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PM Partying Instead of Running the Country

I called out the Prime Minister’s jet set lifestyle during parliament. Australians can see how out of touch and ineffective Anthony Albanese is as a leader.

The Prime Minister has spent too much time rubbing shoulders with pop stars, sucking up to billionaires and flying around the world in long overseas trips and too little time talking with everyday Australians.

Meanwhile Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen and his Ministry of Misery is making life harder for everyday Australians with every new net zero measure.

This is a PM who clearly cares more about globalists and celebrities than he does for the people of the country he was born into.

If ever the comparison to ‘Nero Fiddling While Rome Burned’ was appropriate for a political leader, it is Anthony Albanese.

Transcript

In a speech earlier this year, I made the point that one can judge a man by the company he keeps. I observed that one of Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese’s first orders of business was a private meeting with globalist billionaire and manipulator extraordinaire Bill Gates. And I spoke to a more recent meeting the Prime Minister had with Larry Fink, chairman of BlackRock, the merchant bank that now owns Australia and tries to control Australia.

In the break, the Prime Minister once again used taxpayers money and a taxpayers plane to hobnob at concerts, exhibition openings and attend a billionaire’s birthday soiree. In so doing, the Prime Minister has demonstrated he will show fealty to anyone he needs to, in order to keep swanning around as though the weight of responsibility of running this beautiful country of ours was somehow not on his shoulders.

It’s not the job of the Prime Minister to party at a time when everyday Australians are struggling to pay their rent, pay their mortgages, find a roof to put over their heads and pay their electricity bills. Especially because of his government’s policies. Can someone on the Government benches remind Prime Minister Anthony Albanese the word party in Labor Party doesn’t mean what he seems to think it means.

All the while, Chris Bowen MP, Minister for Climate Change and Energy, and now known as the Ministry of Misery, has been out there destroying our productive capacity, making people’s lives harder. His latest policy is a tax on commercial vehicles, including utes that tradies need to be a tradie. How can a so-called party of working Australians introduce a ute tax that will make it harder for tradies to own what is an essential tool of their trade?

Have you considered what that tax will do to housing construction? It will cut house production and raise house costs. If ever the analogy of fiddling while Rome burns is appropriate to a modern leader, it’s now: Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese. What a bloody disgrace!

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Labor’s Tax Changes Do Nothing for Cost of Living and Bracket Creep

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Soaring cost of living, massive mortgage, rent hikes and inflation meant Australian households suffering the fastest income collapse in the world last year. Labor’s tax changes will benefit some Australians, a measly $15 a week to make up for this.

Labor are out of touch.

This legislation will barely make a dent in cost of living and the government admits as much by claiming these tax cuts will make no measurable difference to the amount of money Australians have in their pocket to spend. Meanwhile, they are silent on their secret money maker – bracket creep. As wages increase, Australians move into higher tax brackets while only being able to buy the same things due to inflation, yet they’ll be paying more tax. This little trick means government has collected an extra $44 billion in taxes from Australians, thanks to inflation over the last decade. Because it hasn’t been fixed, Australians will be paying an extra $38 billion in the next four years alone.

I moved an Amendment that would change the tax rates to keep up with inflation and eliminate bracket creep. If Liberal and Labor are genuine about real tax cuts, they’ll vote for this Amendment and let Australians keep billions of dollars.

One Nation has been talking about the Liberal-Labor government’s secret tax loophole of bracket creep ever since this debate on the Stage 3 Tax Cuts started and we are doing something about it with our proposed amendment to this bill. We need proper tax reform urgently.

Transcript

I rise to speak to the Treasury Laws Amendment (Cost of Living Tax Cuts) Bill 2024. Like most of the words Australians hear out of Liberal and Labor mouths, the title of this bill is a false promise. It’s a lie. It’s almost a sick joke from the Labor government to even put the words ‘cost of living’ in this bill. Let’s talk about the cost of living. Compared to what was already legislated, these tax changes are $15 a week different for the average Australian. For many that’s significant because of Labor’s huge cost-of-living increases. In four years, Australians have been slapped with some of the worst declines in economic circumstances in decades internationally. Australian households suffered the fastest income collapse in the world last financial year, under Labor. Inflation has sent Australian wages—real wages—back to a point not seen since 2009. That means that Australian wages have gone nowhere in real terms for 15 years. The average mortgage has gone up $1,210 a month—a month! Australia’s average rent has hit a record $601 a week, up from the August 2022 median of $437 an astounding 37 per cent. Fifty dollars doesn’t get you far at the supermarket anymore. Petrol is now considered a bargain at $1.80. How far we’ve fallen! 

