Senator Dean Smith
Shadow Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury
Liberal Senator for Western Australia
TRANSCRIPT – INTERVIEW WITH OLIVER PETERSON, 6PR PERTH LIVE WITH OLIVER PETERSON
TOPICS: Cost of living; Labor’s economic mismanagement; WA inflation
E&OE
OLIVER PETERSON:
Tell me, what is the Perth premium price that you believe you are charged more for? Because the cost of living in Perth, it has surged far more than the national average. WA Liberal Senator Dean Smith can tell you more. He joins me now. Good afternoon.
DEAN SMITH:
Good afternoon to you, Ollie.
OLIVER PETERSON:
The statistics that you have managed to get your hands on from the ABS paint a pretty bleak picture over here in WA.
DEAN SMITH:
They do paint a very bleak picture. And what we now have is the data, which proves what many West Australian families have known for a long time, and that is that the cost-of-living crisis in Western Australia is real. What I did is I went and analysed the ABS data over the last few years, got the Parliamentary Library to independently research and verify that. And the results are alarming. We know that in Western Australia the CPI increase has been 19.5% in Perth, whereas the national average has only been at 18%. We noted that at the same time Perth has been experiencing record levels of inflation, the average weekly earnings have only increased by 13.9%. We know that when people are talking about the cost-of-living crisis across the country, this data demonstrates that it’s worse for people in Perth.
OLIVER PETERSON:
We’re copping it on all fronts. What did your analysis show when it comes to housing, Senator?
DEAN SMITH:
Well, quite scary results. So the ABS data analysis that we looked at in regards to housing and other goods that families are, that are part of their basket of goods that they would purchase every, week or every fortnight. We saw that 35%, 35% increase in housing costs for Western Australians compared to housing costs, increasing by just 24.2% for the rest of the country. We saw that insurance costs for West Australian families were 49.4% in WA when the national increase was just 38.9% and then talking about families, we saw that footwear for infants increased by 5.1%, clothing services increased by 11%, education expenses, so primary and secondary school expenses, increased by 11.9%.
OLIVER PETERSON:
This data demonstrates that Western Australia is carrying more than its fair share of the CPI and inflationary pain, aren’t we?
DEAN SMITH:
Indeed.
OLIVER PETERSON:
The insurance one really gets me. It is a bugbear of mine, and I know our listeners this afternoon, Senator, because we always receive that correspondence, particularly with motor vehicle insurance has been going up. You know, for some people between 20 and as you say, they’re up to 50%. Yet when you talk to the insurers, they say, well, there’s been lots of natural disasters in Australia, the floods and the fires and the cyclones, but majority of them are East Coast issues. Yet West Australians are having to pay for it.
DEAN SMITH:
I think that’s exactly the point. As I travel around regional Western Australia, particularly across the Kimberley and the Pilbara, insurance costs hits families because they’re having to insure their homes and their precious goods like a caravan or a motor vehicle. And it hits businesses as well because these are worker’s compensation costs or other insurance costs for business. So, no one is saved from the rising insurance problems. And the insurers, when they come to Parliament to speak to me about insurance issues, they say there’s a variety of factors at play. What I’m interested in understanding is how much of the profiteering is happening around insurance, and what we can do to make sure that insurance premiums properly reflect the cost of that insurance, to make sure that people do actually stay with an insurer, take out insurance policies, because if people can’t afford insurance, that will lead to underinsurance in the economy. And that’s a very bad outcome for everybody.
OLIVER PETERSON:
My guest is Senator Dean Smith. Senator, it has been revealed only a couple of hours ago now at The Australian newspaper that the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, while he was in Perth over the weekend, was actually down at the Cottesloe Tennis Club on Saturday afternoon, with plenty of people asking why was he playing tennis when he should have been visiting that Melbourne synagogue following the firebomb attack on Friday?
DEAN SMITH:
This is quite a shocking and disappointing revelation. My first hope would be that West Australians stand in solidarity with members of the West Australian Jewish community at this time, because of the very real sense of anxiety that the livelihoods of many Jewish people in our state are at risk, and the national leader should be where the national issues are. And if he had to leave Western Australia at a moment’s notice because of the situation that had happened in Melbourne, I think that West Australians would have absolutely understood that. This is a very ill-conceived priority. If he was playing tennis, then that was absolutely the wrong thing to be doing on that particular day in that particular place. The nation needs our national leaders to be paying attention to national issues and to be showing real, credible leadership. At times like this, no one would have thought that the events of the 7th of October would lead to the sort of dismantling, the lack of social cohesion that we’re all seeing, and experiencing across our country. The country is ready for a real national leader that understands that the leader has to be where the national issues are. This is a significant misstep on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s part.
OLIVER PETERSON:
Well, Senator, I said a little earlier this afternoon on the program and posed the question, is this Albo’s Scomo Hawaii moment? I know you probably won’t like me bringing that up, but obviously the former Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, was chastised for remaining in Hawaii as Australia burned. I mean, is there a comparison to this with Albo playing tennis in Cottesloe on Saturday?
DEAN SMITH:
Well, there’s one comparison. I think what is important is the election comparison. And in a few months, perhaps even five months, Australians and West Australians will get an opportunity to go to the polls and make a judgement about whether Anthony Albanese has lived up to their expectations of him. And just remember that in May 2022, just two and a half years ago, Anthony Albanese came to Perth, did a campaign launch for the Labor Party and said that life would be better under Anthony Albanese. I think two and a half years later, West Australian voters know that is not true and I’ll be making the case and arguing for them to vote out Labor and to elect Peter Dutton and the Coalition.
OLIVER PETERSON:
Dean Smith, thanks for your time.
DEAN SMITH:
Great to be with you, Ollie. Thank you.
ENDS