Get on with it Albo: PM’s 6-week warning over cost of living crisis

The coming weeks will be ‘pivotal’ in tackling the nation’s cost of living crisis with one economist warning the PM: ‘We’re going to find out what the government is made of in the next six weeks’.

Economists and business leaders have urged the Albanese government to get back to business and focus cost of living crisis now the Voice referendum is over, amid warnings the country could be headed for “economic and financial trauma” not seen since the 1990s recession.

The government has also been urged to take practical measures to Close The Gap, as a way to improve the everyday lives of Indigenous Australians now the referendum process has concluded.

Economists were united yesterday calling for a renewed focus on getting inflation under control and addressing a devastating housing shortage after the Coalition accused Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of pursuing the Voice to parliament at the expense of addressing cost of living pressures.

Frontier Economics Managing Director Danny Price said important policy debates had been ignored during the referendum.

“There’s no room for debate on anything else,” he said.

Warren Hogan said the coming weeks would be pivotal.

“It certainly has been a distraction in terms of national debate.”

Mr Price said he had “come to despair the lack of policy direction from any political party on the fiscal nightmare that we are facing”.

Judo Bank’s Warren Hogan said the coming weeks will be “pivotal” in tackling an “economic and financial trauma” similar to the early 1990s recession.

“We’re going to find out what the government is made of in the next six weeks,” he said, foreshadowing the upcoming quarterly inflation numbers to be handed down next week.

He called for the government to give the Reserve Bank political cover to drastically hike interest rates to arrest inflation rather than keep “prolonging the pain”.
Interest rates have risen 4 percentage points since historic lows of the pandemic; Mr Hogan said the RBA should be given cover to go harder, and faster.

It came as Opposition Leader Peter Dutton on Sunday accused Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of being so obsessed with his “Canberra Voice” that he has “ignored the difficult cost of living pressures facing Australian families”.

Peter Dutton has called on the PM to step up.

“The Prime Minister has forgotten his roots,” Mr Dutton told The Daily Telegraph.

Nationals Leader David Littleproud said it is now time for the Prime Minister to focus “on his job, which should be to drive down people’s cost of living”.

“All the Prime Minister has managed to do in 16 months is drive up peoples cost of living and divide the nation. While he’s been focused on the Voice Australians wallets have been bled dry,” he said.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the government has “kept our pledge to hold a referendum, just like we’ve delivered cheaper childcare, cheaper medicines, the biggest investment in social and public housing in a decade and energy bill relief – despite Peter Dutton’s opposition.”

“We’re working for Australia – strengthening the Budget, delivering the first surplus in 15 years, creating half a million jobs and delivering responsible cost of living relief without adding to inflation,” he said.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese needs to put for focus on the cost of living crisis. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

The need for more practical measures to close the gap between has also been highlighted following an impassioned plea from leading no campaigner Warren Mundine, who accused some journalists of needing to “wake up” to themselves about conditions in remote Aboriginal communities.

Mr Mundine – a leading “No” campaigner – blasted some sections of the media for their approach to the referendum, and their treatment of Coalition Indigenous Affairs spokeswoman Jacinta Nampijinpa Price.

“Wake up to yourselves, people are committing suicides in these communities, people are being raped and beaten and this is the questions you come up with?”, Mr Mundine said after a series of questions about voting results in remote Aboriginal communities.

The NSW government will this month begin a series of measures to better Close The Gap, including quarterly meetings between Ministers and bureaucrats.

The call for government to get “back to business” was also levelled at Premier Chris Minns, who was yesterday urged to make housing reform his “single overriding objective” by Business Western Sydney CEO David Borger.

Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry CEO Paul Guerra agreed that after the poll the state government should refocus.

“It’s what happens next that is most important now,” he said.

“We need a way to clearly move ahead and for all Australians to unite. A healthy business community will ensure a healthy community, and that should be our focus for now, at every level.”

Premier Jacinta Allan told media she would actively campaign for the Yes vote in the lead up to the referendum, but businesses are keen to see her carve out her priorities after taking the reins from Daniel Andrews.

Tim Piper, head of Ai Group’s Victoria branch, said businesses needed more certainty “about what the government intends to do around the state deficit”.

“The debt is there, but there hasn’t been any indication, one way or the other, with the new Premier as to whether the government will start to reconsider their position on the state debt, which is what businesses generally are keen to hear.”

Mr Piper said more work also needed to be done to rein in rising energy costs, especially when it came to how the government would handle rising gas costs.