Angus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Prime Minister, Deloitte Access Economics is forecasting the worst budget collapse in 50 years outside the pandemic. Last week, the Treasurer announced that Labor would raid the Future Fund to top up Labor's reckless spending. This week the Albanese Labor government is taking our country in the wrong direction. How can Australians possibly afford another three years of Labor?

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

I thank the shadow Treasurer for his rhetoric—

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And for just being you!

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Treasurer will cease interjecting.

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

and, as the Treasurer has indicated, for just being a delight for the Treasurer to have as shadow! We do have a plan. Those opposite had a plan to take wages backwards. That was a key feature of their economic architecture. We have a plan for getting wages up, with increases, three of them, for people on the minimum wage. Remember back to the election campaign when I took out that $1 coin and argued that a $1 increase per hour was something that we would support if the Fair Work Commission chose to do so, and those opposite said it would wreck the economy and the sky would fall in if that occurred. That's the reckless arrogance from those opposite.

What happens with workers isn't just their wages, but there's a range of ways in which we have put them up, whether it be the 10 per cent increase that early educators will get on 1 December, not long away now—from next week—the increase in aged-care workers to make sure that the system can continue to function or the lowest gender pay gap on record as a direct result of the fact that we have targeted feminised industries to give not just our thanks to those people who got us through the pandemic but a proper, decent wage and decent conditions. Then there are people I have met who have benefited directly from 'same job, same pay', including a miner who benefited by $34,000 and another by $27,000, meaning they are earning exactly the same as the people they are working side by side with.

But it's not just that. As well as that, they are getting to keep more of what they earn, because we changed the tax cuts to make sure that every taxpayer, all 13.6 million of them, not just some, got a tax cut. In addition to that, we are bringing costs down through cheaper medicines but more bulk-billing, energy rebates and cheaper child care. All of that was opposed by those opposite. Inflation had a 'six' in front of it; now it has a 'two' in front of it and is going down. And, on top of that, we have delivered back-to-back budget surpluses, something those opposite couldn't possibly recognise. (Time expired)