Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It takes a bit of chutzpah to come in here. These are the people who wasted $20 billion on JobKeeper—paying money, by the way, to companies that made money and whose profits went up. They wasted $20.9 billion in the last year alone, I might add, on outsourcing up to a third of the Public Service to consultants. That's what was found when independently assessed. Then, of course, who can forget the $21 million spent on the COVID app, where only 17 people were identified as close contacts?

They splurged money left, right and centre and left us with a trillion dollars of debt, and then, by the way, in the last paragraph, call on the government to take urgent action to address the cost-of-living crisis. They opposed student debt reduction. They opposed free TAFE. They opposed energy bill relief. They opposed tax cuts. They opposed cheaper child care. They opposed 60-day scripts. They opposed 25-day scripts for non-concessional income earners. They opposed $7.70 for concessional income earners, with scripts frozen until 2030. They opposed, by the way, the $45 billion Homes for Australia plan to deliver 1.2 million houses. They opposed the Medicare urgent care clinics, and they were going to close them. They opposed the mental health urgent care clinics as well. Again and again and again, they opposed cost-of-living relief. They voted against it in parliament.

They had policies at the last election that were going to increase the debt and deficit. That was their policy. They haven't identified in this debate one example of money that we have spent that they wouldn't have matched as well. In addition to that, the Liberal and National parties are the parties of higher taxation. They were the ones who increased the government expenditure to debt ratio. Since John Howard and Scott Morrison, the Liberal and National parties have told the Australian public to believe what I say, not what I do. When they get into power, they splurge money again and again and again. We were the ones, by the way, that provided two budget surpluses. They promised—Joe Hockey, the shadow Treasurer—promised that they would have a surplus each and every year of their rule. In nine years, they didn't produce one surplus.

It says 'to support people and dignified retirement' in the fifth paragraph here of this motion. The Liberal and National parties have opposed superannuation increases every step of the way and then froze the increases when, of course, Tony Abbott was the Prime Minister. Again and again and again, they opposed relief for working-class people and pensioners. They opposed, for example, the rental assistance that we provided for people who needed it—increasing in the last few budgets. They opposed it. They voted against it again and again, each and every time. By the way, when their former illustrious leader Sussan Ley, the member for Farrer, talked about TAFE, they said, 'Unless you actually pay for things, you don't really appreciate them.'

Of course, in their first budget when they were in last, they cut $80 billion on education and health expenditure. Are those the kinds of cuts you want to make? Are those the kinds of cuts the Liberal and National parties want to make? I reckon that's exactly what they want to do. When they're in opposition, they're nice and bland and vanilla, and they say, 'Trust us; we believe in Medicare; we believe in public education; we believe in public hospitals,' and when they get into power they do what they did in the 2014 budget.

We've got some new members here, by the way, who must have political amnesia, because they stood for political parties—the Liberal National Party and the Liberal Party in South Australia—as candidates, backing in exactly what they did in opposition in the last parliament, exactly what they did in government under Abbott and Turnbull and Morrison. Now, since they've been sitting on the opposition benches, they've voted against relief for people again and again and again. So it's a bit rich for the member for McPherson to bring this motion and for those opposite to talk about cost-of-living relief when they have opposed it. It is only Labor that stands up for Middle Australia, it's only Labor that stands up for pensioners and it's only Labor that stands up for the working people of this country.

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