As billions in government coupons and rebates expire, power bills will rise even further. Despite Labor’s promises to cut electricity bills by $275, Australians have never paid more to keep the lights on. We’ve never paid more. We have the highest electricity prices in the world. We used to have the lowest—until Labor and the Greens and teals came along. 

What is the government’s solution to these skyrocketing costs of living? To fix your problems with groceries, your mortgage or rent, power bills and more, the Albanese government is going to give some Australians—some Australians—$15 a week and expect you to bow down and thank them for it. 

Like the governments before it, this Labor government is all spin and no substance. In fact, it’s all theft. They will put a fluffy title on a bill, like they have here: ‘cost of living tax cuts’. Oh, really! In reality, this won’t make a dent in the cost of living most Australians are suffering through. The costs Labor is imposing are far, far higher than the minor changes they’ve made. This bill is a perfect example of how out of touch this Albanese Labor government really is. Their priorities are in the wrong place. They’re more interested in looking good than actually doing good. 

In his speech about this bill, Treasurer Jim Chalmers just couldn’t help himself. He needed to invoke identity politics and explain that these tax cuts were so much better for women. I checked the Taxation Office website, just to make sure nothing had changed, and it hadn’t. Someone might want to let Treasurer Chalmers knows that Australia doesn’t charge different tax rates based on what’s between our legs. There’s no table that says, ‘If you earn $60,000, as a man you’ll pay, say, 32.5c per dollar, and, if you’re a woman, you’ll pay 35 cents.’ That’s probably lucky, because Labor can’t even answer the question: ‘What is a woman?’ If the Treasurer can’t make a speech about tax without invoking gender political correctness, you have to wonder what hope they’ve got. What hope have we got? Here’s a tip for Labor: regardless of what Australians have between our legs, life is tough right now; the economy sucks; and $15 a week will barely make a dent in the extra costs you have imposed in just 18 months. 

Now, I’ll never oppose Australians getting a tax cut. Yet calling these tax changes ‘cost-of-living relief’ is like claiming you’ve fixed a raging bushfire after throwing cup of water on it. 

These tax changes won’t do anything while government policies make Australia’s cost of living even worse—far, far worse. There’s energy. They’re killing agriculture. There’s immigration. They’re hiding per capita recessions. There are house prices and rents. The government response to COVID created the inflation problem that has wrecked Australian households. And Labor was all the way with Prime Minister Morrison. 

The government’s net zero policies are increasing power prices, making it harder for households to keep the lights on and businesses to keep their doors open. That’s a fact. Only this week, the government is discussing putting an extra four per cent tax on clothes, to comply with United Nations/World Economic Forum policies—four per cent on clothes, in addition to the 10 per cent GST on clothes. The government will be putting an emissions tax on vehicles, forcing Australians’ favourite utes off the road and making any other cars far more expensive. That’s from a Labor government. All of the pressures facing Australian households are a result of government policies, and Labor’s response is a measly $15 a week. 

The Liberals do not get a free pass on this. The only reason we’re in this situation is because of the Liberal Party’s gutlessness in parliament. Many will notice that the original tax changes were called ‘the third stage’. All three stages were announced by the Liberal coalition government in 2018. Why, then, was stage 3 left until 1 July 2024 to come into effect? I’ll tell you why: the truth is the Liberals wanted to leave stage 3 as a trap for Labor, who have always been opposed to them. If the Liberals were genuine about stage 3, why didn’t the changes come into effect five years ago? That didn’t happen because the Liberals wanted to play cynical political games and trap Labor. Neither Liberal nor Labor are interested in genuine tax reform; they’d rather play games with it to get a headline—play games with people’s livelihoods, lives and futures. 

