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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-02-22 Daily Xml
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Question Time

Cost of Living

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Leader of the Opposition) (14:03): My question is to the Premier. Does the Premier have a plan to deal with the highest inflation in the nation? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS: Labor ministers have prioritised spending more than $325,000 on overseas trips since the election. At the same time South Australians are struggling to put food on the table and pay their bills. South Australia's inflation rate is the highest in the nation, meaning that even essential everyday items are increasingly unaffordable. Over the last year the cost of milk has increased by 18 per cent, fruit and vegetables by 9.3 per cent, electricity by 14.4 per cent, and the average mortgage has increased by nearly $1,000 a month.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Treasurer) (14:03): Yes, the Leader of the Opposition is right to raise the issue of inflation. It is having a very significant impact not only on household budgets but also on thousands and thousands of businesses across not only South Australia but the entire country. When we are talking about a through-the-year inflation rate in the order of 8.6 per cent that is something unheard of in recent memory, certainly well beyond the inflation target that has been long established by the Reserve Bank.

Not only are households and businesses having to pay much higher costs, including a range of goods and services (some of those just given to the house by the Leader of the Opposition), but in an effort to combat the inflation, which is rampant across the national economy, we have now had nine successive cash rate rises by the Reserve Bank, which corresponds unfortunately immediately in mortgage rates for millions of Australians. And so in that respect, households and businesses are being confronted with perhaps the most severe double financial whammy that we could have contemplated over the last 20 or 30 years.

As the price of goods and services has escalated now also the price of mortgage debt and other loans is escalating as well. What did we do? Well, we recognised that, as the national economy was flourishing and performing at almost unprecedented levels, we made a commitment to the people of South Australia that we would increase financial support for those people in our community who we thought needed it the most, that is, by and large, those people who are in receipt of state government concessions, and in particular the Cost of Living Concession.

So, while those opposite raise the issue that ministers have been travelling overseas at the cost of tens of thousands of dollars per trip, I am pleased to report that, in contrast, we have committed more than $40 million in this financial year in additional financial assistance; and in that concession alone now spending approximately $80 million on providing payments of $449 for approximately 150,000 South Australians, as the Minister for Human Services updated the house yesterday, and other payments of $224 for other recipients who are not owner/occupiers.

Then, of course, cost of energy is something that is of extraordinary national concern, and quite rightly so. We have had the Premier of South Australia joined with other Premiers and First Ministers and the Prime Minister to agree to a $3 billion assistance package for Australian households, including here in South Australia, the reach of which will not only benefit that same group of South Australians that I just spoke about but also will reach far more broadly than that.

Those payments are currently the subject of implementation discussions between treasurers for rollout this calendar year. That is what both the state and the federal government are doing to help households combat the scourge of high rates of inflation.

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