Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Given that the Prime Minister has previously advised the parliament that no legislation to lower energy prices will proceed to the parliament unless all 76 members of the government in the House of Representatives agree, why do Australians have to wait to get lower power prices because of the disunity in the Prime Minister's government?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. Mr Speaker, he's not even capable of remembering what I said for the five minutes between my answer and his question.

It is clear that we have a majority of one in this House and that we are in a minority in the Senate. But yet, despite many people questioning whether we would be able to deliver in this parliament, we have delivered one massive reform after another: the largest personal income tax cuts in 20 years; we've delivered lower taxes for small and medium family businesses; we've delivered childcare reform; we've delivered school funding reform; we've delivered billions of dollars going into Medicare, health and the PBS; and we've got record spending on infrastructure. And we've been able to do what the Leader of the Opposition said would be unthinkable: we actually stood up for Australian workers and we got the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreed.

Our government—my government—has delivered one big reform after another, again and again. It's been said that we could not get legislation through the Senate. Again, it's been said that we had a small minority in the House. And, of course, the numbers are what they are, but we have delivered. The runs are on the board, and they are: record jobs growth last year; 3.1 per cent GDP growth; energy prices starting to turn in the right direction—downwards; and tax cuts for hardworking middle-income Australians, cuts voted against by the Labor Party this year.