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

I thank the member for Maribyrnong for her question. One of the issues that we're dealing with goes to the member for Ryan's last question about the impact of the war in Europe and how we're dealing with that. We're showing our resilience with our fuel security plan in the budget, making sure that we have a fuel reserve for the government that is government owned here, making sure that we continue to get those supplies of fuel and fertiliser into the country so that the agriculture sector in particular can continue to plant during what is planting season at this time so that they can be confident that they'll have the diesel to be able to harvest food for our people and for our exports as well. This is absolutely critical.

But when our government came to office, four years ago, we faced many challenges. We did face a challenge with schools and TAFE. What we've done there is fully fund every public school, and, on Public Education Day, we are very proud of that. We had a TAFE system that had suffered from a decade of neglect. What we've done through free TAFE and proper funding is make sure that public TAFE is again at the centre of our vocational education and training system.

We had public hospitals that were at breaking point. In the deal that we delivered with states and territories of $25 billion of additional funding, that will make a substantial difference. But it's not just that, because we have responsibility for primary health care. Our urgent care clinics—in two weeks time, the 137th urgent care clinic will open in Australia—make an enormous difference. We have increased bulk-billing right around the country as well—much faster than was anticipated—and $25 scripts for medicines on the PBS are making an enormous difference.

When we came to office, we had a royal commission that summed up aged care with one word: neglect. We had the biggest reforms in 25 years as a result of getting it right. We now have nurses in nursing homes 99 per cent of the time as a result of our reforms, and we're paying aged care workers properly. When we came to office, low wages were a deliberate design feature of those opposite. What we've had is successive increases in the minimum wage, making sure that we deal with those challenges.

Of course, when it comes to housing, when we came to office, we had a system that simply is not working for young people, and we are reforming the system so that young people can have the security of a roof over their head. These are all reforms to deliver real change. Delivering real change is what Labor governments do.

On that note, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.

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