Topics: Senate Select Committee on the Cost of Living; Labor’s cost of living crisis; Labor’s energy policy shambles; student caps  

 

E&OE

 

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Time to talk Federal politics with Shadow Treasurer and Member for Hume, Angus Taylor. Angus, the cost-of-living crisis continues. The Select Committee into the Cost of Living has issued its final report, and it tells just as damning a story as what I've just told.

 

ANGUS TAYLOR: It absolutely does. It tells us what we already know but this is important, and the government hasn't recognised it. You’re absolutely right, Stephen. The key point, Australians are poorer under Labor. Our standard of living has collapsed due to Labor's homegrown inflation that has come from Canberra, from government, and we know that Labor's reckless spending is absolutely at the heart of it. It's why we have opposed over $100 billion of spending, which is the wrong spending for the time because it’s just adding fuel to the fire. Shane Oliver told the committee that the RBA’s job would be a lot easier, in bringing down interest rates of course, if they didn't have the surging government spending that's been occurring over the last few years. This government cannot help itself. It cannot help itself. Its reckless spending is driving inflation, as well as all its red tape on small business. What it's done in the construction sector alongside the unions of course. All of this is taking us backwards and the result is exactly what you described. We can't afford to pay for our heating or air conditioning. We can't afford to pay for our health. Australians are struggling to pay the mortgage, struggling to pay the rent. Younger Australians can’t get into a home. It all starts piling up and it's about getting the basics right.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: It's one thing to say, “I will put a plank a blanket on rather than put the heater on” or “I'll buy a no name product instead of the brand name product that I would normally buy” but when you're saying, “I'm going to now choose between the no name food or the medicine that I need to survive”, we have hit rock bottom. I mean, that's got to be breaking point.

 

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, your point is absolutely right. We know for someone with a chronic condition, if they're not buying the right medication it's going to cost a lot more down the track. Sadly, that cost will not just come in financial terms, but they will come in health and life-threatening terms. That's a complete disaster. This is what happens when you are made poorer. It's not a matter of rich people having less money, this is about hard-working Australians not having access to what they’ve come to expect because our economy has gone backwards. This government does not understand the economy. This Treasurer does not understand the economy and that's why they have made the wrong decisions. They’ve had the wrong priorities. They’ve been weak, they’ve been incompetent and it's showing up everywhere you go now.

 

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: We spoke to Danny Price from Frontier Economics yesterday and we're going to talk to Chris Uhlmann a little bit later on this morning. He’s got a documentary on Sky News about this tonight. But the real cost of this green energy plan. I mean, Chris Bowen keeps banging on with this “the wind doesn't send an invoice” and “the sun doesn't send a bill” kind of rubbish, but the electricity company still does. Whilst they're out there in $122 billion to transition to green energy, analysis says it's more like $620 billion. If I manage my budget at home like that, I'd go broke in five minutes.

 

ANGUS TAYLOR: It's five times higher than they're saying according to Danny Price who is one of the most respected independent energy modellers in Australia. He has a long track record of doing this. The reason is because they assume away a whole bunch of the costs. I'm sure he’s explained that on your program. That's what they have done, over $600 billion of cost coming out. There's no wonder our bills are going up. Chris Bowen is entirely dishonest about this. Either that or he doesn't understand at all. Either way, this is a massive cost coming at us and Labor has been absolutely honest about it and Australians are going to keep playing the price. This is what happens when you have ministers and a government that doesn't understand the basic economics of things. It’s why we've seen this raging inflation, it’s why we’ve seen high interest rates, it's why we're seeing high energy bills. The over $600 billion you described, which Danny Price has outlined, it's just another example of a disastrous Labor government that hasn’t got a clue.

 

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: It's absolutely frightening. I've said this time and time again that when you're in the midst of an energy crisis, you don't put your single least competent minister in charge of energy but that's where we are. Now, the announcement, or it's being reported, that the Coalition is going to oppose Labor’s international student caps. Why? I'm the first to say that this isn't the biggest driver of our housing crisis but every single person that we're bringing in does add to that pressure. Secondly, we've got a university sector that is now devalued in education and it's all about selling degrees overseas. But surely, we've got to do something?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR: We do but this – they've got it all wrong. Just to put this in perspective, we've gone from under half a million international students two years ago, and significantly lower actually during COVID, to more than 800,000 today. A massive increase. The biggest beneficiaries of this have been the big universities but under what is proposed, the big universities get the best deal. This is insane. The small regional universities, private providers, who Labor doesn't like, are being completely gutted. The numbers have to come down. The key to this is the big universities have allowed their numbers to run up way too much. Sydney University, which is where I went, is now close to 50% foreign students. It's not only disastrous in terms of putting pressure on our infrastructure and our housing, which I strongly believe it does, I've seen it, but it is also impacting the student experience. All of that means that it's simply too high in these universities and Labor has let them get away with the best deal yet they are the biggest offenders. So, they've got it all the wrong. They’ve got the wrong balance. As always with Labor, it's not going to work anyway. We think there is a better way.

 

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: But Angus why aren’t we talking about a wholesale review of how the university system works? Now, I blame John Dawkins for this when he was Education Minister in the Hawke Government. All of the colleges of advanced education were elevated to university status. We told anybody that didn't go to university that they were a failure, so we ended up with a skills and trade shortage down the track. We now have universities that aren't providing the quality of education that they used to. It used to be about the best and brightest going on to get a degree that would then launch them into some sort of profession. Well, now we've turned everything into a profession and nobody's qualified to do anything. We need to have a root and branch review of our university system.

 

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, it’s turned into, for the biggest universities, what we traditionally thought of as the highest quality university has now become a numbers game. It's just a numbers game. The big numbers have been the international students that bring in the revenue and that's what they are chasing. So, I do think it's become a major issue. I don't think this legislation is addressing the underlying issue. We'll have more to say about this in the coming months. It's an education issue as well as being an immigration issue. Both issues are at play here, both are important, and Labor’s got both of them wrong.

 

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Well, you might not have months with the way things are going. When do you think the election is going to be?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR: We’ll see. We’ve probably got until Christmas and the New Year but who knows. The one thing I do know is Albanese will call this election when it suits him, not when it suits the Australian people. Who knows when that's going to be. That's something he'll be focused on. What we do know is he is deeply concerned about having to face an electorate that is increasingly seeing he is a weak and incompetent Prime Minister and what I think, is the weakest and most incompetent government since Gough Whitlam. Frankly, I think it's now really starting to rival that government, which was a complete disaster for this country.

 

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: I think a lot of people would agree with you. Angus, we’ll catch up in a couple of weeks.

 

ANGUS TAYLOR: Thanks Stephen.

 

ENDS