Daniel Mulino (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) | Hansard source

I believe I can say with some accuracy—and I do not mean to belabour this analogy—I am the only person in this chamber to be directly named after an Elton John song, the 1973 hit which inspired my mother to call me Daniel. I cite from that song its important refrain, 'Daniel, you are a star.' As the Speaker said, I am not here to comment on the accuracy of the statement; I just put it to the chamber and the chamber can do with it what it wishes.

On the cost of living, those opposite have come into this chamber and given us a long list of things which are increasing in price. What they haven't given us a long list of is their ideas for dealing with it or the things that we have put forward which they have been willing to vote for. It is all well and good to say that they feel the pain of the Australian people, but they have not actually put anything constructive on the table in the last 18 months. In fact, at every opportunity, they have stood in the way of the government putting forward its plan.

I want to start with one of the most important areas of this government's action, one of the first things we did, which was increasing wages. We did that in a number of ways. Firstly, we took action on the minimum wage. We made a representation to the Fair Work Commission, and the minimum wage was increased by $1 an hour. Those opposite said that would wreck the economy. There were also 15 per cent increases in the aged-care award. There have been tranches of IR reform. At every step of the way, those opposite have opposed those measures to increase people's wages, yet that is one of the most powerful ways to help people deal with the cost of living.

The member for Deakin said that we should acknowledge that in fact they are the true representatives of the workers. After all those steps, I'm not quite sure how, but I don't think they are the true representatives of the workers; I think they really are the true heroes of the workers! They're saving workers the burden of having to deal with all the complexity of thinking about how to allocate more household resources to different things, how to deal with the burden of so many more financial resources and how to deal with the guilt of having wrecked the economy through their wages and conditions improving a little! But, no, they are not the true representatives of workers. When it comes to the most basic of things, when it comes to workers' pay and conditions, those opposite have stood in the way at every single step.

Secondly, let's look at our first two budgets. I won't be able to go through all of the measures, but there is measure after measure, whether it be rent assistance, cheaper child care, energy bill relief—speakers on this side have run through all of the various measures, critical measures, that deal with some of the biggest pressures that households are facing. These are measures that make concrete differences to the lives of people, which matter around the kitchen table every morning. Again, on so many of these measures, those opposite stood in the way; those opposite voted against them. I might just add we have put in place all of these measures totalling over $20 billion in a way which is responsible in its budgeting, which means that fiscal policy has been set in such a way that it is aligned with monetary policy, so we have had targeted measures that help those who need the assistance the most but we have done it in a way which has seen inflation continue its downward trajectory.

Thirdly, I want to touch briefly on the issue that has taken up so much time in this chamber this week, which is the amendments to the stage 3 tax cuts. What we have learned from Treasury is that over recent months it has become clear that inflation is not falling evenly across households. We have seen that, across household income deciles, the lowest decile is dissaving at a very high rate. Moreover, increases in prices are falling unevenly across cohorts, and workers are facing increases in prices two percentage points or more greater than other cohorts. What we were faced with was the original Morrison stage 3 tax cuts—legislated in a bygone era, when times were totally different—that would have given millions of households earning $18,000 to $45,000 absolutely nothing, when the Treasury modelling showed that that was a cohort facing more of the burden of price increases than other cohorts. Clearly the community wanted us to change those tax cuts so that they fell in a more appropriate way, in a more just way and in a more economically sensible way. They are also going to fall in a way which deals with bracket creep and which encourages labour supply.

But, again, those opposite have in this case a completely incoherent position. Their deputy leader stridently opposes the tax cuts, but all of the rest of them seem to come in here and deliver speeches where for 14 minutes and 30 seconds they kind of oppose them, and then for 30 seconds they say, 'I don't want to, but I am going to vote for them because people need them after all.' When it comes to any actual measures, those opposite either haven't come up with any ideas or oppose anything useful that has come into this place.

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