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

I am so pleased that the opposition brought this MPI into the chamber today, because today is a very exciting day for working Australians. Every Australian—the 13.6 million Australian taxpayers—will get a tax cut as of today. Compared with what those opposite, when they were in government for 10 disastrous years, were going to do, the majority of our taxpayers will get a better tax cut. In fact, those earning less than $45,000 a year would not have got anything from those opposite, but they are from the Albanese Labor government.

We acknowledge that there is a cost-of-living crisis. We know things are tough out there for families. That's why we put together a comprehensive plan for assisting Australians to deal with it. There's a $300 energy rebate as of today for every household and small business in this country. There's $325 for small businesses. We know that it was this government that, in our budget, froze the cost of PBS medicines for all Australians for a year, bringing down the cost of medication. We put more medications on the PBS, making them much cheaper. We know what we've done when it comes to health to help with the cost of living. We have actually opened urgent care clinics across the country. In my hometown of Launceston in Tasmania, we've seen the real benefits. The real benefit is that Australian families that need to see a GP can now go to an urgent care clinic. All they need is their Medicare card—no credit card. We've re-incentivised GPs to bulk-bill people. That is something that those on the other side never once did. There is a wage rise for low-income earners in this country—the third in the two years that we've been in government. Those opposite never once stood up for Australian workers and supported them to get a pay rise. In fact, at every opportunity, whether it was to increase wages, to change taxation benefits, which have been cut as of today, or to introduce our energy rebate, they've voted against it.

When they were in government, they had 22 energy policies and landed not one of them. In a decade, they could not land one policy. So we do not back away from investing in renewable energy. What do we have now from the opposition leader, Mr Peter Dutton? We have an energy policy on the never-never. He wants to build nuclear reactors around the country. He can't tell us how many. He certainly can't tell us how much it will cost. But there's one thing we can be very sure of: there's not one expert who believes that's the way of the future for energy. Even if they come online, they will not deliver cheaper energy for the Australian community. We also know that there's no costing for this thought bubble that he's had—this mushroom cloud that the Liberals and Nationals are living under at the moment. All we know is that Mr Dutton said, 'The cost is going to be big, but we don't know how big it's going to be.'

We have also supported an increase, as of today, to superannuation for Australian taxpayers. It will go from 11 per cent to 11.5 per cent. We have done more in terms of making child care affordable. We have increased paid parental leave, and those working within government will actually get superannuation paid on that parental leave. Those are good things for Australian families. They're supporting families to be able to make the best choice for how to look after and raise their children. They're now able to split leave between the parents, letting them choose who has what amount of time off. These are tangible things that are going to help Australian families.

The unfortunate thing is that we know that, after those opposite were in government for 10 very long, disastrous years where they did nothing, we've had to clean up their mess. We know that they left us with a trillion-dollar debt, and what have we done in two years and three budgets? We've brought down two surpluses. That surely gives the Australian people some confidence that we can manage the economy and look after the Australian people's interests for their betterment.