Wednesday, 21 June 2023

Cost of living

Chris CREWTHER (Mornington) (17:25): I grieve for the people of Victoria.

Paul Edbrooke: You look happy, though, Chris.

Chris CREWTHER: I grieve for Victorians, member for Frankston, facing ever-growing cost-of-living pressures, as you would know in your seat, where the chance to survive, let alone thrive, has become more and more difficult, particularly over the last eight to nine years of this Daniel Andrews Labor government, where aspiration is brutally punished by a Labor government hell-bent on waging war against working families; where ballooning debt of $116 billion and growing dooms generations of Victorians to foot the bill for this Labor government’s blunders; and where home ownership, once a mark of independence and key to economic security, is becoming increasingly unattainable.

A key reason I entered politics is that growing up in Horsham I saw many people, particularly children, disadvantaged by where they lived and/or their socio-economic situation. This needs to be fixed, but what we have instead seen is the problem getting worse and worse. These cost-of-living pressures have been felt acutely by Mornington electorate locals, such as in places like Mornington Park, as well as by Victorians as a whole. I have spoken with many locals about land tax hikes, which supposedly target the wealthy but ultimately end up punishing many middle-income mums and dads, and renters – it is not just a land tax, it is a renter’s tax. I have spoken with locals about electricity, heating, fuel and food prices increasing and the financial sacrifices individuals and families have to make just to keep the lights on, to stay warm, to put food on the table and to drive to school or work or shopping or elsewhere. I have spoken with mums and dads who fear that the Labor government’s new schools tax will pose such a great financial burden that they will have to remove their children from the schools they know and love, not send the siblings, or not send their kids in the first place.

Australia is supposed to be the lucky country and Victoria the place to be, and as you all know, the Mornington electorate is of course the jewel in the crown of our great state. But this situation should not be happening, and it has only been expanded upon by a very tired and reckless Labor government, who have been in government now for 20 of the last 24 years. Victoria’s botched COVID response, including the world’s longest lockdowns, has left the state with huge economic calamities. Indeed the world’s longest lockdowns left a costly legacy, with estimated state costs being $218 billion, or $33,000 for every Victorian. Our debt stands to climb to over $171 billion by June 2027, almost a quarter of our gross state product, with interest rates going from $10 million a day to $22 million a day in just a few years time. Imagine what could be built per day with $22 million. That is a new school, and they are tiring, the schools in my electorate. For example, you have Mount Eliza Secondary College or you have Mornington Park Primary School; their buildings are around 50 years old. With $22 million of interest that is being paid each day into the future, that could actually fund those schools, in just two days, to be rebuilt.

Now, Victoria also has the worst debt burden of 17 similar states across the world. Since we have had a Labor government, state and federal in Victoria and nationally since May last year, have things got better? No. Have things got worse? Yes, they have. Cost-of-living pressures have gotten worse. Interest rates have gone from 0.35 per cent in May 2022 to 3.85 per cent just a year later, an 11-year high. Over the past 12 months, all cost-of-living indices have risen by between 7.1 per cent and 9.6 per cent for all households, with a 7 per cent annual increase in inflation. That is higher costs for food, heating and more. These are not just empty statistics or coincidences; they are indicative of poor fiscal management and governance by Labor governments here in Victoria and nationally, with Victoria being perhaps the most irresponsible of them all with this Andrews Labor government.

I listened to the member for Richmond before. While I often do not agree with many Greens policies, I could at least tell she cares. I do know there are many Labor members who individually care as well, but I cannot say the same for this Labor government as a whole when I look at their policies and the outcomes they are causing for Victorians. It says to me that the Labor government does not care.

On inflation, the Labor government seems to see taxation as a weapon against inflation, a panacea for the cost-of-living crisis. Yet it is just the opposite, and this government should be exercising every measure possible not to increase taxes. When it does, that often just means more money going to the government to waste on white-elephant projects like the Suburban Rail Loop, a backdoor $200 billion-plus project that was dreamed up in a secretive way with little consultation, a project that was lambasted by our Auditor-General, with a cost-benefit ratio of just $0.51, meaning that for every one dollar spent the return is only 51 cents. This project is one where there was not a clear business case finalised prior to the government making a significant financial commitment. That is how much Labor cares about your money. An individual – I or anyone else here in this room – who does not do thorough research before committing to a major financial investment is foolish. A government who recklessly spends Victorians’ money without sufficient analysis is callous. We need to rein in reckless government debt and stop this government from getting away with it.

I want to talk further on the schools tax, which I mentioned earlier. There is a decision in the budget to remove the tax exemption for many Victorian independent schools, meaning that these schools will pay tax of up to 5.85 per cent of their payroll – and that is on top, for the Mornington Peninsula. The Mornington Peninsula is deemed as metropolitan by this state Labor government, so they are already paying higher payroll taxes than in, say, Geelong or elsewhere. This decision effectively delivers an ultimatum to independent schools, such as Balcombe Grammar School in my electorate in Mount Martha, whose fees start at around only $7600. That ultimatum is to either pass on the additional financial burden to the parents of the children enrolled and/or to implement harmful cost-cutting measures that could see the loss of staff and a drop in the standard of educational services.

