Topics: $3.8 million upgrade for Redlands support hub, cost of living

 

E&OE   

 

HENRY PIKE:

Well, it's great to have Angus Taylor here in the Redlands today, we're here at Champion Support Services in Thornlands. Champion Support Services are a wonderful local organisation who are providing support to literally thousands of local households. They are on the front line of the cost of living crisis. They've seen a fourfold increase in demand for their services over the last two years, and it's an organisation where I’ve brought Angus before to have a look. I've been singing the praises of this organisation and what they're doing for Redlanders, and it's great to be here today to announce that a Federal Coalition Government will commit $3.8 million to provide this organisation with the money they need to be able to build a new facility here to cater for this extra growth.

So, it's great to have Grant here as well, and I'll throw to him to talk about what this investment will mean for our community.

GRANT CUNNINGHAM:

Brilliant, well, thank you so much Angus and Henry for coming along today, and we're excited about this. This announcement and funding will help us triple the size of our shop. It will help us to be able to have commercial fridges and freezers. It will help us to be able to increase our op shop, a laundry mat, a training centre, counseling rooms. And we really believe here at Support Services, we are a hand up, not just a handout. We want to help people get back on their feet so that they can live the life that they need to live.

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Well, good on you. Grant. It's wonderful to be here, back here again. I was last here a little over a year ago, with Champion Support Services, doing amazing things for this community and of course, Henry is doing amazing things for his community in this part of the world. He's a champion for his community, and fighting hard at a time when the cost of living crisis is really bearing down on Australians and people in this region like we haven't seen before, the biggest hit to our standard of living in our history, worse than we've seen in other countries, comparable countries right across the globe, and we know that services like these ones are more important than ever. I make a point of getting out to services like this in local communities right across Australia, and I've seen time and time again what incredible work is being done by local organisations like this one, by Grant, by volunteers, amazing group of volunteers to support a local community. And that's why $3.8 million is incredibly important and what will be a very productive investment in terms of getting outcomes for people doing it tough in this local community, at a time like this. We are facing an ongoing cost of living crisis, the likes of which we haven't seen in this country. As I say, the worst hit to our standard of living in history, the purchasing power of people's incomes, is way down on where it was even just a couple of years ago and Australians are paying a high price for absolutely everything. We've learned today that they're going to pay a higher price for health insurance, going up faster than inflation and health, of course, is one of those essential services we all rely on, and yet we're going to have to pay much more for it because of these price increases, and that's alongside an increase in insurance, more generally, of around 35% which is hurting Australians as they pay their insurance bills alongside their grocery bills, alongside their gas and electricity bills, alongside every bill. Their rental, which, of course, has been increasing at explosive rates. This is a really tough time for hard working Australians. We do need strong economic management if we are to beat inflation and boost growth. Giving people opportunities to help themselves up, as Grant said a moment ago, has got to be the number one priority of any government. We've seen the wrong priorities and bad decisions in recent years. With the right priorities and the right decisions, we can get this country back on track, and I know this wonderful service here will play an important role in doing that, I should add, and I'll finish by making this point.

That part of what is being proposed here is offices upstairs, where there can be consultation with local people, helping them to get back on top of things again. This is an organisation that doesn't just help people out in the short term. It seeks to help them out over the longer term. That is exactly what we need right now, as people pick themselves up in the coming years, the journey back to sustainability, to aspiration and hope, that's what we want to see more of, so wonderful to be here. Thank you very much.

JOURNALIST:

Perhaps Grant first, just a couple of questions. Just very briefly can you tell me about the kinds of people you're seeing in here and has that changed over the past few years as cost of living has become more of a problem.

GRANT CUNNINGHAM:

Yeah, so over the last two years, we've seen all walks of life come through our facilities here. So, you see people that own houses coming through here. You see people on pensions coming through here. You see people living on the islands coming through here. One major thing that we've probably seen too, is we see generational buying now. So, we have grandparents that are coming in to buy for the for them, for their kids, for their grandkids, and their great grandkids that are all living under the same roof and the customers that come through aren't just one shape or form of life. It's all walks of life now.

JOURNALIST:

So, people who have jobs, potentially stable housing. It's not just people trying to find work.

GRANT CUNNINGHAM:

Yeah.

JOURNALIST:

Can you tell me the kinds of things that you offer here? So, people come in, they get a bag, and they can get whatever they want for is it $5?

GRANT CUNNINGHAM:

So, there's different ways you can purchase through us. So, if someone comes into us in hard times, we offer hampers, which we will pack for them and talk to them about what they need. So, it's not just a hamper off the shelf. It's a hamper going, “oh, what do you need”? Who are you buying for? Who are the people at home? So, we can tailor made that for their circumstance. But then also, you can walk into the op shop and grab a bag of clothes for $5, through the fruit section here, they can grab stuff with bags of fruit for $5 and then we have groceries for sale in the other part of the grocery store.

JOURNALIST:

And it looks like you've got some sort of temporary buildings going on. So obviously a good thing to get more permanent set up, but it must be sad to some degree that you would require such a significant increase in space.

GRANT CUNNINGHAM:

Yeah, I can understand where people would think it's sad, but for us, it's actually exciting, because we actually want to be hope to our city. We don't just want to be an organisation, but we actually want to help people in their everyday needs and for some people that will be counselling, for some people that will be resume writing, for some people that will be tutoring, and for other people it's groceries. So, for us, it's an exciting step for us to partner with the LNP with this, so that we can actually be a greater hand to our city.