The crown of destroying Australia sits on the heads of both the Labor party and the Liberal party. They both have gutless policy on everything in our country, especially tax. They run away from the real issues facing Australians. The Treasurer and the government claim that these tax changes won’t add to inflation—that’s shooting themselves in the foot. If that’s true then the government is admitting these changes won’t do anything. They’re saying it won’t make enough of a difference to the amount of money Australians will have to spend to even be measured. Maybe the government is lying, and these changes will make inflation worse. That would be embarrassing to admit, given Treasurer Chalmers says our No. 1 priority should be ‘to finish the fight against inflation’. Labor appears to have put themselves between a rock and a hard place, a situation all of their own making. Australians have got used to this Labor government speaking out of both sides of their mouth—this tax bill is no different. 

Now, I’ll never oppose tax cuts for Australians. These tax changes, however, are just fiddling around the edges. Instead, we need real tax reform. Real reform is in the amendment I have proposed on sheet 2342. This would index the income tax thresholds to inflation and eliminate bracket creep. This is genuine tax reform. Bracket creep is the government’s dirty little secret. Inflation means Labor will quietly pocket tens of billions of dollars in extra taxes by simply doing nothing. As wages increase with inflation, they go into higher tax brackets, you’re paying higher tax rates and no one says a thing. We are going to say something. We’ve been saying something about this ever since this debate started, and we will fix it by putting an amendment in there. 

It’s a stealth tax. As wages increase, Australians move into higher tax brackets, while being able to buy only the same things due to inflation, yet they’ll be paying more tax, so they’ll have less money to spend on groceries effectively and less money to spend on disposable income. Bracket creep amounts to a secret tax that the government are keep collecting to pay for their pet projects of questionable benefit. If the Liberals and Labor want to increase taxes, they should put in a bill or take it to an election and be honest with Australians, rather than quietly rely on bracket creep to secretly plug their budget holes and ratchet up income tax receipts. 

Bracket creep should’ve been fixed a decade ago. Analysis from the Parliamentary Budget Office shows that Australians have had to pay an extra $44 billion over the last decade because of bracket creep. Shh, don’t tell them! Because we didn’t take that action and fix this 10 years ago, over just the next four years bracket creep will mean Australians will pay more than $38 billion extra in taxes. You thought you were getting a tax cut. If the government gets inflation under control, fixing bracket creep won’t cost the budget anything. Australians don’t deserve to pay for inflation twice because of government mistakes, and the budget shouldn’t benefit from out-of-control inflation. Here’s how you’re paying twice: firstly, inflation because of an out-of-control government—higher prices; secondly, the higher wages that come with inflation put you into a higher tax bracket—bracket creep, higher taxes. You have less real money overall. Now, I note that the Liberals have made many comments about the scourge of bracket creep. This is your opportunity to fix it once and for all, and I urge all senators to stop the taxation increases-by-stealth and index the tax thresholds—the brackets. 

If Labor need any suggestions on areas of spending to fix it so they don’t have to keep secretly stealing more money from Australians, they can consult One Nation’s extensive work at Senate estimates for a few tips. There are lots of tips in there. We exposed so much: the flawed $65 billion Hunter frigate program they fiddled with and didn’t cancel; the NDIS being on track to cost $100 billion every year; and up to $8 billion a year in Medicare fraud. They are all some good places to start. 

We support this bill. It’s being dishonestly represented by Labor as a tax cut; it’s a tax fiddle. We can change that by passing my amendment to remove bracket creep. As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I recommend that, instead of fiddling with the tax system, we fix the tax system. Reform the tax system for the benefit of all Australians, all families, our economy and our grandchildren’s economic future and security. 

I will just make some comments about tax reform, in connection with this bill. The tax system is complex, wastes enormous resources and is destroying economic productivity. Tax is essentially necessary because it’s a cost of government. It has become the cost of unaccountable waste over government needlessly micromanaging and controlling people’s lives and destroying economic initiative, hope and security. That’s what our tax system has become. It’s necessary as a cost of government, but it has now gone overboard. The tax act is immense—thousands of pages, a feast for lawyers and accountants. 

In a highly competitive international market, our resources are being wasted. Instead of our best and brightest accountants helping us to be more competitive in facing our international competitors, companies in Korea, Japan, China, America, Indonesia and Asia—instead of facing them and being more competitive by putting our best people to work, we’ve tied them up in the tax system trying to dodge tax because it’s so damn complex and so inefficient. Jim Killaly, the deputy commissioner who was responsible for international matters and large companies, who was second in charge at the Australian Taxation Office and in charge of large companies and international matters, said twice, in 1996 and 2010, that 90 per cent of Australia’s large companies are foreign owned and, since 1953, have paid little or no company tax due to the Liberals introducing legislation exempting foreign companies back in 1953. 

