Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question. I am always sympathetic and good to hear from our constituents in whatever electorate. I say to Leigh that we understand as a government that many people are under financial pressure, which is why, for Leigh, I hope that you inform him that he would have had, had you been on this side of the House—although you might have been in bits if you were over here—a higher deficit and more pressure on the budget than what has occurred. You stood for election as part of a team that would have had higher deficits and also would have had not only no tax cuts but tax increases. That was the platform on which you were elected, and I hope you were honest enough to say to Leigh, 'I'm sorry that you were going to get higher taxes if we were in government.' For Leigh, particularly if he's a low- or middle-income earner like it sounds like he was, I hope you also said that, during the last term of parliament, the coalition as it was then, before it broke into bits, was in a position where they wanted to oppose and roll back the tax cuts that we took from the top end to the low- and middle-income end to make sure that we supported them.

The fact is that, when it comes to the economy, we have an economy that is continuing to grow. Inflation is down compared with what we inherited. Wages are up. We had the lowest average unemployment rate of any government in the last 50 years; 1.2 million jobs created, three out of five full time and four out of five in the private sector; the smallest gender pay gap on record; fewer days lost to industrial disputes; record numbers of small businesses—

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