Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to talk about Labor's economic plan to address the cost of living crisis that we inherited from a government that had wasted a decade, that had not dealt with the policy challenges, that had their heads in the sand and that used the budget like it was money made available for the National Party. That's what we are fixing. We accept that businesses are under a lot of pressure. They haven't had an energy policy for the last 10 years. There were 22 failed policies under your government when you were in power. That's what small business is saying to us. Yes, there are challenges, but we need to deal with them, and Labor's economic plan does exactly that.

In dealing with the cost of living crisis, we have made submissions to the Fair Work Commission to make sure that working people, those on the minimum wage, actually get a decent pay rise. We have extended some of the pandemic payments that your mob had ended or were going to end and we've kept them going. We will debate this week the Climate Change Bill to put in place the regulatory and legislative framework to deal with the impacts—