Thursday, 15 May 2025

Cost of living

Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (02:17): (1640) My adjournment debate is also for the Treasurer. We have talked a lot today, in the context of Labor’s latest tax grab, about the cost of living. We hear those words all the time, ‘the cost-of-living crisis’, all over politics and the media, but I think it is worth challenging, because what we actually face in Victoria is a cost-of-government crisis. Saying ‘cost of living’ makes it sound like it is nobody’s fault, like the weather or some law of nature. But prices do not rise by magic, they rise because of decisions – bad ones – made right here in this place, including the one we have had tonight. We cannot blame that on the cost of living. It is purely and simply the cost of government. That is the real crisis we face in this state.

Take housing and buying a home: stamp duty adds tens of thousands to the bill, and development is stymied by regulation, taxes and red tape, so demand far outstrips supply. Renting: landlord taxes and new rules make it harder to rent out property, so fewer homes are available and prices soar. That is not a cost-of-living crisis, it is a cost-of-government crisis. Energy: net zero might sound plausible, but rushing the transition without proper planning has consequences – expensive ones. Bills go through the roof, yet somehow we write that off as a cost of living. Then there are the Big Build blowouts, delays and spiralling costs. Victorians know they are paying for it through higher taxes and through inflation.

The logic is simple: government spending causes inflation, and inflation drives the so-called cost of living crisis. So let us simplify that equation: what we have is a cost-of-government crisis. What is driving up construction costs? Union deals that make public projects more expensive and tradies harder to find for smaller jobs. Now tax: we have higher payroll tax on businesses of course but now also on education and even health, a tax on death in higher probate fees and more red tape for small businesses. That is the cost of government for you. To cap it off, the last Treasurer introduced new taxes to pay for COVID lockdown spending. Our lives were stuck on hold, quarantined and curfewed, and we are paying now for the cost of not living. So I ask the Treasurer to commission research showing, to the cent, exactly what proportion of the rising costs, prices and taxes Victorians face is the direct result of our cost-of-government crisis.