Fifteen rate rises later, Australians are running out of moves

Fifteen rate rises later, Australians are running out of moves

Snakes and Ladders teaches us that endurance can outlast luck. But right now, Australian families are trying to climb in a country with a snake on nearly every square.

They’ve cancelled their subscriptions, swapped dinners out for dinners in, picked up extra shifts where they can. And for a fleeting moment, it feels like they are finally climbing a ladder.

Then a snake rears up, picking up the scent of inflation before families can catch their breath.

The Reserve Bank’s latest rate hike marks the fifteenth increase under the Albanese Labor Government. With it came the cold mechanics of economics laid bare: “We've got to get the inflation rate down.”

But inflation here is running hotter than France, Japan, Italy, Canada, Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom. Australians are paying the price for a snake being fed at home.

Australians were told we had “turned the corner” on inflation. They were promised a $275 cut to power bills, no housing tax, and no new taxes on small and family businesses. Yet families do not feel like they have turned a corner when mortgages, rents, insurance, power bills and groceries keep climbing.

Australians have learned the hard way that these promises came with snakes wrapped around them.

Canstar calculates that someone with a $600,000 mortgage and 25 years remaining will now pay an extra $91 a month after this latest hike. That’s the snake coiling tighter around household budgets.

Data from Ipsos’ latest Populism Report showed 47 per cent of Australians believe our society is broken and the country is in decline. Cost of living remains the dominant concern for Australians, cited by 63 per cent of respondents, with housing following at 40 per cent.

And the further Australians slide, the harder it becomes to climb back up.

Australia’s poverty line has recorded its largest increase in a decade, rising by 5.8 per cent in 2026. An estimated 3.7 million Australians, including over 750,000 children, now live below that line.

While the overall child poverty rate in NSW is 15.1 per cent, in Colyton, within my own electorate of Lindsay, it is a devastating 26.6 per cent. The gap between the minimum wage and the poverty line is so severe that even a one-off 15.1 per cent increase in the minimum wage — equivalent to $143.15 a week — would still leave single-income families with two children living in poverty.

For many Australians, that pressure shows up in the quiet stress of scrolling through rental listings. Anglicare Australia’s 2026 Rental Affordability Snapshot found that on a single weekend in March, just one rental nationwide was affordable for a person on JobSeeker. For those on Youth Allowance, there were no affordable listings, while a single person on the Age Pension could afford just 0.2 per cent, and a full-time worker on minimum wage could afford only 0.5. A dual-income household earning minimum wage could afford just 14.8 per cent.

Severe rental stress, where people spend more than half their income on rent, has jumped 19 per cent since June 2023. The consequences are already unfolding in communities like mine.

In Lindsay, Mission Australia estimates 779 people are experiencing homelessness alongside an unmet housing need of more than 5,200 dwellings. At the same time, a new class of Australians is emerging in alarming numbers: the working poor.

A homelessness charity in my electorate told me attendance at its free Sunday meal service has surged by 120 percent in 12 months, with growing numbers asking to take home food too.

The pressure is following people home. Arguments are escalating, tensions are rising, and financial stress is pouring fuel on the fire, intensifying both the frequency and severity of abuse.

A Deakin University study examining how young women are navigating the cost-of-living crisis found many are remaining in unsafe housing simply to survive.

In Lindsay, domestic violence incidents are already around 2.3 times the NSW average. Local domestic violence services tell me it is only getting worse.

More women are living separately but together, trapped under the same roof as their perpetrator because they can’t afford to leave. When they do leave, there is often nowhere to go.

Services meant to help them are overwhelmed. One Penrith provider told me: “We are consistently operating more than 50 per cent over our KPIs.” Another said young people and older women are increasingly falling through the gaps of family violence support.

This is not one bad roll of the dice. Under Labor, Australians are living in a country where the snakes are multiplying faster than ladders can be built.

Debt is racing towards $1 trillion, with Australians paying around $50,000 a minute just to service it. Every dollar borrowed today is another tax burden dumped onto the next generation tomorrow.

No wonder Australians are losing hope.

This is not leadership. It is a snake in the grass, sinking its fangs into households already under strain, then demanding they endure the poison of broken promises in silence.