I couldn’t believe the headline two weekends ago: “It’s going to get better”.
That’s what the Prime Minister told this masthead and that’s what he’s telling Australians.
I was particularly struck by the lack of sensitivity at a time when many people are just barely hanging on financially.
From a human perspective, family relationships are under immense pressure and lots of people aren’t doing OK. Ordinary Australians can’t keep up with the cost of everything: food, petrol, electricity, gas and, of course, housing.
Working Australians have to make difficult decisions about which of these necessities they will cut back on. That’s a fact. Our country desperately needs a strategy and a plan to break out of this economic crisis, not just a patronising pat on the shoulder.
If Anthony Albanese really thinks it will be OK, and he really does have a plan, it’s now pretty much past the point of when his government needed to act to implement it.
Figures released last week from the National Debt Helpline indicated that last year saw 145,166 calls for assistance, the Helpline’s highest figures since the peak of the pandemic. Australians are desperate for relief from this incredibly challenging polycrisis – inflation, housing shortages, and the ever increasing cost of living.
According to Helpline counsellor Mike Dunkley, the recent explosion in demand stems from the spiralling costs of housing. Over 60 per cent of calls are made by young people aged between 18 and 39, with the majority of those being young women struggling to pay rent. No wonder young Australians have lost faith and trust in the political process and those charged with governing.
Under this government, small and family businesses are being crushed by the weight of a flailing economy. ASIC has reported more than 7700 foreclosures from July 2023 to March 2024, with construction companies leading the way with more than 2000 of these business failures. Construction companies need to lead the way out of our housing crisis, yet under this government they’re leading the way into bankruptcy.
This government’s homegrown inflation sits at the root of our country’s out-of-control housing costs, regardless of whether someone is paying rent to a landlord or making mortgage repayments to their bank.
With some 66 per cent of Australians beholden to fluctuating housing costs, ordinary individuals and families are carrying the burden of inflation and rising interest rates on their shoulders.
And what is this government doing? Telling us that everything will be okay doesn’t cut it.
The Albanese government continues to delegate economic management and responsibility to the Reserve Bank, whose only lever is to lift interest rates, effectively flogging people to death with their mortgages.
With the government increasing net spending over the next four years by more than $24bn, the Reserve Bank is now tipped by some financial analysts to raise the cash rate once again – to 4.6 per cent in August.
That would be a national figure not experienced by Australian households since 2011.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers continues to claim that Labor inherited a bad economy from the former Coalition government. That, as the numbers plainly demonstrate, isn’t accurate. But political hyperbole aside, let’s look at some of those numbers.
When Labor entered government in May 2022, Australians faced a cash rate of just 0.85 per cent – a figure which jumped to 1.85 per cent within just two months and which now sits at 4.35 per cent.
When this government came to office, the national median weekly rent sat at less than $500.
Today, median weekly rents well exceed $600 nationwide. In Sydney, that figure is a staggering $750 per week. That’s 66 per cent of take home pay for someone earning the Australian average salary of around $73,000 annually.
Compounding matters has been the steadily increasing price of groceries, with Foodbank noting a 10 per cent increase in households experiencing food insecurity within the Albanese government’s first year in office.
Being hopeful and positive is easy when you own your own home.
Navigating the rising cost-of-living is even more challenging for young Australians who were not the benefactors of an era where home ownership was much easier, like one that our Prime Minister enjoyed.
While it is the job of all elected representatives across the political spectrum to help fix this housing crisis, Prime Minister Albanese and his government must take responsibility for the economic situation they have created and be honest with the Australian people.
With so many Australians desperate for relief, we simply cannot afford any more economic inaction from this Labor government.
Maria Kovacic is a federal Liberal senator for NSW
