Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

Deputy Speaker Claydon, can I start by just congratulating you on your re-election as the member for Newcastle—a very proud resources based electorate, which also has many other skills and jobs—and also on your re-election as Deputy Speaker.

It really is my great delight to speak today on the government's behalf on this matter of public importance. I want to make it very clear that all of those on this side of the House know, as the general public and, of course, the voting public of Australia know, that the Albanese Labor government's priorities are the priorities of all Australians. We are focused on delivering our election commitments that Australians overwhelmingly voted for. Australians voted for Labor's vision to build Australia's future because they trust us to meet the challenges that face the nation, and this trust is demonstrated, of course, by the 94 Labor MPs that were sworn into this chamber just yesterday.

This government is focused, as the Treasurer said in question time today, on delivering the most responsible and meaningful means of helping ease the cost of living. We know people remain under pressure with the cost of living. What we did for the last three years, in our first term of government, was to deliver cost-of-living relief. It is a priority for Australians and it is a priority for us as a government, and we delivered real, practical help over those last three years and are also doing so today.

Today, of course, we introduced legislation to cut student debt by 20 per cent so students, apprentices and young Australians can get ahead. That's three million Australians—and they are principally younger Australians—who will have, on average, $5½ thousand cut off their student debt. That's a debt that goes right across the economy. It applies to university graduates, of course, but also to tradies who have had to pay fees for TAFE.

While I'm at it, of course, in the last term we introduced fee-free TAFE. Education of tradies to deal with workforce shortages is, of course, a national priority and a challenge that we have indeed been meeting, whilst those opposite, in their terms of government, managed to slash all the funding to TAFE and tried to deride that great Australian institution.

We will introduce legislation to protect penalty rates for more than two million workers right across this country who rely on them to make ends meet. We have slashed the cost of home batteries by 30 per cent, and we have signed contracts with state and territory governments for the construction of more than 5,000 new social homes. Every household will see another $150 in rebates automatically applied to their electricity bill. We have also cut taxes for 14 million taxpayers.

This government is squarely addressing the priorities for Australians, whilst we witnessed all of those opposite who were here in the last parliament vote against tax cuts for the Australian people. Those opposite came in here and had themselves recorded in Hansard as indicating that they would be the party of higher taxes for Australians. They failed to understand in the last term—and I can see it's continuing into this term—the challenges that are facing Australians.

The Labor government, under Anthony Albanese, has ensured Australian workers will earn more and keep more of what they earn. The same job, same pay legislation has literally transformed lives. I know the member for Hunter is here and I think the member for Paterson is here—coal industry workers in their electorates can now work alongside their comrades with the same skills, doing the same job, and be paid the same. That is fair. That is what Australians know and deserve, and it is the right thing to do. We have delivered.

Of course, health is a priority for all Australians, and they only trust Labor to strengthen our health system. Under our health minister, we've seen Medicare reinvigorated. We are delivering more bulk-billing, which is at the heart of our health system.

This government is making medicines cheaper by capping PBS medicines at 25 bucks for everyone from next year. If that isn't addressing a national challenge and a national priority for the people of Australia, I don't know what is. Then, of course, there are concession cardholders. The most they will pay for a PBS medicine is $7.70. That affects everyone on those concession cards, those people who are really feeling the pressure of the cost of living.

We're going to open another 50 Medicare urgent care clinics, on top of the 87 that we already opened in the last term. I commend the team at the urgent care clinic at Rockingham, who I know are delivering care for people who need help with those little things that we don't really want people going to emergency wards for. All of these things were at stake in the last election, and people overwhelmingly supported Labor's vision to build Australia's future. Labor's priorities are Australia's priorities, and we're getting on with the job of implementing them. As we did in the 47th Parliament, we'll do so again in this one. Since 4 May, we've been getting on with that.

Meanwhile, the coalition have prioritised splitting up and getting back together again, completely neglecting the Australian people—does everyone remember that? It was only a few weeks ago, really, when the Nats and Libs decided to split up. The Nats had their own little path to follow, and then they backflipped and got right back on board.

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