Matters of Urgency — Cost of Living

Matt O'Sullivan

Senator Bell has submitted a proposal, under standing order 75, today, which has been circulated and is shown on the Dynamic Red:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The need for the Albanese Labor Government's to address its failure to fix the cost-of-living crisis, under which the price of basic staples like milk and bread, everyday groceries, petrol at the bowser, gas for heating and electricity to keep the lights on continues to rise, forcing working families, pensioners and small business owners across Australia to cut back on essentials, skip meals and choose between paying for food, fuel or power, and the need to deliver immediate relief for Australians just trying to meet their most basic needs.

Is consideration of the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

With the concurrence of the Senate, the clerks will set the clock in line with the informal arrangements made by the whips.

Sean Bell

I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The need for the Albanese Labor Government's to address its failure to fix the cost-of-living crisis, under which the price of basic staples like milk and bread, everyday groceries, petrol at the bowser, gas for heating and electricity to keep the lights on continues to rise, forcing working families, pensioners and small business owners across Australia to cut back on essentials, skip meals and choose between paying for food, fuel or power, and the need to deliver immediate relief for Australians just trying to meet their most basic needs.

The bad Albanese Labor budget passed this week. Australian families are not sitting around the kitchen table and celebrating it. They are looking at the bills in front of them, the grocery receipt and the petrol gauge. They are looking at the power bills, the rent notice, the mortgage repayment and the insurance renewal, and they know the truth: Labor's tax and spend policies are making our country poorer and are making our families poorer. Across this country people are paying more just to keep a household running.

A generic brand two-litre bottle of milk is listed at $3.55. A two-litre bottle of Norco full cream milk is more than $5. A loaf of Tip Top or Wonder White, the bread millions of families actually buy every week, is now $4.70. The cost of basics goes up while Labor raises taxes, punishes businesses and spends more. Aussies know that this is driving inflation. After years of rising bills, rising rents, rising power prices, rising grocery costs and rising mortgage pressure, the Albanese Labor government want a victory lap when they should be doing a walk of shame. Labor has lost touch with the cost of everyday life.

Increasingly, everyday life for millions of hardworking Australians looks like this: a mum putting things back on the supermarket shelf, a worker filling the car with just enough to get through the week, a pensioner leaving the heater off for longer than they should. It's a small-business owner opening another bill and wondering which staff member to cut or even if they can afford to go on. Food is up three per cent, dairy is up five per cent, electricity is up 21 per cent, petrol is up eight per cent and will go up again from today as Labor pulls the plug on fuel excise, rents are up 3.6 per cent, insurance is up 5.5 per cent and housing costs are up 6.5 per cent over the year. For mortgage holders, the comparison is even more brutal. Just one more rate rise would add $114 a month to the average mortgage. Is there any doubt that Labor spends more and more of taxpayers money, and is it any wonder that they need to raise another $77 billion in tax from this bad budget?

Australians are angry because they can see what Labor is doing and they are watching their bank accounts getting drained while Labor wants credit for a big new tax grab. Working families are doing what they have always done: They are working hard, paying tax, raising children and doing the right thing. But they now feel they are running faster just to fall further behind.

Pensioners face a particularly cruel version of this crisis. A pensioner can't simply pick up another shift because the gas bill has jumped. They have spent their lives working, paying taxes, raising families and contributing to this country, and now many are being forced to make choices no Australian pensioner should have to make.

Small business owners are being squeezed from both directions. They are being hit by the same household bills as everyone else, and then they are hit again through their business. Power, rent, insurance, transport, stock, wages, compliance and borrowing costs all feed into the pressure. At the same time, customers have less money to spend. And then, one day, the door closes and a community loses a shop, a cafe, a service, a sponsor and an employer—precisely what happened yesterday, in South Bowenfels, to the Triple 8 Cafe and to Yancoal, in the Hunter, which axed 60 jobs.

Australians need a government that puts Australians first. They need a government that puts Australian households ahead of global agendas and woke ideology, a government that will address the heart of what's driving inflation and scrap net zero—the obsession that is driving up power prices. Australians are not asking for luxury; they are asking to be able to afford the ordinary essentials of life—food, fuel and power in the home. All they ask is that they are left with enough money to spend so they have the ability to live with dignity.

