Subjects: Visit to CareNet; Labor’s cost of living crisis; bushfires in Victoria; Labor’s energy policy shambles.
E&OE.
KEITH WOLAHAN:
We’re here at CareNet in Templestowe, in the seat of Menzies. It’s one of many food banks that the community relies on and cherishes.
It’s wonderful to have our Leader, Peter Dutton here with his wife Kirilly. We’ve been packing some food hampers, and what we’ve noticed is that a wide spectrum of people use this service, including people who are working a job or a second job, because food insecurity is across this country and definitely across Melbourne.
So Peter, thank you for joining us here at this food bank. It’s grown from 100 kilos of food a week to now 4,000 kilos of food a week.
So to Kellie and her team, thank you for hosting us today.
Peter, over to you.
PETER DUTTON:
Keith, thank you very much.
Can I firstly just say thank you to CareNet – to Kellie, to Ron, to the whole team, over 50 volunteers who make this work, and when you think about the people they’re helping, when you think about the lives that they’re helping to improve, it is a remarkable set up.
I think it’s quite emotional when you think about – in the run up to this Christmas – that many families can’t afford to put food on the table in our country in the 21st century. We need to do more and we need to do better as a country to take care of those who are less fortunate.
There are many families who just can’t pay their electricity bill, their insurance bill’s gone up, people are deciding not to insure theire house, or their car, there are a lot of people who are working harder than ever, and yet they just can’t make it add up. It gives rise to a lot of angst and anger within relationships and arguments about bills and finances, and that’s not what we want to see in our country.
We want interest rates to come down so that people with a mortgage can have less pressure each month when they get to make their mortgage repayment, we want to make sure that as a result of lowering interest rates, that we’ll have a situation where people can have less pressure on rate increases for their rent.
So, there’s a lot that’s involved in getting budgets right, and over the last three budgets, I just think the Government’s made a number of decisions which have made it harder, not easier for Australian families.
The work here are CareNet, but across many organisations similar to this, this Christmas is going to be a very busy period, and it’s really ramped up – as Keith pointed out before – to four tonne a week of food going out and essentially they’ve outgrown this premise and they’re looking for bigger premises – and that was the situation earlier in the week in Melbourne where we heard a very similar story.
So, I want to say thank you very much to Keith Wolahan for organising today’s visit, for the work that he does in his local community.
I want to give a shout out today to some of the CFA volunteers who I know are back at it this summer, and there’s a lot of difficult weather across the country at the moment and we would expect that over the course of summer in our country. So please, to the volunteers, take care.
To people who are affected in those communities where bushfires are a risk, or other natural disasters over this summer, please, please, please heed the advice of the authorities. Listen to what people are telling you in your local community in terms of evacuation, or indeed preparedness for this bushfire season. It’s incredibly important to be able to save lives that we have that information out there and most importantly that it’s listened to.
A couple of other points: firstly, as we know during the week, Ted O’Brien – I think has done a fantastic job in the Shadow Energy portfolio – but released a report which shows that it’s not $122 billion that the Government estimated for their renewables only policy; it’s now five times that, and that’s a conservative estimate. So when you look at Chris Bowen, it makes me think of Maxwell Smart who ‘missed it by that much’ – only $500 billion. But the sad part is that Australians are going to be paying for that $500 billion in increased electricity bills, in increased gas bills.
The Prime Minister, I noticed in the last 24 hours, is refusing to say what happens with the 2035 target and beyond that in terms of people’s electricity prices. If the Government’s committing to a higher number, they should announce it before the election. In the United Kingdom, Keir Starmer has been upfront with the British people and said that it’s moving to 81 per cent. Where is the Prime Minister in his openness, honesty and transparency? People deserve to know before they vote, how much will their electricity bill go up by under Labor?
The Prime Minister promised a $275 decrease in electricity bills. We know that they’ve gone up by about $1,000 and they’re going to continue to go up exponentially because Australian families are going to have to pay the $500 billion cost blow-out under Labor’s renewables only policy.
So we think there’s a better way, we want to get our country back on track, we want to make it affordable for families and that’s exactly what we will do.
So thank you very much again to CareNet for the services that they’re providing, for the support that they’ve given to many people who are less fortunate, and please, if you’re able to, give generously, donate generously to a charity of your choice in the run up to this Christmas, because that will mean the difference for families who can put food on the table this Christmas and those who will miss out. So thank you again to Kellie and all of team for having us here today.
Thank you.
[ends]