Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek claims the government is “laser-focused” on the cost-of-living crisis even as a new poll revealed more than half of Australian voters blame it for skyrocketing inflation.
In a new Resolve Political Monitor poll published by the SMH on Monday, 51 per cent of the 1614 voters surveyed believed it was the government’s job to bring prices down, with only 27 per cent of voters putting blame on the Reserve Bank over its interest rate rises.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: MPS clash over cost-of-living crisis.
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At one point, a heated Joyce even yelled at Plibersek, “why are you smiling? It’s not funny”, as they discussed the inflation and housing crises gripping the country.
On Monday, Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce and Minister for the Environment Tanya Plibersek clashed over the results as they joined Nat Barr for Hot Topics on Sunrise.
Barr pointed out to Plibersek that “people are not happy” and asked how the government was going to tackle the problem.
“We’re absolutely laser focused on helping people with the cost of living,” Plibersek said.
“We inherited inflation with a six in front of it. We’ve got that down to inflation with a three in front of it. That’s not good enough yet,” Plibersek said.
Plibersek said it was a “close political environment” and the government was going to “work every day to make sure people understand that we’re about helping with the cost of living”, accusing the opposition of lacking any play to address the issue.
“We’ve got an opposition that just months out from an election doesn’t have a plan to help with the cost of living,” she said.
Barr then asked Joyce was the opposition’s plan was.
“They said they’re laser like focused — they’re not focused at all. They’re focused on issues such as what goes into the census,” Joyce said.
He added: “(Our plan is to) keep our base load power going. One of the fundamental feedstocks that keeps inflation down is having affordable energy. Affordable power.
“It goes into every other part and food manufacturing and everything else you do.”
He also pointed to the impact of immigration.
“Immigration pouring people in. Think you they’ll solve the problem. Pour people into Australia.”
However Plibersek insisted the opposition had “no plan”.
“You think you’ve done a good job pouring people in so they don’t have a house. Why are you smiling. It’s not funny at all,” Joyce shot back.
Joyce added he would also focus on “regional roads” and “dams”, but was again shut down by Plibersek.
“Barnaby you have no plan. This is the exact point. You were told the 24 coal-fired power stations were closing, you did nothing to prepare for that,” Plibersek said.
“They closed under you. They closed under you, Tanya,” Joyce shot back.
The Resolve polling also showed the government narrowly ahead of the Coalition 51-49 in two-party preferred terms, while Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was ahead of Opposition Leader Peter Dutton as preferred prime minister 35-34.
However Australian voters thought the Coalition was better on economic management, with 37 per cent backing Dutton and only 26 per cent behind Albanese.