That should be the first responsibility of government, to be patriotic enough to say Australians come first. Our resources should power Australian homes. Our farmland should feed Australian families before it's locked up because of climate regulations to satisfy international bureaucrats. Our economy should serve Australian workers, families and small businesses not the interests of foreign climate targets, activist causes and political fashions. That is what building an Australia for Australians means—a country where young people can afford a home, families can afford the weekly shop, pensioners can turn on their heaters without fear and small businesses can keep their doors open. It means putting the national interest back at the centre of every decision. One Nation stands up for working Australians, pensioners, small-business owners, and those who are sick of the lies, sick of the spend and sick of the arrogance of this Prime Minister and this Labor government. One Nation says Australian households deserve a government that puts them first.

Matt O'Sullivan

Anyone who spends any time engaging with the community, talking to real people—not just the people here, not just talking to the bureaucrats, not just talking to the economists, but actually talking to real mums and dads, people across Australia—knows that Australians are doing it tough. While Australian parents are tightening their belts, this Labor government continues their class act in this place on their so-called generational tax reform.

But everyday mums and dads won't be fooled. They know the truth. They know the truth because they are living it every single day. Every payday, parents are sitting around the kitchen table making impossible decisions—decisions about what bills can wait, whether they can afford child care, whether their last rent increase will be the one that forces them to have to move. Australian families will not be sold the dream by this Labor government that everything is getting better, because they know the truth. They know that it is not the fact. Yet we hear it, time and again, whether it's in question time or whether it's in contributions to speeches. No doubt, whoever gets up after me on the Labor side will try to give the impression that everything's okay and that their prudent management of the Australian economy is actually assisting Australians make ends meet. But Australians know that they're not able to make ends meet because of the poor economic decisions that this government is making.

The reality is that the cost of raising a family has gone up under this government. It's a sad day when Australians are forced to do double-takes at the supermarket, when their electricity bill arrives and every time they pull up at the fuel bowser. They know that the stats are there, because they feel it every day. The latest ABS data shows that, from May 2025 to May 2026, meat and seafood prices increased by 5.4 per cent. How do Australians know that? Because they're paying it all the time, every time they go to the supermarket. Dairy products rose by 5.2 per cent, fruit and vegetable prices increased by two per cent and clothing and footwear costs have risen by five per cent.

Before the election, Australians were promised $275 in lower power prices, a promise the Prime Minister repeated 97 times. Instead, electricity prices have increased 21.1 per cent over the last year alone. The reality is that Australians are no longer just cutting back on discretionary spending, like their weekly coffee run. Many are struggling to afford those very basic household necessities. This is what Australians are facing.

As one SBS _I__nsight_ participant, Chris, simply put it, 'I have never earned more but felt so broke.' We keep hearing that wages have gone up. Well, not real wages. Real wages are the difference between what it actually costs you to live and the money you're earning—the amount of discretionary fund power that you've got with your salary that you're earning. We know that Australians are not actually, in real terms, earning more, because they're struggling to make ends meet.

If you think it's bad, don't get me started on child care, my favourite little area of policy at the moment. Australians are paying more. Over the last 12 months, costs have gone up 9.4 per cent. Since this government came into power and said that it's going to promise cheaper child care, guess how much it's gone up? Acting Deputy President Cox, do you know? I can tell you: costs have gone up 27 per cent. Yet they promised cheaper child care, this lot over here.

Australians are feeling it every day. Many people are having to engage with child care because it's necessary to get back into work. Two people have to work in a household now, just to pay the bills, just to pay the mortgage, just to pay the rent, just to put food on the table. Yet it's costing more now to go to child care than it would to put your kids in one of the top-end schools in any capital city in this country. It's actually cheaper when your kid's in year 1 in primary school at a high-fee-paying school than it is in many childcare centres across the country. Their poor management of this economy is hurting Australians, and Australians deserve so much better than this Labor government.

Long debate text truncated.