Parents in my electorate and indeed parents across Victoria send their children to independent schools for many different reasons, such as the exceptional standard of education, access for kids with disabilities, values, proximity and more. I have had many, many parents in my electorate, particularly from Balcombe Grammar School, write to me very worried about Labor’s schools tax. In most situations these parents are middle-income earners or indeed low-to-middle-income earners who work incredibly hard to pay school fees, often making many sacrifices to give their children the best chance of success. These families are not the uber-wealthy, as the Labor government would like you to think, and should not be bearing the responsibility of paying back all of Labor’s debts.

With cost-of-living pressures exceptionally high for families already, with growing mortgage rates and inflation on food prices and more, if the schools pass on these extra costs, this means that parents may have to either remove their children from independent schools and place them into government schools, not send their siblings or not send their kids altogether, to ease the financial burden on their households. This in turn will put further pressure and costs on our public system, with infrastructure already not keeping up. Ironically it would actually cost the state government more for each student who moves across or goes to a public school to start with. Local public schools are already under strain in terms of numbers and with lack of infrastructure investment, particularly in the electorate of Mornington. I mentioned before a couple of local examples. One is Mornington Park Primary School and another is Mount Eliza Secondary College, whose facilities are around 50 years old, deteriorating and facing mould, asbestos and more. They have been crying out for investment for years but have been ignored by this Labor government, who as I have mentioned, have been in power in Victoria for nearly 20 of the last 24 years. And it is no wonder when we see 93 per cent of school capital works funding being spent on public schools in Labor seats. Instead it should be on the basis of need across Victoria. It is nothing short of deeply shameful pork-barrelling.

I want to go back to land tax as well. The Treasurer’s budget targets aspirational Victorians with punitive land taxes which will indeed of course be passed through to renters, so it is a renters tax. Payments, for example, will increase to $975 for rental properties between $100,000 and $300,000, while a further 0.1 per cent of the land value will be applied to properties worth more than $300,000. This government are grossly out of touch with the Victorian people, but they fail to completely understand and recognise that not everyone, for example, with one or even a couple of properties beyond their home are wealthy. They are often looking to provide for their families and are mum-and-dad investors. In fact I have had many Mornington electorate locals reach out to me who have, for example, inherited properties and are now straddled with land tax debts while unemployed or earning below average income.

Land tax is not carrying out its nominal purpose of targeting the supposed 1 per cent. Instead it punishes lower income and middle-income mum-and-dad investors, renters, students, retirees, small business owners, beneficiaries of property and more. Furthermore, the land tax increase from this Labor government is, as I mentioned, also a renters tax. It will put further pressure on mum-and-dad investors, which either might lead to them selling their properties, which will potentially then reduce rental stock and put upward pressure on rents, or might lead to them having to pass costs on to renters to keep up with increasing mortgages, land tax, food, fuel and other costs.

I will go further into public housing. On public housing and housing as a whole, housing affords individuals and families dignity, stability and security. Numerous Victorians are trapped in limbo as the wait for public housing has hit an all-time high. The situation has not got better over the last eight years, it has gotten worse. The latest figures show over 67,000 Victorians waiting urgently for a home or otherwise in dire need of relocation due to inadequate or unsuitable housing, yet Victoria’s pool of social housing has only grown by 74 units in four years, despite the Andrews Labor government’s $5.3 billion Big Housing Build in social and affordable housing. The Andrews Labor government is also selling off an average of two public housing properties every week, despite the ballooning waiting lists. In the Mornington Peninsula shire, which has the sixth-worst level of homelessness in Victoria, we also see that the number of public housing dwellings has actually decreased. They have decreased by a net 13 over the last eight years since this Andrews government has come in, and I have had multiple local support organisations and constituents contact me about public housing properties being sold or remaining vacant in our Mornington electorate. Indeed I know that this is the case in many places across Victoria. Public housing is imperative to the health and wellbeing of society’s marginalised and improves their social and economic resilience. We noted the other day the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Victoria would get a quarter of their $2 billion housing accelerator to help towards public housing. As part of this, the Premier talked about purchasing existing stock, but I ask the question: won’t that reduce stock for renters? Won’t that reduce stock for buyers? Ironically, doing so will actually potentially push more people into the public housing queue.

I want to go further into this situation as well, and I want to talk about young Australians in general –I am not sure if I still count as a young Australian as a 39-year-old, but I will go with that until my birthday in August. I find it tragic that only one in 10 potential first home buyers across Australia can achieve home ownership while the rest are struggling. They are struggling to save for a deposit or to service a mortgage or both. I find it tragic how Australia’s home ownership rates have fallen from 71 per cent to 66 per cent in 25 years. I find it tragic that now more than 70 per cent of young people believe they will never be able to buy a home.

How does the Premier treat young, aspirational Victorians who want to one day own a home? ‘They’re happy renting,’ says the Premier. ‘Not everyone has intergenerational wealth or the ability to act like a bank.’ As a parent I want my own children to be able to own their own home one day, and I am sure other parents would feel the same way. Indeed in a recent survey only 19 per cent of respondents said they had chosen not to buy a home; 45 per cent said they had wanted to but were priced out of the market. I continue to grieve about this cost-of-living crisis.