"Under this government we've been working both directly and indirectly to fix the cost-of-living issues Australian households are facing. On Monday this week some 13.6 million Australian taxpayers got a tax cut, millions of workers on the award wage got a pay rise thanks to the backing of this government and energy bill relief began getting rolled out to every household and one million small businesses. What's the alternative?"

Address to the House of Representatives, Matter of Public Importance

Thursday 4 July 2024

Obviously the last decade was some sort of fever dream that most of us had to sleep through. But let's start this MPI plainly. If those opposite really cared about the cost-of-living pressures people were under, they wouldn't have opposed the cost-of-living relief that rolled out across the country this week. If they really cared, they would care about wages. Under this Labor government real wages grew more in the past year at 0.5 per cent than they did during their entire 10 years in office—something we knew was deliberate. If they really cared, they would care about jobs. Instead, those opposite left us with a sluggish labour market. Under Labor, more than 880,000 new jobs have been created in two years.

Productivity growth under those opposite was the worst in 40 years, and we have reversed that decline. Business investment declined to the lowest level since the early 2000s under them. Business investment under us has grown in every single quarter and is up 13 per cent in real terms. Then, of course, there's the budget under them. They planned a $78 billion deficit with no surpluses projected at any time between 2022 and 2060-61 yet they come here and pretend that they're somehow great economic managers. We turned that $78 billion deficit into a Labor surplus of $22 billion and then a second Labor surplus in the following year, and we didn't need a range of mugs to do it with. Let's not forget the cutting of family payments through indexation freezing and the millions of dollars of waste through the obscene use of contractors in the Public Service. We know that's what they're planning; they want to cut back public servants again and replace them with consultants and contractors. We know how that goes.

Those opposite left bulk-billing in a shambles. In November 2021, six months before the last election, the financial viability of general practice was in serious trouble after the coalition's six-year freeze on Medicare rebates that started when the Leader of the Opposition was health minister. Bulk-billing was falling off a cliff, which is why we tripled the bulk-billing incentive from 1 November last year—the largest investment in bulk-billing in history. In the seven months since we tripled the investment we have seen a turnaround in bulk-billing, a national increase of 3.4 percentage points from 75.6 per cent of all GP visits bulk-billed in October to 79 per cent in May—or around two million additional estimated visits. Here in the ACT we saw a 5.5 per cent increase—the second-largest increase in the country. Under our government people now pay no more than $31.60 for medicines on the PBS. The Albanese government has delivered the largest price reduction in the 75-year history of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

Under this government we've been working both directly and indirectly to fix the cost-of-living issues Australian households are facing. On Monday this week some 13.6 million Australian taxpayers got a tax cut, millions of workers on the award wage got a pay rise thanks to the backing of this government and energy bill relief began getting rolled out to every household and one million small businesses. What's the alternative? Their idea of cost-of-living relief can be summed up with their approach to nuclear energy—a $600 billion bill to taxpayers for nuclear reactors that maybe come online in the 2040s. Nothing says, 'We care about the cost of living,' more than saddling taxpayers with more debt and locking them into structurally higher energy prices for decades to come. Nothing says, 'We care for the cost of living,' more than having to be dragged to supporting Labor's tax cuts, or opposing cheaper cleaner energy, or teaming up with the Greens political party to block cheaper housing, or actively avoiding pay increases for minimum-wage earners or doing everything they can to stop Australian taxpayers from earning more and keeping more of what they earn.

This opposition loves running around telling everyone how much easier it will be under them, but one only needs to look at their record in government or in opposition. So far, every announcement they make is a new bin fire of angry incompetence which puts the future of our economy at risk. Every new announcement they make is the worst combination of uncosted, unhinged and undercooked, with the primary purpose of each new announcement to distract from the announcement they made a few weeks ago.

On 25 July, during the winter break, we will mark the 44th anniversary of the release of AC/DC's iconic Back in Black, one of the great comeback albums of all time. It's fair to say that some of the songs have aged but they haven't aged anything like the range of mugs—which is the closest those opposite got to a manufacturing policy here in Australia, let alone a surplus

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