Jo Briskey (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today with a profound sense of purpose, because what we are delivering as a Labor government is not an abstraction; it's a statement of values, a declaration of the kind of country we are choosing to build and a reflection of who we are as a people. When I first stood in this place, I spoke about the community that sent me here—about Flemington, where migrant and refugee families are writing new chapters of the Australian story; about Moonee Ponds where pensioners and uni students share the same footpaths and the same hopes, and where a Puckle Street cafe is as likely to host a first date as it is a retirement lunch; about Airport West and Gladstone Park, where working families get up early, work hard and ask fairly that their effort be rewarded and that the economy be on their side, not working against them.

My electorate is not a postcode; it is a living, breathing argument for what Australia can be at its best: diverse, aspirational and fundamentally kind. Every decision that I make in this place I make with those streets and those people in mind. When I go doorknocking, the conversations are almost always the same: the cost of living, access to health care, education and decent jobs. They are not political talking points but the lived daily reality. It is the single mum in Avondale Heights wondering whether to fill the prescription or to fill the fridge. It is the young couple in Flemington doing the maths on a mortgage and quietly deciding not to bother, not because of lack of ambition but because the numbers just don't add up. It is the pensioner in Moonee Ponds rationing medication across the fortnight because the pension doesn't stretch as far as it used to.

These are not edge cases. They are the stories that sit with me long after the conversation has ended. They represent the central moral test of our time, a test that demands a government capable of being both focused and compassionate—not one or the other but both. That is what this government is delivering, and I am proud to play my part.

To understand where we are going, we must first be honest about where we started. In 2022 we did not inherit a strong economy. We inherited a decade of drift, of denial and delay and of hollowed-out services that were quietly degraded while the government of the day congratulated itself on management it never actually delivered. We walked into a huge housing crisis left entirely unaddressed, a national debt approaching $1 trillion and inflation with a six in front of it and climbing. We inherited the legacy of a government that promised a surplus every single year and failed every single time. The 'back in black' mugs became a symbol not of competence but of delusion, and Australians knew it. It fell to Labor to do the work of repair. It took a Labor treasurer and a Labor minister for finance to deliver back-to-back surpluses for the first time in nearly two decades. But we did not pursue these surpluses as a mug to be displayed. We did it to give us the capacity to invest in Medicare, housing and education. Responsible management is not the opposite of compassion; it is what makes compassion sustainable.

Every single Australian taxpayer is receiving a tax cut, with further rounds coming this July and the one next. For the workers at the distribution centres in Tullamarine, the healthcare workers at Western Health and the teachers in our local schools, this means real money back in their pockets—not a promise, but real relief in real pay packets. The contrast with what came before us is worth reflecting on. The previous government's approach to tax relief was an ideological choice: concentrating benefits at the top, rewarding those who needed it least and dressing it up as economic reform. Labor made a different choice. Our cuts are weighted toward the cleaners and carers, the nurses and the teachers, the logistics workers and tradies who keep this country running. We believe the people who build Australia should be the ones who benefit from its growth. That is not radical; it's simply fair.

Health care is one of the most important, powerful and personal conversations that I have in my electorate. Almost every time I hold a mobile office or knock on a door, someone raises it, not in the context of policy, but in the context of their own life: a parent who delayed going to the doctor because they couldn't afford the gap, a pensioner splitting tablets to make a script last longer, an older resident who stopped seeing the specialist because the out-of-pocket costs had become impossible to justify. For a decade, the coalition conducted an ideological war of attrition against Medicare. They froze rebates. Bulk-billing rates fell. Out-of-pocket costs climbed. And there are those who still sit opposite who would genuinely prefer an Americanised health system, one where access to care is determined by your credit card rather than your Medicare card. They tried hard to get us there, but Australians understand that there is nothing more quintessentially Aussie than a universal healthcare system underpinned by that green and gold Medicare card.

