Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Trade and Tourism) | Hansard source

I thank Senator Rice for her question. Of course we, as a government, understand the difficulties that Australians are now facing in a whole host of areas, particularly as a result of the mismanagement of the former government in terms of how they handled the economy, how they handled the pandemic, and the issues that have arisen as a result of that mishandling.

When we came to government, we would have liked to have fixed every single economic problem that Australians are facing, but that simply wasn't possible in our first 15 months in government. But we do understand the problems. We are trying to work through them in a sensible fashion that ensures that we make sensible economic decisions based on all of the economic data that we have at any particular time but also trying to assist those Australians most in need.

I think it's fair to point out that the rates of JobSeeker and youth allowance and other working-age and student payments will rise by $40 a fortnight from 20 September, so it's not as if the government is not doing things in this space. We are doing things in this space but, as a responsible economic manager, we want to make sure— (Time expired)