Michaelia Cash: After a year of the Albanese Labor Government, are you better off?

There is a simple question that every Australian should ask after enduring 12 months of the Albanese Labor Government.

Do I feel better off today than I did a year ago?

Many Australians whom I talk to across the country are answering that question with a resounding no. Mr Albanese and his Labor Government colleagues spent a large part of last week celebrating the anniversary of their election. The hubris on display was breath taking and misplaced.

Labor’s first year in government has been marked by broken promises and bad decisions that have left Australians worse off and feeling like they are going backwards. Labor lied when it promised to cut power bills by $275. West Australians have fared a little better than most of the country, but prices are still going up here. The latest data shows household power bills will rise by $594 in NSW; $512 in South Australia and $402 in south east Queensland.

Labor promised to help workers lift real wages, but in the last year workers have suffered diminishing real wages which have had their largest fall in 25 years. Labor promised not to raise the tax burden but taxes are due to increase by $300 billion over five years.

Labor promised not to introduce industry-wide bargaining but has done just that and dramatically increased the power of union bosses.

And Labor promised a 24/7 nurse in every aged care home this year but they can’t deliver, and our senior citizens are the losers. Australians are paying more for everything with the cost of living pressures faced by households turning into a cost of living crisis.

A typical family with a mortgage is $25,000 worse off than they were a year ago, hit hard by interest rate rises, higher taxes, energy bills and other living costs. The price of food is now a major issue for middle Australia.

Small businesses are being hit by rising costs making it more difficult for hard working business owners to make ends meet. I visited a hard working café owner recently who just wants to employ people and make a living for his family.

This café owner has seen the wholesale price of eggs had rise by 50 per cent in just a few months cutting into his falling margins and forcing him to pass some of the cost onto customers.

Our core inflation is higher than almost every major advanced economy in the world with Labor failing to make a dent in it after a year in office. Our core inflation is higher than France, the United States, Japan, Canada and the Euro area.

Yet again in Parliament last week, Mr Albanese tried to blame the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It just won’t wash anymore because it’s just not true. Inflation is not coming from the Kremlin, it’s coming from Canberra.

Labor’s Budget did nothing to take pressure off prices and the impact on Australian families and businesses. A strong case can made that it actually made inflation worse.

The best tool the Government has at its disposal to bring down inflation is to rein in spending. But Labor failed to do that in this Budget.

Not a single measure in response to recommendations in the Productivity Commission’s five-year review was included in the Budget.

If productivity is to rise in this country it will take a concerted effort by Government to support businesses to lower costs. We also need to keep unemployment low.

Labor’s first year in Government has also been characterised by an increasing lack of transparency.

In Senate estimates hearings last week there were an alarming number of examples of this Government blocking access to information that it should make public — information Australians have a right to know about.

The department overseen by Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus was caught out refusing to provide the Opposition information it requested to assist in preparation for Budget estimates, information the Coalition routinely provided to Labor when they were in opposition.

Mr Dreyfus has spoken many times about transparency, but his own department doesn’t comply with the most basic principles of transparency and impartiality by refusing to provide information and treating the Labor Party differently to the Coalition.

We also discovered the Albanese Government publicly released sensitive advice from the solicitor general about the former government in August last year, after a process that was exposed as a complete farce and contrary to the Government’s own rules.

Despite departmental rules in place to the contrary, the Attorney-General’s Department revealed that it was only consulted after Prime Minister Albanese had already announced that the solicitor general’s advice would be made public.

And when we pursued questions about the release of the solicitor general’s advice on the Voice referendum we discovered that the Government received a fourth piece of legal advice that’s existence remained a secret until we asked.

Until last week it was known that three pieces of advice had been given to the Government by the solicitor general. But officials admitted there was a fourth piece of advice which the Government wants to keep secret and refuses to release.

Only one piece of advice, the most recent, has been released publicly. Officials admitted this piece of advice was commissioned purely for the purpose of public release.

This Government is asking Australians to vote to change the Constitution, our nation’s rule book and most important document, but continues to keep secret all the information that is available.

The way the Government has gone about this process is underhanded and tricky — all they do is make excuses and try to hide the truth. How can they be trusted when they will not tell the Australian people the most basic details about changing the nation’s rule book?

Government ministers can celebrate a year in office all they like. The reality for the Australian people is that life is getting harder under Labor and it is very clear we have a Government that is not living up to its promises of conducting itself with integrity and transparency.

Secrecy is now Labor’s weapon to avoid telling the truth.

Michaelia Cash is a Liberal Senator for WA.