Sam Lim (Tangney, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm so proud of this government. I'm filled with a sense of hope, and I am passionate for all the things to come from this government. In less than a year, this government has rewritten the history books on how much any government can care for and help Australian families. This government chooses to work hard and work tirelessly for the sake of improving the lives of Australians and their children. This government delivers to its citizens cost-of-living relief that you can see and feel. You can see it as more wages in the bank. You can see it as more women working. You can see it as more full-time employment. It is not tax cuts for wealthy mates or punching down on struggling Australians to pass up the savings to those who don't need them. The Albanese Labor government is delivering an investment—the equivalent of 37,000 jobs—by ensuring more primary caregivers can work. It is an investment that puts in the hands of Australians the opportunity to work hard, to progress their careers and to have peace of mind that their children are receiving first-class education and care.

In my electorate of Tangney, 5,600 families are better off and more able to get on with the job by putting food on the table and not having to choose how to cut their working hours to be able to afford early childhood education and care. They are not having to pick between one partner's career and another's. They are not having to choose to give up or to go without. They are choosing to have quality child care that is affordable—child care that is cheaper than it would have been under the last government.

In the last eight years, the cost of early childhood education has increased by over 40 per cent for the average family. This government is doing what those opposite would not: delivering cost-of-living relief that means Australian families this generation and next will be better off. These changes mean that more than a million families across Australia can afford a double parental income; they afford single-parent households breathing space when opening bills; and they are a step further to assuring them that there will always be bread on the table.

I'm delighted to be part of a government that is ambitious for its people, that looks at an issue and decides as much as we are able to that there's much that we would dare to do. We're a government that works hard, like parents of children, to try to make sure that every child prospers and succeeds and is afforded a wonderful life because their parents have the means and their children can access quality early learning in the critical years of their development. This is a government that works tirelessly, and I'm so proud that what this government works on is ensuring that families and children in Australia have a future that's taken care of. From child care to Medicare to aged care, it has been Labor governments that cared and did the heavy lifting. I love my electorate and I love every person who has ever called Tangney home, does call Tangney home and will call Tangney home. My job is to make sure Tangney is a wonderful place to live, and, because of this government's cheaper child care, 5,600 families in Tangney are better off and many more will be for many years to come.

See this speech in context