Federal government's proposed cost of living relief, options explained

A look at how the federal government's proposed cost of living relief might work with Daniel Ziffer.

Transcript

00:00 With prices still lifting 5.4% annually, COSY Lives made life a lot harder for Australians

00:08 last year, particularly after our central bank hiked interest rates astronomically to

00:13 fight that inflation in prices.

00:16 The good news is targeted support can work to reduce the pain.

00:21 The red line shows what happened to electricity prices in the last quarter when you include

00:26 government rebates.

00:27 The impact was much less.

00:29 Without them, the yellow line.

00:32 But there's lots of other things the federal government could do to take money out of the

00:36 economy and lower inflation.

00:39 Like temporarily increasing the Medicare levy or the superannuation guarantee, put price

00:43 caps on sectors, institute super profits taxes and boost consumer choice through stronger

00:49 competition laws.

00:51 All of them options, none of them easy.

00:56 Oil markets shed some of the New Year's froth as expanding trouble in the Middle East added

01:01 uncertainty to 2024.

01:03 Iran produces 4% of the world's oil, slightly less than China.

01:08 But a bombing there, and what it might mean, spiked the volatile price of oil globally

01:13 overnight.

01:15 The value of our dollar inched higher after yesterday's quiver while our share market

01:19 took its lead from overseas.

01:23 And new car sales figures show we're going electric.

01:26 More than 16% of new cars were hybrids or EVs.

01:29 A huge jump.

01:31 Some countries are pushing hydrogen cars, but here it's just six.

01:36 Not 6% of the market.

01:39 In Australia, last year out of 1.2 million new cars, the number of hydrogen vehicles

01:44 sold was six.

01:48 And that's finance.

01:49 [BLANK_AUDIO]