New
inflation data today shows the cost of living crisis continues to escalate in
Tasmania, with the cost of living rising at the fastest rate since the 1980s.
Consumer
Price Index data released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows
inflation in Hobart is now 8.6 per cent – the highest rate of increase for any
state or territory.
Tasmanian
wages continue to lag behind the rest of the country, with Jeremy Rockliff now
threatening workers to agree to a deal that would see their pay cut by thousands
of dollars in real terms.
Tasmanian
families are going backwards at an ever-increasing rate, and businesses are
facing further operational costs which put at risk livelihoods and services.
Significant
contributors to the rise in the CPI were things families can’t go without –
electricity (29.9 per cent), housing (14.3 per cent), food (8.7 per cent) and
transport (14.1 per cent).
Rather
than acting on the cost of living, Jeremy Rockliff refuses to even acknowledge the
need for control of Tasmania’s electricity prices, let alone develop a plan to
deal with the forecast increases that would see the average Tasmanian’s annual
power bill rise by more than $1,000.
This
Liberal Government is inept at running Tasmania’s economy, blowing a hole in
the state budget, creating a housing crisis through nearly a decade of neglect,
and refusing to back Labor’s plan to cap power prices at 2.5 per cent. Instead
Jeremy Rockliff is focusing all his effort on building a $750 million stadium
in Hobart.
The
government has lost control of the basics of economic management and urgently
needs to get its priorities right.
Shane Broad MP
Shadow Treasurer
