MICHAELIA CASH: Labor keeps promising life will get easier. Do you feel any better off?

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese loves to tell Australians how well he reckons things are going in this country under his Government.

Last week his ministers, other Labor members and Senators also spent an extraordinary amount of time trying to tell Australians how good they’ve got it.

They trotted out a whole lot of lines about all the extra dollars Australians would supposedly have in their pockets from July 1 as a direct result of their Government.

Labor keeps promising life will be easier. But that is the same promise they made when they were first elected over two years ago.

The reality for hardworking Australian families and small business owners who I talk to is very different. They tell me they are a lot worse off than they were two years ago.

The cost-of-living crisis is out of control and shows no signs of abating.

After two years of Labor, the cost of almost all essentials has increased. Food is up 11.4 per cent. You know this every time you buy groceries at the supermarket.

In addition, housing is up 14 per cent, rents are up 14.2 per cent, electricity is up 21.5 per cent, gas is up 22.2 per cent, health costs are up 11.1 per cent, and education costs are up 10.9 per cent.

As Coalition leader Peter Dutton explained in Parliament before Labor was elected and under the Coalition government, a typical Australian family could secure a new variable rate home loan at 2.4 per cent, paying $35,000 a year.

Now, after two years of the Albanese Government’s decisions driving up inflation, the new loan variable interest rate is 6.3 per cent.

This is costing Australian families an extra $21,000 in after-tax dollars each year.

And now, millions of Australians are facing a double whammy of higher internet costs with NBN prices going up again from July. It’s the second price hike in just eight months since the Albanese Government backed a new pricing deal for NBN last October.

This is what happens when you have a big spending Labor Government that has no economic plan.

The Albanese Labor Government is trying to con Australians.

Challenged in Parliament about Reserve Bank concerns, Mr Albanese totally avoids any mention of his own Government’s $315 billion wild Budget spending spree. That’s spending your money, not Labor’s.

The reality is Labor is doing nothing to curb home-grown inflation — they are actually fuelling inflation in this country.

Every single week since Labor took office, 600 households on average have been plunged into hardship arrangements with their electricity retailer because they can’t pay their bills.

Australians were promised by Mr Albanese that they would see a $275 reduction in their power bills. Instead, households will be paying up to $1000 more than Labor promised.

Even after spending $6.5 billion of taxpayers’ money to mop up its failed energy policy, Labor is still not even close to achieving its promise of a $275 reduction in power bills.

Labor’s so-called energy relief package is a one-off shot in the arm rather than the ongoing price reduction you were promised.

In WA, Labor has turned its back on the farming industry after ignoring a delegation of WA farmers and obtaining the numbers needed in the Senate to phase out live sheep exports.

Our farmers are being treated with contempt, with Labor ignoring pleas from groups including Keep the Sheep, Australian Livestock Exporters’ Council, Sheep Producers Australia, WA Shearing Industry Association, Wool Producers Australia and The Livestock Collective, who spent the day at Parliament House in a last-ditch attempt to persuade Senators to save live sheep exports.

Farmers now know Labor is willing to sell them out and shut down a successful, world-class trade based on ideology.

No amount of reform matters to Labor. It means any future industry, including live cattle, could be next.

What kind of government turns its back on its own farmers? A future Coalition government will reinstate the live sheep export trade.

What has become apparent is that Mr Albanese is focused on everything except what Australian families are experiencing right now.

He needs to deliver an economic plan because Australian families and businesses are under the pump and things are getting even worse. And there’s no relief in sight.

Australia just can’t afford another three years of Labor. The Treasurer said getting on top of inflation was his number one priority.

But we’ve had three failed budgets from Labor and Australians can’t afford another one. We are the only G10 country that has seen inflation go up since December — an indictment on Labor.

Australians deserve better. Australians deserve a strong government that is willing to make tough decisions to get us back on track.

The reality facing Australians right now is that Labor’s homegrown inflation is hurting Australians, families can’t plan for their next grocery shop and businesses can’t plan to keep their doors open.

Labor has the wrong priorities and wrong policy settings for a prosperous economy.

The Coalition will get Australia back on track and stand up for small businesses, farmers, and consumers.

Michaelia Cash is a Liberal Senator for WA.