Louise Miller-Frost (Boothby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to reject this nonsense motion from the shadow Treasurer because there is only one party who has improving the lives of Australians struggling with a rising cost of living at heart, and that is the Labor Party and this Albanese Labor government.

Let's remember back to May this year, a short six months ago. Hasn't so much changed since then? So much has changed that it appears those opposite have forgotten Maybe they've been gaslighted, so let me refresh their memories. While all of us in this place were busily travelling across our electorates speaking to voters, the former government was presiding over an economy heaving under a trillion dollars of debt and far too little to show for it. Before the election, interest rates were rising, and the outlook was that there was more to come. They had rising power prices, increases which they deliberately hid from the Australian people and which were borne out of a decade of wasted opportunities. And was it 20 or 22 failed energy policies? Childcare prices had also risen some 41 per cent. The cost of health care was rising and rising, because, while those opposite like to talk about bulk billing rates, what they don't tell you is that, while some items might be bulk billed, the underlying consultation is likely not. Boothby residents told me of the difficulty in finding a bulk billing GP, let alone a specialist, in the electorate.

If we are to take the opposition at face value—and it's not clear we should, but, in the spirit of consensus and goodwill, let us—after nine long years they have suddenly had a conversion on the road to Damascus and are now suddenly deeply concerned about the cost of living. This is after nine long years of doing precisely nothing about it. Instead, for nine years they presided over deliberate wage suppression. That's less money in the pockets of Australian workers to pay power bills, to send the kids to school or to save for a rainy day—deliberate.

Now that they are so concerned with the cost of living, surely all that's changed and they'll be doing everything in their power to ensure more Australians have more in their pockets from higher wages. It turns out: no. They have fought this government's attempts to get wages moving to fix a broken bargaining system, particularly for those workers in the low-paid feminised sectors that we relied on throughout the pandemic, like aged care, child care, cleaning and health care. They have fought our secure jobs, better pay bill tooth and nail every step of the way. Even now, we heard in question time, there are 19 amendments underway in the other place. These are further delays, because they're not actually serious about tackling the cost of living. After nine years of their economic vandalism, these challenges are real, and I see them in my electorate. If you're serious about tackling cost-of-living challenges, you need to invest in the productive capacity of the Australian economy and in the capacity of the Australian people for the long term. That's exactly what we're doing.

We are getting on with doing the long-term structural reform needed to actually create an economy that works for people, not the other way around. We're investing in future generations of Australians by making cheaper child care for 96 per cent of families in the system. This is, of course, an important social reform, with more kids accessing quality early learning during key developmental years, but it's also a huge economic dividend. Cheaper child care means women can choose to take on more employment and bring more income into the household.

As I said, we're reforming our industrial relations system to drive productivity and get wages moving. We backed a raise in the minimum wage, which is benefiting 2.8 million Australians. We backed a long overdue 15 per cent pay rise for frontline aged-care workers as an interim measure. We've legislated to enable those on age pensions, if they so wish, to work more hours before it affects their pension. We held the national Jobs and Skills Summit, bringing together business, education, unions and civil society to work together to address the critical skills shortage we inherited. Starting 2023, we'll be providing more university and TAFE places and fee-free TAFE to further tackle our skills shortage. We've introduced legislation to establish our National Reconstruction Fund and to begin the process of making Australia a place that makes things again.

After six phenomenal months, the Albanese government has been kicking goals in so many areas: international relations, climate change, energy policy, child care and the skills crisis. We've introduced a national anticorruption commission, and there is work being done in so many ways by this government to cut costs in health, child care and education and to address the skills shortage to get the economy going again.

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