Australians are experiencing a triple whammy under Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
Whether it’s groceries, energy bills or your mortgage, cost-of-living pressures are higher under Albanese.
At the core of this is a skills shortage that’s grappling regional Australia and it’s hurting all of us.
This is despite the fact it has been 12 months since Labor’s Jobs and Skills Summit, which was supposed to help ease the skills crisis and, in turn, help all of us.
On behalf of The Nationals, I attended the Jobs and Skills Summit as one of my first priorities when I became leader, to be constructive in representing regional Australia and to work collaboratively with the government in finding practical solutions.
Australia’s top peak food industry bodies warned that agriculture requires an additional 172,000 workers to get food from paddock to port or plate, yet only around 16,000 extra have come in since Labor got into office.
The Nationals pitched allowing pensioners and veterans to work without impacting their payments. This was a no-brainer to solving the skills crisis, while also allowing our pensioners and veterans to top up their weekly payments.
It allowed pensioners and veterans to earn an extra $150 per fortnight, while not putting the burden on the Australian taxpayer, but on the business, who benefitted by getting productivity. It was a common-sense solution.
However, Labor only partially delivered on pensioners and veterans working more hours.
The Nationals continue to push other options to ease the cost-of-living crisis, including reinstating the former Coalition Government’s Agriculture Visa or simplifying the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) Scheme.
Not only has Labor ignored The Nationals’ suggestions, but they have also made things worse with changes to the PALM scheme, hindering agriculture by effectively taking away the tools to grow our nation’s food and fibre.
It is now clear the PALM Scheme is becoming unworkable for agriculture because it will require farmers to offer a minimum of 30 hours per week, even though agricultural work is seasonal work and weather-dependent.
Labor does not understand the agriculture sector, while continuing to ignore the pleas from other Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), to send workers to Australia under the Agriculture Visa.
Since the Jobs and Skills Summit, Consumer Price Index figures also show food and non-alcoholic beverages have increased in price by 7.5 per cent, with bread and cereals up by 11.6 per cent and dairy by 15.2 per cent.
The labour shortage has stripped investment confidence out of the farming sector, so much so, they’re reducing their plantings because they don’t have the confidence there’ll be someone there to pick it.
Couple this with Labor’s failed energy policy, pushing up household and food processors’ energy bills, it means you’re also paying more for your food, while the extra $185 billion in Labor spending is keeping your mortgage higher, longer.
You don’t need to spend money to ease Anthony Albanese’s cost-of-living crisis – you just need to pull the right policy levers that drive down costs.
That’s common sense.