JOURNALIST:

Just finally, the kinds of things people tell you about where those increase in costs are coming from. Is it food? Is it insurance? Is it housing? Do you get that feedback?

GRANT CUNNINGHAM:

Yeah, it's all of it. So, you have a look at electricity prices, they have skyrocketed. You have a look at grocery bills, fuel, every way and form of life, everything has increased over the last few years. So, it's not just one area. It’s school fees, it's, you know, everything has increased. So, they come in, telling us, all different walks of life, where their prices have increased.

 

JOURNALIST:

Can I ask Angus, you talk about insurance, you know, if that's one of the key drivers of people struggling, that's the biggest increase since 2019. Does it require additional sort of cost of living support?

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Well, the best cost of living support is to contain inflation, beat inflation and boost growth. We know that is the way you beat a cost of living crisis. It’s the way, historically, we've always beat cost of living crises. This one's worse than what we've seen in the past, but the answer is always sound economic management. We have to deal with the short-term symptoms and get people back on their feet, and that's what this wonderful service does here at Champions, but we also have to beat the underlying cause of the problem, and that is rampant cost of living increases alongside interest rates that aren't going back to where they were, and big increases in personal income taxes being paid by Australians -  20% in last two and a half years. All of that is what's causing this underlying problem, and that means good economic management. Government does have to work carefully with every dollar that taxpayers earn. Government has to make sure that investment is happening from the private sector that creates the good jobs, a rising standard of living we all want to see and it's getting rid of red tape. It's making sure we've got key sectors, energy, construction, financial services and elsewhere that are working well for Australians, this is the way forward. It always has been the way forward in an inflationary environment, and it will continue to be. That's our primary focus. We do have to help out people who are in trouble in the shorter term; to get them back on their feet and that's why this investment is such an important one.

JOURNALIST:

How do you compel you know, private enterprise or the supermarkets, energy companies, insurers, to reduce their costs. How does that happen? How does the federal government actually address those underlying costs?

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Well, if you've got the right priorities, you can help to bring down cost pressures. There's no doubt about that. I've announced in the last week that we'd work with the regulators to take pressure off the costs of providing insurance. We know that insurers are having to carry substantially more capital against their premiums than they did in the past, and that's a function of how the regulators have been working. So, it's really important to make sure we're not layering costs into businesses that get passed on to consumers, and we have been seeing that in a number of sectors. We do have to make sure every sector is competitive, too, and we've taken a strong stand on making sure our supermarkets are competitive, and we should that's incredibly important. So, there's much government can do, but the broader issue is you've got to get on top of inflation right across the board, because as we just heard from Grant, it's everything that's been going up and prices continue to go up.

JOURNALIST:

It's regulation that you see is a big factor in…

 

 

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Well, I think that the truth is, there has been overreaching regulation in many sectors that's actually got things wrong. We've also seen sectors controlled by people who have been looking after their own interests. I mean, the construction sector has been held to ransom by a CFMEU with deep links to the criminal underworld. Every single Australian pays for that, in the higher price of building a road or a hospital or a major building. We can't afford that. That's just not the right way for the country to work. So, there is much we can do in these crucial sectors. We all rely on energy. We've got to make sure we're getting more supply into our energy grid. These are simple things. We know they've worked in the past. We know they can work in the future. You've just got to have the right priorities, and you've got to make the right decisions.

JOURNALIST:

Can the people coming here expect some cost of living support to be announced by…

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Well, the best cost of living support the people coming here can get is from Champions, and that's why we're supporting a local community organisation to help their local community. I believe very strongly in the power of local people supporting their own friends and neighbours in their own local community. It's incredibly powerful because they care deeply, and they're there not just for the short term, but they're there to help that person out, to give them hope over the longer term, and that's why we're here today.

JOURNALIST:

Just finally, you know, the inflation rate, I think we talked about it yesterday, was about 2.8% which is within the RBA target range. You seem to indicate that you felt that was still high. Is there a range that the Opposition would be comfortable with?

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Well, it's going up sadly.

JOURNALIST:

It’s always going to go up, you know what? I mean, they don't want it to go down. That's deflationary, and that's bad.

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Well, the core inflation rate is going up at a time when it's still above the midpoint of the range which is the target for the Reserve Bank. So sadly, this is moving in exactly the wrong direction, and of course, the expectation is that it will continue to go up in the coming years. The Reserve Bank has upped their inflation forecasts when they came out with their decision last week, so the prospects continue to look bleak in terms of beating inflation on a sustainable basis. That makes it harder to bring down interest rates. That makes it harder to raise Australian’s standard of living. It makes it harder to raise real wages. So, there's a long way to go in this fight. This is a government that declares victory on a weekly basis, but there's no victory out in the communities, there's pain that has only intensified. The time lapse between when I was last here and now, which is a little over a year, what we have seen change is just a real worsening. Four times more demand than just a short time ago.

This is not letting up, and yet the government seems to be taking its foot off of the accelerator of dealing with these pressures. We need a real focus - priority one, priority two, priority three, on beating this cost of living crisis.

JOURNALIST:

I just wanted to know when your prediction on the election date is?

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Well, that's a question for the Prime Minister. I can't, I can't tell you what goes on inside his head, but maybe he knows. Maybe he doesn't. Doesn't seem to be overly decisive at the moment, but we'll see. I mean, it's, it's really a question for him, but I tell you whatever it is, I say bring it on, because I think Australians are ready to think now about where they want their country to go in the coming years and I think there is a better way.

 

ENDS.