Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for her question. We do understand that rising interest rates are putting real pressure on the budgets of Australian households. This government sees as its first priority doing everything we can to ease that pressure. It's why we sought an increase in the minimum wage. It's why during this week we are introducing legislation which will reduce the cost of medicines and which will make childcare more affordable. It's why last week we saw the biggest increase in the pension in more than 10 years. On this side of the House, we're completely focused on the effort to improve the household budgets of every Australian.

But the issues that we face today are fundamentally a function of a lost decade of government offered by those opposite. We had insipid productivity growth defining the last 10 years. We had the greatest period of wage stagnation in our country's history, and that's a direct result of the fact that what we had opposite was a bunch of economic bystanders. It was a lost decade of economic activity when it came from those opposite.

We are different. We are the ones who are economic managers, and government under Labor will see economic management be a part of what we are about. We will do that in a way which will improve the budgets of households as a result.

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