The tax act enables companies to use tax tricks such as transfer pricing to eliminate book profits and tax being paid in Australia and take it all overseas. In 1987 the Hawke Labor government introduced a petroleum rent resource tax that effectively exempted the world’s largest tax evader, Chevron, from paying tax. They steal our gas and export it to other countries, and we don’t get much for it at all. The Liberal-Labor party, the uni-party, are working for their global corporate masters. Exempting corporations from paying their fair share of tax means the burden falls on us, the people. To the people in the gallery: you’re paying for these uni-party rorts. 

Aussies are paying far too much tax already. Former Treasurer Joe Hockey said that typical Aussies work from January to June paying tax. Half of the year paying tax, effectively a 50 per cent tax rate—that’s what Joe Hockey said. And then we get to keep the rest from July to December. Industry figures calculate that almost 50 per cent of the price of a house is tax, meaning an effective tax rate of 100 per cent. Brisbane accountant Derek Smith said that 50 per cent of the price of a loaf of bread is tax, meaning the effective tax rate is 100 per cent. Seventy per cent of the price of fuel is tax—or it used to be; the price has gone up even higher now. Essentially, workers have to pay double and they’re getting ripped off. They pay income tax, and, with what’s left, they pay taxes on everything they buy. We need tax reform urgently. 

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2023 Year in Review: Reserve Bank of Australia

Very few in the media acknowledge the Reserve Bank creating $500 billion out of thin air is a major cause of inflation.

I was laughed at when I first challenged RBA Governor Phillip Lowe, then he had to admit I was right.

RBA creates inflation by printing money out of thin air
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Labor’s Migration Counteracts Reserve Bank Attempts to Cut Inflation

I asked Minister Gallagher questions about the government’s immigration policy which is bringing large numbers of new arrivals into Australia. The Australian Bureau of Statistics has released figures that show that spending from new arrivals is running interference on the Reserve Bank’s attempts to cut inflation rates.

The Minister’s defence was to, once again, blame the previous government, then COVID and then she made the claim that many of the new arrivals were just returning Australians.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: My question is to the Minister representing the Treasurer, Senator Gallagher. Australian Bureau of Statistics data and the Reserve Bank for the June quarter reveals that Australian’s spending fell while new-arrival’s spending increased, because the number of new arrivals increased. Minister, the government’s policy of bringing so many new arrivals to shore up domestic demand is acting against the Reserve Bank’s low-inflation strategy. Why do you have your foot on the accelerator while the Reserve Bank has its foot on the brake?

Senator Gallagher: I thank Senator Roberts for the question. I disagree with it, and I don’t accept that we are not working alongside the Reserve Bank. They have their job to do, which is to bring inflation back within the target band without crunching the economy. We have our job to do, which is to implement our economic plan and roll out, as I said before, the cost-of-living relief to get the budget in much better shape, which we have done, and to make much overdue investments into energy, skills and housing across the country, which are causing pressure in other areas of the economy.

In terms of the population growth, or what we’ve been seeing from the net overseas migration numbers in particular—we’ve spoken about this in this place on a number of times—we are seeing some of the results of having our borders closed, essentially, for a couple of years. So we’re seeing people returning to this country, particularly international students to study, at a time when we’re not seeing as many leaving the country. We are seeing that, and that’s reflected in the budget numbers.

But I can absolutely guarantee, Senator Roberts, that we are working with the Reserve Bank. The decisions that we take are about not making their job harder. It’s an already difficult job that they are doing, and our job is to support that in the areas that we have responsibility for, which is to deal with that cost-of-living relief, to get the budget in much better shape, which we have done, and to invest in the productive side of our economy into things like the energy transition, skills and housing, which are areas that were left neglected after a decade—

The PRESIDENT: Thank you, Minister. Senator Roberts, a first supplementary?

Senator ROBERTS: Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows that in the June quarter new private house commencements fell 6.6 per cent and new private apartment commencements fell 19.6 per cent. Minister, in line with the Reserve Bank’s 13 interest rate rises, housing construction is falling when you need to build more homes for all the Albanese government arrivals. What are you going to do—pump up the economy with more arrivals, causing more inflation and more interest rate rises, or accept that you made a mistake and put the brakes on new arrivals?

