SWAN Hill and district residents are increasingly writing to me with their cost-of-living concerns, so let me give you a report card on two dismal years under the Albanese Labor government.
The price of electricity is up 21.5 per cent, gas is up 25 per cent, food costs are up 11.4 per cent, housing and rent costs are up 14 per cent, health and education costs are up 11 per cent and insurance costs are up 16 per cent.
Real wages have fallen by 9 per cent.
Australians are paying 20 per cent more tax under Labor, so the tax cuts that began on July 1 – which I declared immediately I would support, and the Coalition supported – do not reform income tax brackets.
Labor will harvest $60 billion from household budgets over the next four years through ‘bracket creep’ (as salaries rise), handing the Albanese government a revenue war chest to pretend it is charitably handing your own money back to you.
Interest payments on mortgages have risen 30.8 per cent in the last reporting year alone, almost tripling since the last election.
Under Labor, interest rates have risen 12 times compared with once under the Coalition: just before the May 2022 election.
In fact, the Reserve Bank cut rates nine times while the Coalition was in government.
Responsible economic management is the Liberal-National Coalition’s hallmark.
Inflation is falling in countries comparable to Australia but Australians are paying the price for inflationary spending behaviour by the Albanese Labor government.
Australia has suffered five consecutive quarters of a per-capita recession – that is, our output per person has been going backwards since early 2023.
Productivity has collapsed 5.2 per cent under Labor, and its radical industrial relation changes – paybacks to their union masters – will only send productivity even further backwards.
Mallee residents and their fellow Australians need a change of government as soon as possible to restore responsible economic management and bring a halt to Labor’s home-grown inflation chaos.
