Ged Kearney (Cooper, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

When you get to the end of your life, you like to look back and you like to think, 'Did I make a difference? Have I left a legacy? Am I going to leave the world in a slightly better place?' For some people it might be that they've raised their kids well. They might have volunteered on the footy team. They might have put in where other people haven't. They might have left this place with something they've invented to make life better.

We, here in this place, are given the absolutely amazing privilege of changing the laws of this land to make this life better. We have an amazing privilege: to do our very best to change people's lives, to make people's lives something better so they get opportunity.

I've got to say that I have never, ever been so proud or honoured to have that privilege in this place as I have in the last few months. It's a great honour to be an assistant minister in the Albanese Labor government, where I know that we have made such a significant difference to people's lives right around Australia.

I've spent the last few months in my own electorate of Cooper, in Melbourne's inner north, as well as travelling to the Gold Coast, to rural Victoria and right across the country to Western Australia. It's great, because I get to see firsthand the changes that this government has made and the positive impacts that the Labor government is having. I get the opportunity to listen to Australians from all walks of life. They have been telling us that they are doing it tough. They have been telling us that they are under pressure. They've been telling us that their budgets are being stretched to the limit. It's such a great opportunity for me and the rest of us in this government to tell them that we are doing everything in our power to deal with these issues that have cropped up for them in their everyday lives.

They know, and we explained to them, that we have had a once-in-100-years pandemic. There are wars across the world. There are supply-chain disruptions. There has been a global inflation spike. These are things that nobody could predict would happen—things that have popped up in the time that we have been in government. They know now, because we have responded so well, that they can trust us like they have never trusted a Liberal-National government.

The Liberal-National government didn't care about working people. They didn't act on climate change. In fact, they didn't act to help working people. They actively wanted to keep wages low. We heard that from one of their own previous ministers. There was no investment in Medicare. Bulk-billing rates were in absolute freefall. They left behind billions of dollars of debt with virtually nothing to show for it and an absolute deficit of trust in Australian politics and government. The one most responsible for that was their previous Prime Minister.

The people I speak to know this. They know this because they voted for change. They wanted them, on that side of the House, out. Workers, women, people who use our health system, aged-care residents, climate activists, teachers, aged-care workers: they knew they could not trust that government to act in their own interests, and they voted them out. They voted a government in that cares—a Labor government—and they have put their trust in us to do the right thing. I am so proud that they now can have absolute faith that we will always act in their interests. I am proud to say that we have a prime minister who can sleep soundly and sleep straight in bed, unlike many of those that we have seen who are probably struggling—they are admitting so on a TV show that we've been watching over the last few weeks. But they have absolute proof now that they can trust the Prime Minister to respond to changes that are happening in the world and to do the right thing.

They wanted trust restored in Australian politics after lies and deceit from a prime minister who secretly swore himself into multiple ministries. They voted for higher pay after wages had stagnated for years. They voted for better working conditions after those opposite attacked their rights time and time again. They voted to strengthen Medicare and cheaper medicines. They voted for action on climate change and for respect and a better deal for women, who were told they were lucky they didn't get shot when they tried to tell the Prime Minister what they wanted. They voted for a government they could trust to do the right thing and a government that makes hard decisions like they did about changing the stage 3 tax cuts, because they know this government can be trusted to act in their interests.

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