Andrew Bolt: The inflation statistics show the government has bungled the economy
The Reserve Bank has revealed horror inflation figures for electricity, food and housing — and it’s not just bad news for Australia, it’s a monument to government failure.
Wednesday’s shock inflation figures instantly turned Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ best lines into a sick joke.
Chalmers in the morning was still trotting out one of his favourites: “The cheapest form of new energy is renewable energy.”
But by lunchtime the Reserve Bank admitted electricity prices over the year had instead — under Labor’s net zero policies — rocketed by 37.1 per cent.
Chalmers in the morning boasted the Albanese government was “providing the cost of living relief that people need”.
By lunchtime, the Reserve Bank admitted food prices had instead risen 3.2 per cent, clothing 5.4 per cent and housing 5.9 per cent.
Overall, inflation jumped to 3.8 per cent annually, from 3.6 per cent last month, showing the government has bungled the economy.
Underlying inflation is also up, to 3.3 per cent, meaning no chance of a cut in interest rates for maybe a year at least.
So we’re edging to the worst mix — low growth and high inflation, under a high-spending and high-taxing government promising a decade of deficits to add to a $1 trillion gross debt.
Add also our disastrously low productivity, made worse by this union-pandering government, and Australia is facing a long, slow decline in its standard of living.
These inflation statistics aren’t just terrible for Australia. They are specifically a monument to government failure.
The government promised to fight sky-high home prices not by radically slashing mass immigration but by somehow building 1.2 million homes in five years, and helping first-home buyers buy a home with just a 5 per cent deposit.
Instead, its house-build is way behind schedule, and its 5 per cent scheme just bid up prices.
The government also promised that its global warming schemes — replacing coal and gas with unreliable wind and solar — would cut your power bills by $275. Instead, they went up on average by 37 per cent in just the past year, after many of the rebates that governments handed out to mask the disaster ran out.
That sure strips bare the hubris of Energy and Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen, who’s just returned from the United Nations’ climate conference in Brazil with a new title: UN president for climate negotiations.
But how can President Bowen spare a minute for his new job overseas, when he’s presiding over this explosion in electricity prices at home?
What a government. Three and half years in power, and this is what they’ve created?
Originally published as Andrew Bolt: The inflation statistics show the government has bungled the economy
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