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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2022-06-01 Daily Xml
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Question Time

Cost of Living Concession

Mr SPEIRS (Black—Leader of the Opposition) (14:13): My question is to the Premier. Can the Premier explain why his Cost of Living Concession expansion for the coming year is only limited to people who meet strict eligibility criteria for the concession? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr SPEIRS: Hikes in the cost of petrol, electricity and food have seen many South Australian households struggling to make ends meet. By way of comparison, every household in Victoria is set to receive a $250 cash payment to help with the rising cost of living from 1 July simply by signing up to an energy comparison website to become eligible.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Premier) (14:14): I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his important question because cost of living is top of mind, I think, not just for every South Australian at the moment but probably for every Australian. In fact, I heard on the radio only this morning reports of the rates of inflation throughout most modern economies. I think the US now is just under 9 per cent, continental Europe is hovering around about 8 per cent and I think the United Kingdom was around about a 10 per cent hike in the rate of inflation. This is an omnipresent issue.

Clearly, inflation, in our view, is the working person's curse, but those people who feel the brunt particularly acutely are those who don't have the flexibility or ability to adjust their incomes. Working people on enterprise agreements that are typically three to five years in length, their incomes are very much fixed but, similarly, pensioners and other people on incomes—often from the government—are fixed as well, which means they don't have the ability to immediately account for cost-of-living pressures unless they curtail spending.

The ability of people on low and fixed incomes is very small. They don't have large discretionary incomes, which means they feel the pain first and foremost, which is why, long before the most recent inflation figures came out, on this side of the house we could see the challenge coming and we decided to do something about it. In the lead-up to the most recent state election, which was only a few weeks ago, we had very lengthy deliberations—and I can assure you that they were very lengthy—about what our policy mix would be to address this challenge, including not just a short-term focus but also a long-term focus.

For the purposes of the Leader of the Opposition's question, he speaks to a policy that very much is trying to provide relief in the immediate term. One of the policy levers that state government has available to them, of course, is to address the cost-of-living concession which is provided for on a fixed eligibility basis and which was supported by those opposite throughout the entirety of their period of government.

We are applying the same eligibility criteria, but what we are doing is doubling the size of the cost-of-living payment. If we increase that by the rate of inflation, it might amount to an increase of the order of $5 to $10, but instead we have decided to double it—so a 100 per cent increase. I can say with absolute confidence that that policy was opposed by the Liberal Party. They opposed our Cost of Living Concession increase. They seek to criticise it.

In fact, I can specifically recall their leaders within the movement, and that includes of course representatives of the Budget Cabinet Committee, of which the Leader of the Opposition was a member, supporting efforts of accusing us of throwing cash around. We don't believe it is throwing cash around. What we think is that it is very deliberate and targeted support to those in our community who need it most—those who need it most.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the now opposition, the then government, has maintained their opposition to this policy. Let the record state that the opposition—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: —is opposed to our policy, but I can assure the shadow minister for education, I can assure the Leader of the Opposition, amongst everybody in this house, that when the Treasurer and I, along with the member for Adelaide, were announcing this policy amongst a group of predominantly pensioners on the weekend they were very grateful for it, and we look forward to delivering it in this year's budget only tomorrow.

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