Senator Gallagher: I would just say that we have not changed the policy settings that were in place around net overseas migration, so your characterisation is incorrect. In response to some of the economic data you cite, yes, we are seeing moderation in a couple of areas, and that is because many Australians are doing it tough right now, and the Reserve Bank is trying to lower demand with some of the decisions that they’ve been taking. So, yes, we are seeing that translate into other areas of economic data, but I would also say to the senator, who voted against the Housing Australia Future Fund, that our housing policies are about dealing with this long-term underinvestment and failure to acknowledge that the Commonwealth government has a role to support the construction and delivery of social and affordable housing. That is the area the Commonwealth neglected in the previous decade. We have a range of policies targeted to housing to address—

The PRESIDENT: Thank you, Minister. Senator Roberts, a second supplementary?

Senator ROBERTS: Talking misinformation about your housing bill won’t save this government. Everyday Australians know they can’t afford their rent or mortgage, and they know your government is swamping the country with even more arrivals. Minister, why are you papering over your economic mismanagement and running an immigration Ponzi scheme?

Senator Gallagher: That question is simply incorrect. I would say that there is a huge amount of work that’s being done by the Home Affairs minister and the immigration minister to fix the broken system that we inherited, and we’ll have more to say on that shortly as the work that they are doing is finalised. But it’s simply not true to allege what you are alleging. We have inherited a migration system that the minister herself has said is broken, so we are dealing with issues to fix that.

But, in relation to some of the numbers that we’ve been seeing, particularly in relation to international students and working holiday-makers who have returned to the country with valid visas after the borders had been closed, just because you say ‘misinformation’ doesn’t mean it is misinformation. These are the facts; let’s deal with the facts. We accept that there is pressure in the housing market, which is why we’re responding to deal with it.

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Reserve Bank Uses “Blunt Tool” on Inflation

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The new Governor of the Reserve Bank is not ruling out raising the cash rate again to further control inflation. She refers to these measures as part of a tightening phase.

The Reserve Bank is unwinding the massive expansionary monetary policy it took during the COVID response which created $500 billion out of thin air. Meanwhile the States and the Federal ALP are spending money like it is play money.

This spending acts against the Reserve Bank’s rate rises. This is why I say this Government is hitting the brake and the accelerator at the same time.

The high rate of immigration is expanding the economy and that also acts against the dampening effect of rate rises. The pain and stress of mortgage rate hikes can be attributed to the costly COVID response and to immigration. That is all on Prime Minister Albanese and Treasurer Chalmers.

One Nation will reduce immigration to reduce rents and take the heat of the property market, removing the need for further rate rises.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: Congratulations on your appointment.

Ms Bullock: Thank you, Senator.

Senator ROBERTS: How does it feel being in a highly complex job which is affecting so many people’s lives and livelihoods?

Ms Bullock: I do feel a great deal of responsibility, Senator.

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Inflation has gone from 7.8 per cent, peak, to 5.4 per cent. In your speech yesterday you went on record to say the Reserve Bank will not hesitate to raise rates again if it looks like inflation is not coming under control. Is inflation coming under control? I’m guessing from your comments so far that you’re wary and there are signs that it’s not.

Ms Bullock: I’d say what I said earlier, which is that we got an important piece of information yesterday. We need to take that away, analyse it and figure out what it means for our forecast going forward. That’s no different to the comment we’ve been making to date, which is that we are—’wary’ is a good word. We’re looking at some of the more persistent parts of inflation and asking ourselves: are there signs that those might be coming down in the future? So, yes, we are wary. We don’t know if the job is done yet, and we’ve made that very clear. Even though we haven’t raised interest rates since our last interest rate rise in June, we’ve made it very clear that we might need to go again. We had not ruled that out, and we’re in the same position now.

Senator ROBERTS: When debating the need for a rate rise, is the effect on mortgage affordability, especially mortgage stress, taken into account? If so, what measure do you use, and what is that measure telling you about how hard life is getting for mortgagees?

