Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, Australians have just been denied a Christmas rate cut, because of Labor's reckless spending. Thirty-two per cent of households are going without food or skipping meals, and in some suburbs 90 per cent are struggling to pay their mortgage. Labor has just killed a Christmas rate cut. Is this what the Prime Minister meant when he promised that life would be cheaper under him?

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

Notwithstanding some of the rhetorical flourishes in that question, the fact of the matter is that this side of the House is the only side of the House—sometimes with support from the crossbenches, to be fair, some of the time. We have implemented a consistent policy of support of cost-of-living measures. And, when it comes to fiscal policy, of course, we are happy to compare our fiscal policy of two budget surpluses and lower deficits, of savings—$188 billion of reduction in debt as a result of government actions and $60 billion less in interest payments on that debt as a result of government actions—with the previous regime of nine years, which promised a budget surplus in the first year and every year thereafter and didn't deliver a single one.

One of the things that characterises this government is that we go and we underpromise and overdeliver. We didn't go to an election and promise that we would produce budget surpluses, and yet we delivered not one but two.

Opposition Member:

An opposition member interjecting—

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

We dealt with issues such as—the member interjects about power prices; we didn't go to an election saying there would be a $600 billion nuclear plan. What we have done is to intervene in the market to put a cap on coal and gas prices. That's something that we did that was pretty unprecedented. We didn't promise we'd do that, but the global inflation spike and the biggest energy crisis since the 1970s required urgent government action. And we did that in partnership with the Perrottet government in New South Wales, a Liberal government in New South Wales that actually behaved responsibly at that time, unlike those opposite, who've opposed all of that like they opposed the energy bill relief, they opposed the tax cuts, they opposed the pay rises for low-income workers, they opposed fee-free TAFE—and said that people don't value it if they don't pay for it—

Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Where does all that money you hand out come from?

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

and they opposed cheaper medicines. They opposed all of those measures, and the Leader of the Opposition interjects, suggesting—just like the speech she gave recently, which foreshadowed austerity measures going through. How will that help people? (Time expired)