Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

What an absolute champion the member for Lalor is for her community and for our team here, in Parliament House. The member for Lalor knows—we all know—that people are under pressure, but, more than acknowledging that and recognising that, we're acting on it. We're delivering when it comes to more help with the cost of living. On that front, today is a really, really important day, because we've got this new data out which shows that Australians now have access to more bulk-billed GP clinics than ever before—with something like more than 3,400 practices across the country, which is also more than ever before.

I pay tribute here to the Minister for Health and Ageing, the PM and my colleagues for the work that we have put into lifting bulk-billing in this country, because we understand that when there's more bulk-billing there's less pressure on families. It's a really important way that we're helping to ease the cost of living, but it's not the only way that we're going about that. We're also making sure that people on lower incomes can get a boost to their superannuation balances. Just today, we introduced legislation into this parliament to make superannuation fairer from top to bottom by boosting superannuation for people on the lowest incomes and funding it by making the tax concessions for people with the biggest balances still concessional but more sustainable. That's what today's legislation is all about.

If those opposite vote against that legislation, they'll be voting for less super for people with low balances and bigger tax breaks for people who've got $20 or $30 or $40 million in their superannuation accounts. That wouldn't be the first time that they have voted against people on low and middle incomes in this parliament. Perhaps the most egregious example was when, just before the election, when we legislated our tax cuts, those opposite, at the urging of the member for Hume, not only voted against those tax cuts but said if they got the opportunity in government, they would repeal those tax cuts. That would mean higher income taxes for every one of the 14 million Australian taxpaying workers in this country.

On this side of the parliament, a tax cut for every taxpayer; on that side of the parliament, because of the economic genius of the member for Hume, every single taxpayer would get a tax increase. I notice the Leader of the Opposition is not leaping to his defence. The point that I am making is this: whether it's bulk-billing, whether its superannuation, whether it's tax cuts that we're rolling out for the second and third time in the life of this parliament, this side of the House is delivering more super, more tax cuts and more bulk-billing. That side of the House is divided, and they look like a total shambles.

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