The choice prime minister boldly declared the 2025 federal election was a “sliding doors moment” for the nation.
Peter Dutton’s funds reply speech on Thursday night was stuffed with information and figures to color Labor as hopeless at managing Australia’s greatest pursuits.
However how nicely do Dutton’s claims stack up?
‘The worst collapse in living standards’
Maybe the standout declare from the opposition chief on Thursday was that Australia had “experienced the longest household recession and the worst collapse in living standards in our country’s history”.
On Friday morning he repeated: “Australia’s had the biggest fall in living standards in the developed world.”
The economist Saul Eslake says the very best single measure of residing requirements is actual family disposable revenue per capita.
That determine, derived from the nationwide accounts, fell by about 10% between its “somewhat inflated” peak in September 2021 and June 2024.
It’s the largest fall within the historical past of the info stretching again to 1959, and worse than in comparable nations comparable to Canada, New Zealand and the US.
“But a significant proportion of that happened in the quarters under the former government,” Eslake says.
Housing and groceries
Dutton made additional claims about the price of housing and home payments.
“Here’s the facts of the Albanese government’s economic record,” he informed parliament in his funds reply speech. “Rents are up by 18% Housing is up by 14%. Groceries up by a staggering 30%.”
In accordance with the Australian Bureau of Statistics, rents did rise by 18% between the March quarter in 2022 and December quarter in 2024.
Home costs have risen 6.5% nationally since Could 2022, in accordance with CoreLogic, and items 5.1%.
On grocery costs, Dutton seems to have taken the 30% determine from a Each day Telegraph secret buying examine in March. The ABS places the rise in meals prices at about 14% with solely fat and oils surpassing the 30% enhance mark.
Energy payments
Dutton stated Australia has a number of the highest energy costs on this planet. Particularly, that electrical energy was “up by 32%” this time period regardless of Labor promising a mean discount of $275 per family, and that gasoline payments had elevated by as much as 43%. He blamed “Anthony Albanese and Chris Bowen’s reckless renewables-only policy train wreck”.
Electrical energy and gasoline payments did rise considerably shortly after Labor was elected, however the consultants say the hike was largely not as a result of rollout of photo voltaic and windfarms. It was largely on account of an increase in fossil gasoline costs after Russia invaded Ukraine, and to 1 / 4 of the nation’s coal vegetation being offline throughout winter.
ABS stats present electrical energy payments have really fallen 10% between the March 2022 quarter and the December 2024 quarter, largely on account of a sequence of presidency subsidies. The ABS signifies energy payments within the December quarter would have been nearly 50% larger however for billions of {dollars} in federal and state authorities rebates.
Fuel costs are up by 31% within the 33-month interval, in accordance with the ABS.
Consultants have stated it is rather doubtless the rises would have occurred whoever was in authorities.
It’s price additionally noting Labor’s coverage will not be “renewables only” – it’s renewable power backed by “firming” from batteries, pumped hydro and fast-start gasoline vegetation.
Well being
Dutton claims bulk-billing availability has fallen by 11 proportion factors, leading to 41m fewer bulk-billing claims.
“On this government’s watch, bulk billing nationally has fallen by 11%. There’s 41m fewer bulk-billing episodes with GP services under this government, and more than 270 GP practices have closed under this government’s watch,” he stated.
“Australians should never have to choose between seeing a doctor or paying their bills.”
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The Australian Institute of Well being and Welfare says the bulk-billing charge peaked in 2020 and 2021 at 89% after the Morrison authorities doubled the bulk-billing incentive for six months and required bulk-bulling be utilized to a variety of companies.
In 2022 it fell again to 85% earlier than dropping to 77% in 2023 and 78% for the primary 10 months of 2024.
Between 2021 and 2024 the autumn was 11 proportion factors, however that features greater than a yr below the Morrison authorities.
Is a flood of migrants driving up homes costs?
Dutton claimed 1,000,000 individuals got here via Australia’s migration program within the Albanese authorities’s first two years in authorities – which, he stated, amounted to 70% extra migrants than in any two-year interval within the nation’s historical past.
Evaluation of the figures means that’s broadly correct, though the ABS migration figures stretch again solely so far as 1981.
The opposition chief additionally linked these figures to the price of housing.
“Australians are generous and welcoming people, but they want migration to be sustainable and the government to be in control of it. Labor is neither in control of migration, nor has it kept migration at sustainable levels, and Australians know it,” he stated.
Excessive migration ranges do affect home costs, but it surely’s not the first driver as Dutton has instructed.
The inhabitants is not any bigger now than it was anticipated to be earlier than the pandemic. In different phrases, an unusually massive rise in housing prices has not been matched by an unusually massive rise within the inhabitants.
Dutton additionally stated Labor’s housing insurance policies had not delivered a single new house.
It’s true that no new homes have been constructed from scratch below the $10bn Housing Australia Future Fund, though a quantity have been acquired or renovated to a suitable residing normal the place they weren’t earlier than.
Below the $2bn Social Housing Accelerator, 402 social housing dwellings have been accomplished throughout the nation, together with some from scratch, however the majority have additionally been acquired and refurbished.
A ‘national gas emergency’?
Dutton stated Labor had “created a national gas emergency due to insufficient supply” and consequently the nation was dealing with “blackouts and brownouts” and power rationing. He stated the Coalition would create a gasoline reservation coverage that will require gasoline corporations to provide an additional 10-20% of gasoline domestically, relatively than export it.
Australia doesn’t have a gasoline emergency. The Australian Power Market Operator (Aemo) has stated it expects an annual scarcity in southern states from 2029 – later than beforehand forecast – until extra provide is discovered. Some steps are being taken to handle it. Aemo proposed new manufacturing, new gasoline storage amenities and short-term liquefied pure gasoline (LNG) terminals. Analysts have instructed an extra choice: doing extra to chop gasoline demand by changing it the place potential with renewable electrical energy.
The potential medium-term gasoline shortfall will not be placing the nationwide electrical energy grid susceptible to blackouts and brownouts. Comparatively little gasoline is used within the nationwide grid supplying the jap states – it supplied solely 5.2% of technology up to now yr – and the reliability of the system has remained inside the goal band. When concern about potential shortages has been raised on specific days it has largely been on account of previous coal vegetation being offline.
Aemo has instructed there could possibly be reliability points if all proposed new renewable technology will not be constructed roughly inside the proposed timeframe. Labor has taken steps to speed up the rollout – the Coalition has stated it might sluggish it.
Few particulars had been obtainable in regards to the Coalition’s gasoline reservation coverage, however it’s price noting that its rationale that Australians are utilizing extra gasoline – as claimed by the assets spokesperson, Susan McDonald – will not be backed by information. The Institute for Power Economics and Monetary Evaluation discovered gasoline demand in jap Australia, not counting that used for LNG exports, had fallen 32% since peaking in 2012-13.
Rewiring the Nation
Dutton stated the Coalition would “end the reckless $20bn Rewiring the Nation Fund” and cease the rollout of 28,000km of latest transmission traces below Labor.
That will probably be tough as $16.75bn of the funding has already been allotted to the states and territories, together with transmission hyperlinks to the Snowy Hydro 2.0 challenge and Marinus Hyperlink to Tasmania, each of which have had Coalition assist. Quite than 28,000km, Labor says it’s planning about 10,000km of latest or strengthened transmission traces, according to what Aemo calls a “step change scenario” within the grid. About 4,500km needs to be constructed by 2030.
The funding for Rewiring the Nation will not be a direct value on the federal funds. The Clear Power Finance Company manages it as a sequence of loans issued at under market charges. The loans are designed make the federal government a revenue.
