Josh Dolega (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) | Hansard source

Now, you might be wondering what my favourite New Year celebration is. It's not the one with fireworks and it's not the one with confetti. Mine comes with spreadsheets. That's right; it's the new financial year, and this financial year we have a lot to celebrate. From today, we're giving every taxpayer another tax cut, which means people will be keeping more of what they earn. We're giving minimum wage earners a six per cent pay rise, and modern award wages a 4.75 per cent rise. We're expanding Paid Parental Leave to a full six months, and super is being paid on top of that. We're making our Medicare urgent care clinics permanent, and that means, if you need urgent care, all you need is your Medicare card. We're increasing public hospital funding. We're expanding into endometriosis and pelvic pain clinics to include menopause and perimenopause services. We're improving patient outcomes by requiring pathology and diagnostic imaging providers that they must upload test results to My Health Record.

We're introducing payday super so workers start earning returns sooner and reducing the chances that super will go unpaid. We're permanently extending the $20,000 instant asset write-off for small businesses permanently. We're banning supermarket price gouging with a new mandatory food and grocery code that prohibits very large retailers from charging prices that are significantly excessive. We're opening a new National Environmental Protection Agency, and we're establishing a new veteran wellbeing agency.

The Albanese Labor government is committed to delivering real change that matters to Australians, and we will keep working to deliver more cost-of-living help and build a more productive economy, a better tax system and a fairer housing market to help all Australians.