I rise today to speak on what is a ridiculous matter of public importance topic from those opposite. It simply exposes that they have no ideas and are all about politics. Inflation right now is public enemy No. 1 when it comes to the economy. It makes the money in all of our pockets less valuable. It means we can buy less with the same amount than we could a year ago. That the opposition would have you believe that Australia exists in a vacuum, that we are in our own world, is simply nonsense. They would have you believe that we are the only place going through these significant economic headwinds, but we are not. They would have you believe that inflation is the result of higher wages, when all evidence points to the contrary. The unfortunate fact for those opposite is that the Australian people are far smarter than they give them credit for. The Australian people see straight through these fibs from the opposition. They know when they're being taken for fools. So let's get some facts on the record.

The inflation that we see permeating through the economy did not begin when this government took office. The first rate rise actually took place under the former government, before the election. We know that the rates have risen as a consequence of persistently high global inflation, caused by several factors. First is the war in Ukraine and second is the completely broken global supply chains, which have been neglected for far too long—including by those opposite when they were in government. We also know that the rate rises in Australia have been comparatively less severe than those seen in comparable countries, such as the US, Canada, the UK and New Zealand. Of course, that isn't of huge comfort to Australian mortgage holders and borrowers, who are copping the rises and doing it tough, but it does paint a clear picture which contradicts pretty much all of the arguments of those opposite, and the idea put forward by them that the government is doing nothing to get on top of this issue is beyond ridiculous.

Tackling inflation is an essential focus of our economic plan and, in particular, in the budget that the Treasurer handed down last month. It's a budget that was specifically designed to take the edge off some of the cost-of-living pressures while driving down inflation. The independent Reserve Bank governor has made it abundantly clear that this budget addresses inflation and doesn't add to it. In Senate estimates he said:

I don't think that the budget is adding to inflation, it's actually reducing inflation, it's actually reducing inflation in the next financial year.

In fact, advice from the Treasury is that our policies to ease the cost-of-living pressures are expected to directly reduce inflation by three-quarters of a percentage point in 2023-24.

What a contrast to those opposite! If they were so concerned about the impact of inflation on cost-of-living pressures, maybe they would back some of our policies. Did they back us when we capped power prices? No, they didn't. Are they backing our measures to lower the cost of medicines for Australians? No. Did they back $2.8 billion invested in the incomes of the lowest-income Australians through our increases to JobSeeker, rent assistance and moving single parents onto the parenting payment? No. Do they support our cheaper childcare policies that will begin in a matter of weeks and will take so much pressure off Australian families? No, they don't. Besides criticising from the sidelines, what have the coalition actually proposed? What solutions have they come up with? A big fat nothing. They just say no.

You'd think that if they had anything substantive to offer or actual questions to ask that they might have done so during the Leader of the Opposition's budget reply, or throughout the two weeks of budget estimates. Did they do that? No. Instead they wasted everyone's time with disgraceful lines of questioning about whether a public servant was wearing a tie. That's where these people are: no vision, no ideas and no clue from the no-alition. But why would they start now? They weren't doing anything while they were in government so why would they propose ideas from opposition?

As I said, the Australian people are smarter than these people give them credit for. What they want to see is an alternative government. They want to see ideas and solutions, and they want to see their representatives supporting measures that this government is putting in place to help them with their costs of living and to drive down inflation. So they should start listening to people in their electorates and looking after them.