Ms Bullock: We do understand that there is a distribution—let me step back for one moment. Higher interest rates and monetary policy work through a number of channels. The one that gets the most attention is what we call the cash flow channel, which is the impact on people who have debt. That gets a lot of attention, particularly in Australia, because, as Chris already mentioned, most of the debt of households and businesses is variable rate debt or very short fixed-rate debt. That’s why that channel gets the most attention, but there are other channels. In fact, Chris gave a speech on that fairly recently. One is the intertemporal channel, which basically means: as interest rates go up, people are incentivised to save rather than to spend, and in fact we are observing that. We are still seeing people in aggregate save, and there’s an incentive even for mortgage holders to save. Their interest rates have gone up, so, for them, there’s an incentive now to try and put even more away into their offset and redraw accounts if they can. That’s the other way that it works. Another channel is the exchange rate channel. The way that works is: as interest rates rise, the exchange rate—if everyone else wasn’t raising their interest rates the exchange rate would rise, but at the moment it means that it hasn’t fallen very much. It has been reasonably stable over the last year. We’re not getting inflation through that particular channel. There are other channels as well.

Senator ROBERTS: Do you measure the stress?

Ms Bullock: No. We can’t very precisely say: particular channels contribute X to inflation. We can’t do it that way. But they’re all the channels that we’re watching and trying to understand how they might impact.

Senator ROBERTS: How do you assess whether or not people are under mortgage stress? Ms Bullock: We don’t do individual mortgage stress assessments. What we can observe is data we get from the banks on hardship calls that they’ve got, arrears rates and those sorts of things. We can observe those at aggregate level. The feedback we’re getting at the moment, from the banks and from the data we see, is that that has risen but it’s still at very low levels.

CHAIR: Last question.

Senator ROBERTS: Surely the inflation that’s still hitting Australians has something to do with the Reserve Bank creating $500 billion out of thin air—or, as Dr Debelle said, electronic journal entries—over COVID. Have you thought about that? Your predecessor admitted it was a cause of the inflation problem, creating that $500 billion out of thin air.

Ms Bullock: Basically, you’re referring to the massive expansionary monetary policy that we undertook during the pandemic?

Senator ROBERTS: Yes.

Ms Bullock: I think my response would be that, at the time, we were facing a very, very dire economic situation, and the appropriate response at the time was to run a very expansionary monetary policy. We have now unwound that and we’re in a tightening phase, so, yes, the purpose of the expansionary monetary policy was in fact to encourage demand and encourage growth. That was very much the intention. To the extent that we look back and now say, ‘Well, demand is too strong,’ we are now in a tightening phase to wind that back. But I wouldn’t say it was the sole reason for the increase in inflation. You might remember that there were very big supply chain issues as well, and when constrained supply meets high demand, you get inflation.

Senator ROBERTS: Building on that, you have a very blunt tool to attack inflation, don’t you? Because the cash rate for the entire country is a very blunt tool to try to bring down inflation.

Ms Bullock: Yes, it’s a blunt tool.

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you.

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The RBA is trying to send everyone broke to fix the inflation they caused by printing too much money

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RBA creates inflation by printing money out of thin air

Since 2019 the RBA created $508 billion out of thin air through electric journal entries. I have been warning the RBA directly that this money printing will contribute to the inflation we are experiencing.

What did Governor Phillip Lowe say? He acknowledged I warned about creating money, he acknowledged it was a mistake and he also said nation building projects like Iron Boomerang would help fix inflation.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS : Thank you both for being here. Dr Lowe, in 2016, I had my first Senate estimates session. I asked the Treasury secretary, who at the time was John Fraser, a question about the huge increase in money supply. He pretty much dismissed me and said, ‘No, don’t worry about it.’ At the next Senate estimates session, he said yes; he acknowledged it. In the third one, he said, ‘Yes. The theory is that it will lead to inflation, you’re correct, but we haven’t seen it yet and we don’t know why.’ So I understand that it’s a vexing problem. You said that one of the solutions is to make the pie bigger. You are saying that the answer to the government’s funding dilemma is to grow the economy and, as a result, the tax base. Have you heard of the project Iron Boomerang? We’ve got the world’s best metallurgical coal for making steel in the east coast and the best iron ore in the west coast. It would build a railway line fully funded. The investors are ready to go. There is a Senate inquiry taking off on it pretty soon. It would take coal to the west and iron ore to the east. There would be massive steelmaking complexes both in the east coast and the west coast. It would remove shipping and road transport. It would be a huge investment. It would add $100 billion to our GDP, which is five per cent. It would open up the north and all of central Australia for the Indigenous living there and rural communities and agriculture. Is that something that we should be thinking about?

