Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I withdraw. They are so easy to form offence, so easy to own offence and so easy to own up to it, as well. If the production of policies that went nowhere was going to be an answer to our energy crisis then the member for Hume would have had it nailed. They had 22 energy policies. His hands were over every single one of them, destroying them all and ensuring that we have the energy chaos that we are experiencing in Australia today. The net result from households and businesses is energy prices going through the roof.

We promised a federal ICAC. We promised a federal anticorruption commission because Australians were sick of the rorts and the behaviour of that mob over there. Nine years of rorts, of being unable to tell the truth, of an inability to take responsibility for anything, of an inability to hold a hose—it was always somebody else's responsibility. The money of the people of Australia was seemingly the political plaything of the coalition parties. The Australian people were sick to death of that style of government. They wanted a federal anticorruption commission, and we have introduced laws to ensure the people of Australia get one. Those opposite can't make up their mind whether they support it or not. Well, the people of Australia have made up their mind.

We promised to fix aged care. We promised to fix child care and early childhood education. At the very time that members opposite were giving thunderous speeches against our proposed collective bargaining laws, a few metres away some of the lowest paid Australians, who are charged with some of the highest responsibilities, in educating Australian children, were waiting for the result of the deliberation of this chamber. They saw one side of politics backing them in and ensuring that the people we entrust with educating Australians at the earliest of ages are going to get a wage rise through a sensible enterprise bargaining system, and they saw that mob over there vote against it. We promised to stand for early childhood educators, and we are doing it. We promised to fix the mess in aged care, returning nurses to nursing homes and ensuring that the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety were implemented.

They want to talk about promises. We promised to fix the mess and the pandemic of scams and fraud that grew and grew on their watch, from $2 billion to $4 billion, that were all seemingly too hard to deal with. We said: 'No, it's not too hard to deal with. Some of Australia's most vulnerable people and businesses from regions to the country to big cities are the victims of scams that are costing us up to $2 billion a year. We're going to do something about it.' And we are fixing that mess as well.

Labour shortages, domestic manufacturing, cybersecurity and fraud—we all remember the member for Hume promising us a big stick that was somehow going to fix the gas market. Where is that big stick today? The gas marketing policies and the gas market that they set up are not working. We've got the worst gas crisis we have seen our nation's history. The policies and the market mechanisms that they set us are the direct result of the tools that we're supposed to use to fix it. They're not working. We're getting on with the job of fixing it, and we'll ensure that we are going to bring down the price of gas and other energy as a result.

Of all the things that they haven't come to terms with, let's look at the state of the budget. They left us with a structural deficit, and they still won't own up to it. They left a budget in absolute chaos and mess, with a structural deficit and with deficits running from here beyond the next 10 years. They wanted Australians to accept some notion that all you had to do was sprinkle magic growth dust over the numbers and all of that was going to go away. Australians aren't mugs. They voted for change and they're going to get it. We are going to be honest with Australian people. We have started that honest discussion with the budget we delivered a few weeks ago. We're telling them where the problems are. We're telling them where the budget pressures are. We're telling them what needs to be done to fix it and we will fix it. A trillion dollars worth of debt—on which the interest payments are the fastest growing element of expenses in our budget today. They want to lecture us on economic management. That mob over there were the worst economic managers that this country has ever seen.

They introduced a budget a few months ago that did not have one cent of saving in it—not one cent of saving! They're cackling over there, but there was not one cent of saving in the budget a few months ago and they want to lecture us on the $22 billion worth of savings. The rorts and mismanagement that we found in their budget—that for them was supposedly too hard, too difficult and couldn't be found. Twenty-two billion dollars worth of savings—we're doing the hard work. We will not accept a lecture from this mob over here on economic management, because they are an absolute and abject joke. A structural deficit, a trillion dollars worth of debt, businesses that can't get workers, workers that can't afford to turn up to work because wages haven't moved in over a decade—this mob are hopeless!

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