Article - Labor's broken promises at Christmas

IN the aftermath of Christmas Day, I always feel a little like I have survived some kind of military siege.

Left surrounded by the remnants of wrapping paper and empty boxes, avoiding half-eaten treats, and trying to keep dozens of children and family happy.

Once the day is over we begin to tally up the damage. We count the new stains in the carpet, we consider what to do with leftovers, and of course we start thinking about the credit card bills and expenses that have been quietly growing since the beginning of December.

At Christmas, more than any other time of year, the pressure on parents to deliver a memorable and enjoyable day is enormous and often the budget is stretched to and beyond the limit.

The screwball comedy National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation pretty well sums this up.

Clark Griswold is obsessed with the desire to create the perfect Christmas for his family, which is certainly not helped by his boss cancelling his Christmas bonus, instead sending Clark a one-year subscription to the Jelly of the Month club. Needless to say, it all works out in the end.

Similarly, my family and many others will tighten our belts through January, and hopefully be back on track by the time school starts.

BUT our increasing cost of living is creating some serious problems for too many people in our community. One important function of Christmas is to act as a reminder to look beyond the veranda and consider the wellbeing of those who are not in our own families, but who share our community.

Too many Australians have been struggling this Christmas. It was two years ago, around this time of year, that the then Leader of the Opposition, Kevin Rudd, said: ''I think they (the Howard Government) have lost touch with working families under financial pressure, not just from interest rates, not just from rising rents, but grocery and petrol prices and the costs of child care''.

Mr Rudd went on to win that election, having created the impression Labor could solve all these problems - the promise was that he would keep interest rates low, slow the rise in rental costs, stop the hikes in grocery and petrol prices and child care costs.

Which of the things Mr Rudd promised has actually been achieved?

Take groceries. We've all hit the supermarket in the past few weeks to stock up on all manner of items to ensure a waist-expanding Christmas day. Back in 2007 Labor promised it would fix the problem of grocery prices with a website called Grocery Watch. The website was going to cause downward pressure on grocery prices by giving the consumer more information about where the bargains could be found near their home.

IN reality, the website was incomprehensible and useless. Having initially scrambled about for a while trying to pretend it would work, the Government eventually bit the bullet and shut it down, at a cost to the Australian taxpayer in the vicinity of $8 million.

So much for fixing grocery prices.

Equally, the Government's failed Fuel Watch scheme to keep downward pressure on petrol prices has faded into the haze of failure settling around Mr Rudd's Government.

Let's consider those issues closer to home. For those who have a mortgage or who are renting (that's most of us), housing expenses will most likely constitute the heaviest burden in our fortnightly budgets. When external influences force those costs up it can have an extraordinary impact on our lifestyles, to the extent that some people get to the point where they can no longer afford to stay in their home.

THIS is why in South Australia it is such a concern that Mike Rann's Government has quadrupled land tax - a tax burden that ends up being paid by the end user - the renter.

And it is one of the reasons why federal governments have such a responsibility to ensure that monetary policy and fiscal policy act in concert, so we don't see more interest rate hikes like the three in three months in the lead-up to this Christmas. Yet while the Reserve Bank is squeezing monetary policy the federal Government is still expanding fiscal policy.

New Year is a time for new resolutions. My advice to Mr Rudd if he wants to keep intact what remains of his credibility in the lead-up to an election is that he should resolve to take care with his promises to the Australian people.

And he should concern himself with the cost of living pressures that affect millions of Australians.

Christopher Pyne is the federal MP for Sturt and Opposition spokesman on education, apprenticeships and training