Mr Lowe : If the rate of return on that investment is as you describe it and both the financial and social returns are as you describe them, it is something to think about. There may be other projects that have better returns. I don’t want to endorse it, because I don’t know anything about it. But, in principle, we should be looking at the financial and social returns we get from these projects. If they are greater than the cost of funding and the economy has enough resources to do it, then certainly we should be thinking about it.

Senator ROBERTS: We’ve got investors, we’re told, from overseas lining up and also from within. I will come back to the formal questions I had. The Reserve Bank spent the COVID years increasing the money supply, as Deputy Governor Debelle said at the time, by electronic journal entry; they are his words. It is commonly called printing money. At an earlier estimates, I was given a figure of $508 billion as the total for electronic journal entries since 2019. Can you update that figure, please?

Mr Lowe : That’s still roughly the same. I think our balance sheet is a bit over $600 billion at the moment.

Ms Bullock: It is about $600 billion. Exchange settlement account balances are probably around $450 billion or something like that.

Mr Lowe : Our balance sheet has roughly $100 billion of banknotes on it. That is still $100 billion of banknotes. That is $4,000 for every person in the country, which I find extraordinary. That is one of the elements on our balance sheet. We have these exchange settlement balances, which is the electronic money that you talked about.

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. So inflation has gone from not a problem to a 30-year high, 7.8 per cent in the December quarter. On 2 February 2022, Dr Lowe, you said that inflation had surprised on the upside. In March 2022, you predicted inflation would peak at 4.2 per cent. That was at the ABA, Australian Banking Association, conference that we both attended. Why were you surprised, Dr Lowe, when many, including myself, had spent 2020 and 2021 warning the Reserve Bank and the government, including at Senate estimates, that the sheer volume of this money expansion would inevitably cause significant inflation?

Mr Lowe : You were one of these people who were making the argument that the money supply expansion was ultimately going to be inflationary. That has played a role. As we were talking about before, at least half, maybe three-quarters, of the increase in inflation is due to what went on in Europe and the supply-side disruptions. The expansion of money supply, the low interest rates and, I would say, the government support during the pandemic have driven inflation. But it’s not the full story.

Senator ROBERTS: Is 7.8 per cent inflation the price the public is paying for the Reserve Bank supporting the government’s wasteful mismanagement of COVID using lockdowns and other restrictions, leading to JobSeeker, JobKeeper and mismanagement that the government caused, which is what necessitated the money creation? Did you even consider saying to the government, ‘No, I’m not going to print the massive amount of money, so perhaps reconsider your COVID strategy’?

Mr Lowe : No. We did not do—I want to be very clear about this—the money creation at the request of the government. The nine people who sit on the board of the Reserve Bank decided to do this. We had meetings with the government and we understood—

Senator ROBERTS: Was it because the government had put in place so many onerous restrictions?

Mr Lowe : No. It is easy to forget this now. In early 2020, we were being told by the health people that tens of thousands of Australians would be dead within months. Remember that there were preparations for, including in the Reserve Bank, temporary morgues in our cities. Our borders were closed. We were told the vaccine was maybe three years or longer away. This was going to be something that would take the society a long time to get over. That is what we were being told. That was the information—

Ms Bullock: And we were observing what was happening overseas.

Mr Lowe : And we were seeing what was going on in New York and Italy. It was really terrible and scary. People were locked in their homes. That was the base upon which we made the decision to go on this route. It turns out that the scientists developed a vaccine much more quickly and the economy was more resilient and we did too much. But we didn’t do too much because the government told us to or we wanted to; we thought it was the right thing to do given the information we had at the time.

CHAIR: We’re out of time for this line; sorry, Senator Roberts.

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Albanese pouring fuel on the cost of living fire

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The cost of everything is going up, but the Albanese Labor government is pouring more fuel on the fire by tipping billions into policies that will make electricity prices even higher. With more wind and solar in the grid than ever before power bills have never been higher. Time to give up on this pipe dream.

Transcript

President the Albanese Government’s behaviour goes well beyond a broken election promise to give cost-of-living relief. The Government is actively making inflation worse.

