Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Australians are paying the price for a decade of missed opportunities and messed up priorities by previous Liberal governments, from Abbott to Turnbull to Morrison: a trillion dollar debt. The last senator's contribution was so disjointed, but they are trying to run away at a million miles an hour from the fact that they left us with a trillion dollar debt to the Australian community. High inflation, rising interest rates and the cost-of-living crisis are all the consequence of the previous Liberal government's mismanagement. Australians understand who created these challenges and the mess, because they know that the Liberals did nothing to address any of these issues until five minutes to midnight prior to the federal election. Petrol prices are up, groceries are up, rents are up, child care has become too expensive and the price of health care is up, all under the watch of the previous Liberal governments. As a government we understand what we inherited, but we're not going to deny it, making sure that the Australian people understand that that trillion-dollar debt was on their watch. But we've been elected to fix it, and that's exactly what we're going to do.

COVID exposed us to many weaknesses in our economy, and let's not confuse weaknesses for mismanagement by the Liberal governments. We know they allowed manufacturing to be shipped offshore, and what we want to do is invest in manufacturing and bring those secure well-paid jobs back here to Australia. Again, those opposite did nothing for the cost of living, and all they do is criticise the Albanese government. I'd just like to correct the previous member. He's obviously not very good with numbers. We've only been in government four months. It might feel like six months in opposition, but believe me you're going to get used to it, because you're going to be there for a while. We have an economic plan. We're a government that listened to the Australian community. They're sick of division. They're sick of disunity. What they want is to work together. They want the opposition, the government, business and unions to work together to resolve these issues. You can come in here and whinge all you like about how bad we are as a government, but what we really see is a stark contrast with a government that wants to bring people together. We want to listen to business, we want to listen to unions and we want to work together.

At the summit last week what did we see? Where was Mr Dutton, Mr 22 per cent? Where was he? He was nowhere to be seen, probably having a long lunch on Friday afternoon. We saw the Nationals leader come along to that summit with community leaders, NGOs, the union movement, premiers from each of the states and territory leaders. They want to work with the federal government on finding the solutions, because they understand how tough it is for families out there. What we've seen is a change in direction for pensioners. You don't have to go back to work, but if you're of pension age and you're fit and healthy and you want to go back to work to earn some money, we're going to support you to do that. Not only are you going to be earning additional money that will help you through this period but you will also be mentors for those people you work around, and that's a very good thing.

I've just meet with representatives of TAFE colleges from Tasmania, and they said to me that they are suffering because over the last decade the Liberal governments have tried to run and have successfully, unfortunately, run TAFEs into the ground. I see Senator Duniam over there smiling and laughing. As a fellow Tasmanian I'm very disappointed because his state Liberal colleagues have done exactly that. The Liberals are so afraid of what we might find out that they won't allow even Labor senators to visit the TAFE campuses. That's how paranoid they are. The reality is we will, as we've already committed, invest in TAFE. We will ensure Australians get the opportunity to get the skills and training they need for the jobs of today and the jobs of tomorrow. We know it's going to take more than just those Australians that can enter the workforce now, but we do have a plan, a plan that you can watch us implement from the other side. (Time expired)