Opinion: Tax cuts for billionaires while others struggle to buy groceries
To get out of this cost-of-living crisis we need a government that will be disciplined with the spending of taxpayer dollars, writes Matt Canavan.
Opinion
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Just two weeks after Labor’s budget, Australia’s already high inflation rate increased even further.
Prices are going up, on average, at 3.6 per cent a year, the highest rate in the developed world.
If inflation was instead below the government’s target of 3 per cent, an average Australian family would be $700 a year better off.
Just two weeks ago, the government was making a big deal of using your taxpayer money to give you a $300 refund on electricity bills in its budget.
Well that promise has been wiped out – twice over – by the federal government failing to keep inflation below its target.
And, worse could be yet to come for households. A few weeks ago financial markets were expecting an interest-rate cut by Christmas.
If interest rates were cut by just 25 basis points, the average Australian household would be almost $1000 a year better off.
Maybe it would be a better idea for the government to have a plan to lower inflation rather than just resort to cash handouts to artificially, and only temporarily, reduce the measured inflation rate.
After less than a term in office the Labor government already seems tired, out of ideas and resorting to lazy, taxpayer-funded handouts.
Things are very tough for Australian families.
I have heard of families needing to return items to the shelves when they realise at the checkout that they can’t afford what they have chosen. Everything seems to have exploded in price almost overnight.
There are no easy answers to this problem.
Handing out billions to taxpayers in this case is tempting but will only make the situation worse over time.
Almost every economist in the country has claimed that the government’s big-spending budget will cause prices to increase even more.
To get out of tough times we need tough decisions.
If the government keeps borrowing more money, then prices will keep going up at the shop.
To get out of this cost-of-living crisis we need a government that will be disciplined with the spending of taxpayer dollars.
Instead, this government has gone on a public-sector hiring binge.
Over the next year, the Commonwealth’s non-military staff will go over 200,000 for the first time.
In just two years, the Labor government has hired an additional 30,000 public servants at a cost of $10bn annually.
That is triple the cost of the electricity rebates.
The government is also spending over $30bn on meeting its mythical net-zero targets.
More than $12bn of this is going to fund tax breaks for billionaire investors backing the latest fad of hydrogen.
While people are struggling to buy groceries, why we are giving billions of taxpayer dollars to billionaires?
The reason the government is providing the $300 electricity rebates is to bail itself out of its promise to cut power bills by $275.
These promised reductions were meant to occur thanks to the investment in things like hydrogen and other renewable energy.
Instead, taxpayers are being asked to fund the renewable energy investments and the Labor Party’s unmet political promises.
High inflation has done more to erode the standard of living of Australians since our last major recession in the late 1980s.
The real wages of Australians are now back to 2011 levels.
Real wages grew throughout the entire period of the last Liberal and Nationals government.
But all of that growth has been wiped out by the inflation that has gotten out of control under this Labor government.
The government’s claim that its budget would help reduce inflation has been rebutted in less than a month with inflation rising again.
This is the last regular budget the government will deliver before the next election.
If it does not change tack and create a credible plan to tackle inflation before the next election, it is hard to see why the government should be re-elected.
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Originally published as Opinion: Tax cuts for billionaires while others struggle to buy groceries
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