Tania Lawrence (Hasluck, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. In May, the Australian people voted for an Albanese Labor government with real plans to build a better future. Can the Prime Minister update the House on how the government is working towards that goal?

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

Thank you very much for the question. I congratulate the honourable member on her election to this parliament and I look forward to working with her and the other new members in this chamber across all sides of the parliament.

On 21 May, the Australian people voted for change, and we have hit the ground running as a new government. We haven't wasted a day. We put in the submission, as we said we would do, to say that people on the minimum wage of $20.33 an hour shouldn't go backwards. Remember during the election campaign, I held up the dollar and said that, if people on the minimum wage got a dollar increase per hour from $20.33 in their wage, then the sky wouldn't fall in. Those opposite said it would—it would wreck the whole economy. Well, we got a decision out of the Fair Work Commission of 5.2 per cent, and I'm very pleased that that occurred. We also acted very quickly, faster than any previous government has, to deal with the natural disaster of the floods that have hit Queensland and New South Wales once again. We had the ADF on the ground quicker than ever before. We had payments in people's bank accounts quicker than for any previous natural disaster. We've also worked to make sure that people get access to antivirals and their fourth shots and have promoted that in order to deal with the pandemic.

But we're also planning for the future, through legislation introduced just today, in our first week, to create Jobs and Skills Australia; legislation to fix the aged-care crisis, responding to the aged care royal commission; and legislation for our climate change target of 43 per cent by 2030, something that we've already submitted to the UNFCCC through our nationally determined contribution.

We've also worked very hard to restore our relationships around the world. The truth is that we had major problems with our relationships in the Pacific; with our European neighbours, particularly France; but also problems with the relationships with the United States and other countries. We hit the ground running very, very quickly. Indeed, on the Monday morning, we were off to the Quad leaders meeting in Tokyo, where we successfully met with President Biden and Prime Minister Kishida and Prime Minister Modi.

What we are about as a government is strength in our common purpose. We have an overriding philosophy of no-one held back and no-one left behind, and that is the program that this government will be proud to implement over this term and beyond.