The inflation rate is 8% and will remain at 8% into the future, on the back of increases to energy prices. Electricity, gas, diesel and petrol are all inputs into every corner of our economy.

Forcing energy prices up to appease the sky god of warming will force up input costs right across our economy and lead to more inflation.

Weather-dependent solar and wind power will never provide baseload power. Doubling down on more solar and wind, before the added cost of changing out every wind turbine and solar panel with new ones before we even get to 2050 will lead to more inflation.

Taxpayers pay for these things twice: once in taxpayer subsidies to wind and solar and through higher inflation. Energy inflation.

Not only do we have a lack of wage rises, we have a lack of wages. Businesses are closing all over Australia as inflation wreaks havoc in the productive economy and energy costs drive manufacturing overseas.

This Government has no answers. We have just seen a child care bill that gives handouts to millionaires but fails to create a single job.

Failing to use government policy to create jobs while allowing 220,000 new migrants into Australia every year will create a pool of unemployed, resulting in reduced market power for labour. That can only mean lower wages, even before losing 8% a year off their pay packet through inflation.

One Nation believe the way to break the inflation cycle is a comprehensive root and branch review of the taxation system, to return bracket creep to wage earners while forcing big business, especially foreign corporations to pay their fair share.

Queensland Labor’s Health Department still mandates COVID injections for health professionals. Injection mandates must be abolished now. Let anyone who wants to work, work.

We are one community, one nation and Labor are a threat to breadwinner jobs.

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Australia ill-prepared for food crisis

Who would have thought that affluence would be measured by who could afford lettuces at $20/kg, rather than Lamborghinis?  The humble zucchini is now $2 each, and meat and fuel prices are continuing to rise. Inflation will remain with us for the next 18 months.

A small percentage of these rises are caused by supply issues relating to the war in the Ukraine however to blame Putin is to misdirect the blame to a convenient fall guy.  Australian governments cannot use the war in Ukraine and Putin to explain away the prices rises and supply issues.  Like COVID, Ukraine’s war has highlighted the deep flaws already existing in Australia’s approach to strategic industries. 

Years of flawed climate ideology has destroyed our ability to grow food in Australia.

The government’s forced uptake of expensive, unreliable wind and solar power at the expense of cheap sources has increased electricity bills, one of the largest costs of doing business at every stage from farm to table.

Australia imports 1.7 million tonnes of the most common form of fertilizer – urea and only produces 200,000 tonnes locally, most of that here in Queensland. Urea is made from natural gas. Australia has one of the world’s largest reserves of natural gas so why are we paying 400% more for imported products when Australia could be self-sufficient?

Australian Governments have been asleep at the wheel when it comes to protecting strategic industries such as fertilizer. Production shortages will continue and prices will continue to rise and that is on successive short-sighted, LNP and Labor State and Federal Governments.

There is also “green tape”, thousands of pages of heavy handed, draconian laws which do very little to protect the environment and are not based on solid data or science. Instead, they just make it too hard or too expensive for many farmers to use their land. In Queensland some farmers are being prevented from working their land at all.

Our most essential need for surviving and thriving is water. Supposed environmentalists have stopped major dam building initiatives for nearly 30 years. Responsible use and environmental management is of course necessary. Australia has enough water to feed and clothe the world. A lack of vision and forward planning from politicians means that we are at the whim of every weather cycle.

If there’s one thing we should have learnt from the COVID response and now from regional conflicts it is this. Australia can’t rely on the rest of the world. We need to be able to grow every bit of our own food here with minimal government interference.

More than that, Australia has an obligation to use the gifts this country has been blessed with to take our place in the worthwhile endeavour to feed and clothe those who would otherwise be in need.

Our farmers have been extraordinary in their commitment to growing food and fibre because this is a noble endeavour. Successive LNP and Labor Governments have made this endeavour harder and harder in the name of ideology and failed climate “science”.

Now the result of years of mismanagement is being felt in petrol stations and supermarkets across Australia.

Australians can no longer afford to go backwards at the hands of climate zealots whose inner-urban, well-off lifestyles are the least affected by climate madness.

Build dams, install the cheapest available power sources and get government out of the tractor-driver’s seat. If Australia is to survive coming food crises, we must do all of this now.

An old quote says a country is only three missed meals away from a revolution. We have enough arable land to feed Australia and millions overseas, government just needs to get out of the way and let farmers do what they do best.

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