Australian families can’t ‘afford three more years’ of Labor: Peter Dutton

Well, a couple of points, when we were in government obviously we had legislation there in relation to energy companies because of the conduct that was going on within the energy sector. I believe very strongly that if there's market failure in a particular market and consumers are being adversely impacted, for example in a particular geographic region where there was a concentration of Coles or Woolley stores, to the exclusion of those other competitors and consumers were paying more by way of price, then I think in that circumstance you would look at whether or not that market domination would continue. You've got a situation now where Coles and Woolley's have their own property development arms. They're purchasing blocks of land so that other competitors can't build within the vicinity of their existing operations or their planned operations. So I think there's a question mark about the appropriateness of that behaviour. Ultimately, we've got consumers who are paying through the roof at the moment for items when they turn up to a checkout and that's because of the government's energy policy, because of the decisions the government's made in two budgets which have forced up inflation. Inflation doesn't just impact your interest rates. Everybody knows that their mortgages at the moment are higher because of Labor's inflation rate and that fuels the interest rate, but we also know that it impacts on small businesses and we've seen today many small businesses who are adversely impacted by the high inflation rate. The core inflation rate in this country is higher than most other comparable nations and the Reserve Bank Governor has pointed out that our problem here is home-grown and the government continues to spend, they continue to tax and whilst that's the case, the Reserve Bank will have a very tough time arriving at a decision to reduce interest rates and I think families get that they're really suffering at the moment because of the decisions being made by the Albanese government. The government's making it harder, not easier for families and I just don't think Australian families can afford three more years of a bad Labor government. So when St Mark's Day comes up, you'll be sure to back this up at any price? I think every business is experiencing higher input costs. That's the reality. The farmer who pays more for fertiliser because it's energy intensive in terms of manufacturing fertiliser, they're paying more for their cold room storage, the jam manufacturer is paying more for the glass jar, the truck driver is paying more for the truck to be on the road. All of that ultimately gets passed on to consumers and we need to have a government that's able to deal with those realities but at the moment, the government's had two budgets and they've made decisions which have just made it harder for families, not easier. The Prime Minister promised that he'd bring down electricity prices by $275, he promised it on 97 occasions. Do you know that he hasn't mentioned it once since he's been elected? I think Australians know that they're paying more for electricity, paying more for gas, more for fuel, they're paying more for their insurance and every line item in your family budget and your small business budget just continues to go up and up under this government.