Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Hansard source

The Sydney Morning Herald in its editorial on 29 July 2022 said that the Treasurer should end his 'sob story' and outline his policies. I couldn't agree more. It continued:

While Chalmers'—

the member for Rankin—

economic statement drips with rhetorical empathy for battlers, it fails to explain how he plans to reconcile these conflicting priorities.

Of course, the Sydney Morning Herald is right. It was not just the Sydney Morning Herald, other publications and other media asking that question and demanding an answer; ordinary everyday Australians were doing the same.

Indeed, as we know, today is another tough day for the 3½ million families who have a mortgage and are struggling with the cost of living. They are looking to the government for answers, and what we're getting is the blame game. What we're getting is, 'It's all the fault of those opposite.' When we were in government we made sure that we navigated this nation's workers, this nation's battlers and this nation's families through drought, fires, floods and the worst global pandemic in 100 years. And what have we got to show for it? Forty thousand people are alive today because of the policies that we put in place. Some 700,000 jobs were saved because of the economic policies that we enacted, that we put in place. I'm proud of that record, and I know those on this side are proud too, because the job of the government is to protect Australians. The job of the government in Australia is to look after the interests of families, workers, battlers and everybody who calls this country home.

We know that during our government more than 1.2 million jobs were created since the pandemic. There are 11½ million Australians benefitting from tax relief. That was the policy that we put in place. There were 220,000 trade apprentices. I appreciate that the government are going to have a skills and jobs summit. Good on them. I hope it's successful. I truly do. But we had 220,000 trade apprentices, a record high. There were more than 5,200 grants worth $2.7 billion to support manufacturing businesses. We want more business to be done here in Australia. We want more products built in Australia. Again I commend the government for its Buy Australian policy. That's fantastic. I truly hope it succeeds. But don't trash the legacy of the previous government. Outline your plan for what you will do in the future. We saved the lives of 40,000 people and we saved jobs. What are you going to do?

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