Carina Garland (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I won't be taking advice from those opposite about what it means to listen to the community, after a wasted decade where we have failed to act on climate, where those opposite presided over an economy that had stagnating wages at the heart of their approach to the economy, where we saw secure jobs go backwards, where we saw a failure to invest in skills, a failure to invest in sovereign capability. Despite what those opposite might desire to do in their revisionist approach to history, I'm not buying it, and I don't think people in my community are buying it.

We heard so much destructive, divisive rhetoric from those opposite over the last 10 years. It is very serious, the damage that that has done to communities. So I am really pleased to be part of a government that is doing what we can to repair the damage that has been done but is doing more than that and actually delivering the positive change that Australians voted for on 21 May. I do not take for granted for one moment the opportunity that I have here to be part of a government, to represent my community of Chisholm. It is a great honour and a great privilege to be here.

We know there is a lot of work to do. We're staying focused on easing pressure on families and helping Australians to manage their budgets. Over the previous decade, we saw out-of-pocket costs to go to the GP soar in my electorate of Chisholm. They rose by a whopping 38 per cent. And we saw early childhood education and care costs rise by over 40 per cent. We're doing something about these critical areas. We're looking at the Medicare system and what we need to do to make the system work for everyone, and we're making early childhood education cheaper.

We've also made medicines cheaper. Cheaper medicines took effect on 1 January, easing some of the pressure that a lot of Australians are facing at the moment when they rely on prescriptions. Unfortunately we saw that patients were making a choice between the health care they need and providing for their families. The co-payment for general patients has doubled since 2000, and more than 900,000 Australians delayed filling a prescription or didn't get a prescription filled in 2019-20 due to the cost. All Australians should have access to universal, prompt and world-class medical care, and no-one deserves to choose between filling prescriptions for potentially life-saving medicines and providing for their families. Under the National Health Amendment (General Co-Payment) Bill 2022, which we passed, a reduction to the PBS co-payment was introduced which means that people will be paying $12.50 less per medicine. This means that people who get one script filled will save around $150 year, while those filling two scripts a month could save around $300 a year. This is going to make a difference to a lot of people.

Our cheaper childcare reforms mean that 1.2 million families across Australia will benefit from 1 July. I know that 7,200 families in my electorate are going to benefit. We have in my electorate one of the largest numbers of families in Victoria who access child care, so this is incredibly significant to my local community, and I've had many conversations with people about this. It means that costs will be brought down for families and that households will be able to have conversations about improving workforce participation for women, which is really important if we are serious about gender equality. This side of the House is serious about addressing the problems we've had with gender inequality and legislation, which, unfortunately, have seen us go backwards in the global rankings on a number of key measures, and that is simply a disgrace.

We know that electricity costs are going up for a range of reasons, including external factors such as the war in Ukraine. So we're doing what we can to take the sting out of projected price rises, and we're starting to see the effect of that. Ours is a government that doesn't waste a second in taking action that is required for positive change in this country. We know that this will help ease financial stress for families across Australia.

I remember very distinctly during the election campaign standing in Box Hill with the now Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, and his being asked about wage rises. He backed in workers in this country and said, 'Absolutely.' 'Absolutely' is the answer to the question of whether we are going to get on and do the job needed to make this country better.

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