Labor is restoring that promise. We have delivered the largest investment into Medicare in its history, tripling the bulk-billing incentive, which means, in Maribyrnong alone, we have doubled the number of fully bulk-billing GP practices in just over three months. We've capped the PBS scripts at $25—the lowest it's been in two decades—and frozen prescription costs entirely for pensioners because dignity in retirement should not come with financial penalty. For families in my community, this means no longer choosing between a doctor's visit and putting food on the table. It means a healthcare system that lives up to the values it was built on.

On housing, the record of the previous government is one of total abdication. Year after year, as a generation of young Australians were locked out of the market and renters were pushed to the edge, those opposite offered thought bubbles and slogans without even appointing a minister responsible. They proposed letting young people raid their superannuation—not a solution to the housing crisis but a way of making it worse while pretending to care.

Labor is actually building. I was recently at the Swift Walk redevelopment in Kensington—the largest project completed under the Housing Australia Future Fund to date—where a total of 272 social and affordable homes now stand where there were once only a waiting list and a sense of despair. I walked through these homes and met residents who had spent years in insecure rentals, unable to put down roots or make plans. What struck me was not the buildings themselves, impressive as they are, but the quiet relief on people's faces—that sense that finally, after years of uncertainty, they had somewhere to call home, somewhere to raise a family. That is what government is for.

But bricks alone are not enough. At Essendon Fields, companies like Modscape + Modbotics are pioneering modular construction that can help us build faster and smarter. Through fee-free TAFE and $10,000 apprentice support payments, we are training the plumbers, electricians and carpenters who will deliver the 1.2 million homes we have committed to, creating lasting careers in the process. This is how you solve a housing crisis: with investment, workforce development and the political will to follow through.

The most enduring investment we can make against the cost of living, against inequality, against the idea that your postcode determines your destiny is to invest in our people—in education. The coalition treated early childhood education as babysitting. We treat it as the economic and social infrastructure it is. Our 15 per cent pay rise for early childhood educators was long overdue and long overdue recognition for the professionals that are shaping the minds of our youngest Australians, including the remarkable educators I've had the pleasure of meeting at Goodstart Moonee Ponds and Goodstart in Flemington, who bring genuine skill, dedication and love to the work that they do every day.

For those carrying a student debt, we heard you. That debt had become an anchor on life, on buying a first car, starting a family, saving for a deposit. We wiped 20 per cent off student debt, directly benefiting over 25,000 people in Maribyrnong and three million Australians nationally. The message is clear: your ambition should not be limited by your bank balance. The fair go extended to generations before you belongs to you as well.

Beyond the national agenda, I'm proud to be delivering on the commitments I made to the people who sent me here. There is $3.7 million in sporting facility upgrades: a new pavilion at Walter Street Reserve, a scoreboard at Boeing Reserve, a bowls superhub at Cooper Street, new greens and a shade at Gladstone Park Bowls Club and upgrades at Maribyrnong Park. These are the places where our community comes together across the generations. They deserve to be world class.

There is the Commonwealth prac payment for trainee nurses and carers at Kangan Institute Essendon because no-one training to care for others should have to choose between rent and dinner whilst they're trying to get the skills that they need for the work that we desperately need in our communities. There is a new headspace youth mental health service here in Moonee Valley, to be operated by Orygen, a global leader in the field, because the mental wellbeing of our young people is not a secondary concern; it is foundational.

The divide in this House has rarely been starker. On one side sits a coalition that voted against tax cuts for working Australians, against cheaper medicines, against social housing, against a future it seemed either unable or unwilling to imagine. A party that once claimed to champion Menzies's forgotten Australians has spent years chasing the extremes, trading vision for grievance and offering nothing to the people actually doing it.

On this side sits a Labor government with a plan, a record and a deep sense of responsibility to the people we serve. We came to office to repair what had been broken, and we're doing that. We came to office to ease the cost of living for working families, and we're doing that. And we came to office with a vision of a country where hard work is rewarded, health care is universal, housing is within reach and every child, regardless of postcode or background, has a chance to succeed and thrive. This is the Australia I see every day in Flemington and Moonee Ponds and Airport West and Gladstone Park. It is the Australia these communities deserve and it is Australia that we're building.

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