community, especially small and family businesses, are telling me every day that they are being slaughtered by this government, its taxes and its addiction to spending.
The pressure is not being felt equally and is being felt across the country. Living costs rose 3.7 per cent for employee households and an even greater 4.7 per cent for age pensioner households in the year to June. This Labor government is also punishing age pensioners.
Think about what that means for a pensioner on a fixed income, like my dear old dad in Port Victoria; I talk about him quite often because he can't make ends meet, because he gets electricity bills that are $600 a quarter. How is a pensioner supposed to exist on that and buy petrol for their car to get around to medical appointments and pay extra if there's no bulk-billing—which there isn't in regional Australia, I can tell you.
Pensioners are doing it tough. Government spending under Labor has reached its highest level in 40 years—outside the pandemic; we must remember that, because the coalition did save our country during the pandemic. This heightened government spending is the core driver of inflation.
As I said, the more the government spends, the more interest rates have to be put up by the Reserve Bank. It's like having one foot on the accelerator and one foot on the brake, and the whole economy comes to a grinding halt—and that's what we're seeing now. This government is the biggest-taxing and biggest-spending government in Australian history.
I ask Australians to get rid of them. It is only the coalition that knows how to fix the economy and protect our way of life. Get rid of Albo and his mates!