Senator BROCKMAN (Western Australia) (17:07): Well, you belled the cat, didn't you, Senator Walsh? You really belled the cat when you talked about how it was 5.04 and you were finally talking about the cost of living, because what it is to this government is a political afterthought. It's the thing you get to once you've wasted two hours trying to amend a very reasonable motion from the opposition about Israel's right to defend itself—a motion that I'm very surprised anyone in this place would have questioned. Instead, the Labor Party, because of their own internal problems, have had to spend two hours trying to move an amendment to that motion. Then you come in here at five o'clock, when we finally get to take note of answers and, as an afterthought—like this government always treats the standard of living and the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on real Australians as an afterthought—you start to talk about that now. This government has completely failed to address the cost-of-living crisis. Its budgets have poured money into the economy, which every senior economist across Australia has said is inflationary. Labor close their eyes, block their ears, hold their nose and say, 'Oh, no. Our budget is putting downward pressure on inflation.' That is absolute nonsense, and no serious economist in the country has said that they think that your budgets are putting pressure on inflation, and it is inflation that is the standard-of-living killer in any economy. It is inflation that is making people poorer. In the West Australian a few days ago, an article revealed that just one rate rise this year, a 25-basis-point rate rise, will wipe out the tax cut. That's it. Senator Smith, remind me: how many increases in interest rates have we had under this government? Is it 11, or are we up to 12? Senator Dean Smith: Twelve. Senator BROCKMAN: Twelve! So your tax cut has already been wiped out by this government in decimating your standard of living through the increased costs you are paying on your mortgage, at the grocery store, on your electricity bills and at the petrol station. This Labor inflation is a cancer on the standard of living in this country. It is Labor's inflation. They tried to pretend for months and months that this was caused by international pressures, but now it is very clear that this is Labor's homegrown inflation. Just one interest rate rise will wipe out the benefits of this tax cut because Labor cannot control their budget. They cannot control their own spending. They have pushed billions of dollars into the economy through their last two budgets and, as a result, have been working counter to the efforts of the Reserve Bank of Australia, whose sole responsibility is to try to get inflation under control. But they are not the only ones who have that responsibility. That is their sole job, but it's also the job of the Australian government to care about inflation. It destroys the standard of living of real Australians. Real Australian families are having to make the tough choices about whether they can still do school sport on the weekend, whether they can pay for the materials their children need at school or whether they can fill up the car this week. People are having to make very, very difficult choices. The impact on small business of high inflation and high interest rates is excruciating. If those opposite ever talked to small-business people, which I doubt they do, they would know that the combination of the increasing costs of their supplies and the impact of high interest rates on their overdrafts, mortgages and business loans is having an absolutely devastating effect on the standard of living of small-business owners right across this country. This is a government to whom the cost-of-living crisis and the decimation of people's standard of living are an afterthought. It's something they think about at five o'clock at night after they have been fighting their ideological wars the rest of the day.