E&OE    

 

GRANGE CHUNG, LIBERAL PARTY CANDIDATE FOR REID

It’s a pleasure to welcome Angus Taylor, the Shadow Treasurer here to Reid, to Livvy’s Café and Charity run by the Touched by Olivia Foundation and I want to introduce Justine and John from  touched by Olivia to give a few words about the impacts of the cost of living crisis on charities.

 

JOHN PERKINS

Thank you Grange and Angus. As a charity, we are getting squeezed from both ends. The demand for our services is going through the roof due to the cost of living pressures, but the ability to fundraise is getting squeezed as well as there's less dollars in people's bank accounts and their ability today to continue the great services that we offer. 

 

ANGUS TAYLOR

Well, thanks John and Justine and thank you for what you do. The Touched by Olivia Foundation has had a huge impact right across Australia. 19 playgrounds, I think they’re up to now, including in my electorate at Warragamba and supporting our local community and people in our local community in an extraordinary way. It is a wonderful, wonderful organisation and the fact that fundraising has got more difficult, and running a cafe and a hub like this, this Livvy's Cafe here, has become so much more challenging, is typical of what we're seeing right across Australia, right now with cost of living pressures like we haven't seen for a long, long time. Welcome relief, of course, for those with a mortgage, those with a loan across Australia yesterday with announcement of a rate cut, but for many Australian families, this will be too little, too late. Too little in that very strong indication from the Reserve Bank Governor is we're not going to see a lot of rate cuts, and we're certainly not going to see anything like getting back to where we were when these rate cuts began. Under Labor, we've seen 12 increases, one reduction now and of course, as cost of living pressures continue to bear down on Australians. Too late, because Australia has been at the back of the pack in terms of dealing with the cost of living pressures, raging inflation, and of course, high interest rates compared to other countries around the world. Australia's core inflation has been higher than most of our peer countries, and it's been slower to come down, and interest rates have been slower to come down compared with places like the US and the UK, Canada, Europe and elsewhere.

Now the truth of the matter is, much of the work to bring interest rates down is being done by Australian households rather than governments. And one of the really important points we saw in the statement yesterday from the Reserve Bank was the public demand continues to be strong, private demand is down. Translating that into everyday English, the governments around this country, particularly the Labor federal government a state Labor governments, have been spending up, and households have been having to tighten their belts. That's what happens in a cost of living crisis, when governments spend a lot of money, households have got to do the work, and that's exactly what has been happening. The result of all of that is that we've seen the biggest collapse in our living standards in history. This is unprecedented. It's also unparalleled. We haven't seen a hit to living standards like this in any of our peer countries. There is a long way to go in this journey. We know from the Reserve Bank's own forecast that came out yesterday, it's going to take till beyond 2030 for Australian living standards to get back to where they were when Labor came to power. The recovery of our living standards that have collapsed under Labor is going to be a long time coming under the RBA’s forecasts and given the government's plan. We have to accelerate that, and that does mean getting back to basics. We know that the key to getting the cost of living down sustainably, to getting interest rates and inflation down sustainably, to returning Australian standards of living to where it was when Labor came to power, is good economic management, and that means making sure that every dollar of taxpayer’s money is being spent well. Making sure we're not wrapping small businesses and larger businesses across this country in red tape. Making approvals easier, making sure that we're busting those infrastructure bottlenecks to get new housing into place in this country. Making sure that we have the supply of affordable energy that we need for manufacturing businesses and households to find affordable energy that they so desperately need to run their businesses and to make ends meet. There is a better way, and we will continue to lay that out over the coming weeks and months in the lead up to this election, whenever the Prime Minister might call it. Happy to take any questions you might have.

 

JOURNALIST

Thank you, Mr Taylor. Firstly, can I just ask, what is the first cost of living measure relief the Coalition government would provide?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR

The solution to a cost of living crisis is to get the cost of living down, and that means containing inflation and getting interest rates down. There's no point continually putting a band aid on a bullet wound, you've got to deal with the underlying source of that - the problem, and that is sustained high inflation. I point out the Reserve Bank increased its medium-term forecast for inflation. They are saying that under the current plans, inflation is going to be stronger for longer. Well, that's not what we need. We don't need it to be higher for longer. We need to get it down and the Reserve Bank Governor has made clear there isn't a pathway yet for substantial cuts in interest rates. So that's the answer. There is no way you can return Australian standard of living to where it was when Labor came to power without beating inflation and boosting growth at the same time. Now the answer to that is the basics in economics, it's making sure that government money is not being misspent, is not being wasted and you know the truth is this government has been building bureaucracies rather than businesses. The bureaucracy has grown enormously in size in the last couple of years, and that is not the answer to a cost of living crisis. We do need to make sure we get the supply side of our energy sector right, getting more supply into the system and in the short term, that will be natural gas alongside the continued growth of renewables, but it also means we need longer term solutions on base load power. We need to make sure we get more houses built in this country, and that's why we've put aside $5 billion to break those infrastructure bottlenecks that will get more housing supply into the market, getting rid of unnecessary red tape, encouraging small businesses to invest. These are all the things that we know have beaten cost of living crises in the past, and they will beat them in the future. And I know Grange Chung here in Reid will be fighting for all of those things in the coming weeks and months as an outstanding candidate here in Reid, and someone who is fighting for what people really need, which is an end to this cost of living crisis and a restoration of their standard of living.

 

JOURNALIST

A few economists have raised their eyebrows at your rhetoric around this being the worst collapse in standards of living in Australia's history, saying it's quite hyperbolic. What do you say to that?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR

It's factual. It's factual. We have not seen a reduction in the real household disposable income per person in this country, that we've seen over the last two and a half years, we have never seen that before in the data we have going right back to the 50s. We don't have it. We've never seen it. We also haven't seen it in any other parallel peer country. The AFR has reported on this on multiple occasions, and other reputable media outlets have made this point. We have not seen this in other countries. It's unparalleled, and we haven't seen it in our history. It's unprecedented. So, Anna, I go on the facts, and they are the facts, and I tell you what the important point about this is I see it on the ground every single day, wherever I go. In the queues at the food banks, where people are struggling to just put food on the table for their families. In the challenges people are having to pay their insurance bills and their energy bills. In what we're seeing here with just trying to run a local cafe that's doing amazing things for the local community. Wherever I go, I see the impact of a collapse of standard of living. We know that Australians’ aspirations will never be met if we don't have pathways to prosperity in this country and right now, all we're seeing from this government is a pathway to poverty.

 

JOURNALIST

We have heard in the assessment of yesterday, the economic conditions and lot of concern about what could happen internationally over the coming months. Is there anything you think the Treasurer should be doing differently to deal with the kind of unknowns of a trade war?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR

Yeah, well, the first point I'd make about that is that the Prime Minister, the Treasurer, and everyone in the government should be fighting hard to make sure Australia keeps access to markets that are important to us. I mean, this is a critical job for any government. We did it when we were in government. We managed to get exemptions from the US government, from the previous Trump administration, and that's exactly what this Prime Minister should be seeking to do here. Now, whether he's going to succeed or not, we'll see. But that's the test, and that's what really matters to Australian exporters. You know, it's not just going to be steel and aluminium. It's our agricultural exports rely on US markets and European markets are important for a whole range of our exporters. It will be critical to ensure that we get access to those markets, and this is a real test for the government.

 

JOURNALIST

One last one, just in terms of the potential for above if a budget is held and there is a peak in that budget to extend the energy relief measures for households. Is that something that the Coalition would support?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR

Well, it's a hypothetical at this point. We haven't seen it, but I tell you what, we will continue to focus on Anna, making sure we've got affordable underlying energy prices in this country and that does mean you've got to get more supply into the system fast. The prices for gas and electricity when I was Minister were substantially lower than they are right now, and I know the difference is getting more supply into the system fast, and that's exactly what we'll do if we win government at the upcoming election. Australians can't afford another three years of what they've seen since Labor came to power. We can do better, and that's what we'll seek to do.

 

JOURNALIST

Well, the energy bill relief has been seen as a really important help to a lot of households. Do you see merit in extending it?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR

Well, as I say, we haven't seen any proposal from the government, and I don't think you have, unless I'm missing something. So, we'll comment on it when, when and if we see something. What I will say, though, is, rather than putting a band aid just on a bullet wound, we've got to deal with the underlying problem here and the underlying problem is a government that's lost control of the energy sector, has lost control of energy pricing and has completely failed to get the supply into the market that is needed. We predicted that is exactly what would happen when the government went ahead with some of the changes it made early in this term of Parliament, and the outcome has been exactly as sadly, we expected. And as a result, the government has to use taxpayers’ money to help people out with their bills. Well, at the end of the day, we're all taxpayers, so someone has to pay for this. The better answer is to get electricity and energy prices down, and that's what we'll always seek to do.

 

ENDS.