Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

The budget in October will contain a range of new initiatives which we took to the election and for which we won the support of the Australian people: cheaper child care, cheaper medicines and a wages policy to get wages growing again in this country after a decade of deliberate wage suppression and deliberate wage stagnation that those opposite chased when it came to their economic policies. We've said all along that when you inherit a budget that is absolutely heaving with $1 trillion in Liberal Party debt you've got to work out what your priorities are. Our priorities are child care, skills, the cost of medicine, getting wages growing again and investing in the energies of the future—cleaner, cheaper and more-reliable energy—all the issues that we took to the election and won a mandate for. In many ways, they are the reason we are on this side of the House and you, thankfully, are on that side of the House. We've been consistent all along.

When it comes to the cost of living, you cannot take those opposite seriously. This is the party that called for fiscal responsibility at the same time as they said we should shovel billions more out the door. This is the party that demands an invite to a jobs summit they want cancelled. If you were to believe the wise words of the Financial Review, this is the party that got John Howard in to teach them about the future. You cannot believe a word that those opposites say about the cost of living. When it comes to the cost of living, the member for Hume, in particular, should be ashamed of himself.

See this speech in context