Patrick Gorman (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

It's amazing to see what this opposition has chosen to do in public and what it chooses to do in private. In private, the now-shadow Treasurer chose to hide a 20 per cent increase in electricity prices from the people of Australia in the middle of an election. In private, those opposite allowed the member for Cook to sign himself into a number of secret ministries, including the Treasury portfolio. But then, publicly, when they came here in December, they chose to vote against lower power bills and power bill relief for Australian families. It is amazing that they would have chosen not to act when asked in this place: 'Do you want to help families with power-bill relief?' They chose to vote no. But they still have the confidence, and I admire the confidence of the shadow Treasurer, I really do, to come in here and lecture us about cost-of-living relief.

This group—a political party, the Liberal Party, the National Party—have an amazing ability, bizarrely, to sometimes speak the truth in government. It is not often, but sometimes they do. It was just less than a year ago that we had Senator Birmingham telling us exactly how the economy works. He said, 'The Reserve Bank will do what it thinks is best in accordance with its independent charter.' Of course, interest rates have always been going to normalise from their abnormally historic lows. This shows that what we seeing from those opposite is not just an attempt to politicise the decisions of the independent Reserve Bank but also their choice to quote from a very limited scope of history.

So often we hear from those opposite about how their political hero John Howard was a great economic manager. What they always forget to remind the Australian people, and I can see why, is which party and which Treasurer delivered the highest ever interest rates to the Australian people. We know it was, in fact, the Liberal Party. In April 1982 we had an interest rate of 21.4 per cent under Treasurer John Howard. The opposition have delivered two things when they've been in government. First, they delivered the highest ever interest rate paid by the Australian people, that 21.4 per cent under Treasurer Howard, and, second, they left the Australian people with the largest ever debt. Those opposite left $1 trillion of debt on their way out the door. They left the Australian people with a secret power bill increase of 20 per cent and $1 trillion of debt to pay off.

It's just phenomenal that they also now have a leader of the opposition who is running around saying how much he enjoys being in opposition. I'm sure that was great news to so many on the opposition benches, hearing the opposition leader say, 'The joy of being the opposition leader is that I'm not in government.' That must be a great encouragement for those trying to hang onto their seats, for those who might one day aspire to be a minister and for those who might one day gain a seat for the Liberal Party or the National Party. The Leader of the Opposition tells us that we've got to see him smile a little bit more. Now that I know what makes him smile, that is quite odd. But he does say, 'The joy of being the opposition leader is that I'm not in government.' I guess it's a case of 'find a job you love, and you'll have it for life'.

When the opposition leader talked about interest rates on 3 May 2022, he was able to be very upfront and honest with the Australian people. He said: 'It's a reality of a world where there's inflation. I think Australians understand that there's a lot of pressure—upward pressure—on interest rates at the moment.' Again, we got honesty back in the day, but now we get—the shadow Treasurer is not here anymore I was going to talk about him to his face; instead, I'll talk about him in his absence. I'm sure his colleagues will pass it on. He actually issued a press release last year in opposition, where he said:

The answer to addressing rising inflation … it's to have sensible fiscal and monetary policy driven by a focused, independent Reserve Bank.

He didn't quite say that again today, did he? He didn't quite outline the same sober, calm economic policies. We got a lecture at another time from the now shadow Treasurer telling us that the Albanese government needed to show constraint on expenditure. If only he'd given that lecture when he was in the party room and the cabinet of the Morrison, Turnbull and Abbott governments, we wouldn't have that trillion dollars of debt—that beautiful gift that gets more and more expensive to service because the former government chose to leave so much debt behind and so little plan on how to pay for it.

I admire the shape-shifting, form-changing skills and capabilities of the opposition because today they've undergone their biggest transformation yet. It used to be the party of free enterprise. It used to be the party—they'd claim—of low taxes, even though they've always taxed higher than the governments that came before them. But today we got the best claim of all—my favourite so far—which is the so-called party of the Australian working class, according to the Leader of the Opposition. The party of the Australian working class. The party of WorkChoices is the party of this Australian working class. The party that tried to force Medicare co-payments is the party of the working class. The party that went to the last election opposing an increase to the minimum wage is the party of the working class.

The member for Cook, the marketer and chief, may have moved on. I'm pleased to see the leadership style of all marketing and no policy has continued under this opposition. I mentioned the member for Cook. When the member for Cook was the secret treasurer commenting on interest rates on 3 May last year, on the question of interest rates, the secret treasurer and public Prime Minister said, 'In the last 12 months, the IMF has more than doubled their estimates of forecasts this year on inflation to well over seven per cent for this year from about the mid threes.' That has changed massively, and we all know the reasons why. He said, 'We saw a bit of that in the last inflation date, and I expect we'll see a bit more,' when he was asked whether we would see more interest rate increases.

It's important to put all of that on the record because under all of this is a simple fact: we have a huge inflation challenge and families are doing it tough. We have to be realistic about what we can do. I want to talk about what we can do. I note that the Prime Minister was in Jagajaga the other week talking about our plans to make child care more affordable for 1.2 million Australian families. I know that in the electorate of Bean, that's going to benefit the families who send their children to some 47 early childhood education care centres.

When we talk about what we can do when it comes to making education more affordable, it's this government that's introduced fee-free TAFE. In the electorate of Hasluck, there will be more affordable TAFE for 18,000 Western Australians, including at Midland TAFE. We're trying to get through parliament the National Reconstruction Fund. This was something that was taken to the election and the Australian people endorsed it. We were completely open about our intention. We know that it will give people good, secure Australian jobs that we need to secure our economy and provide the tax base for the future. For some reason, which is yet to be explained, the coalition has chosen to vote against that.

There's so much more this government is doing to make sure we act in a responsible way on the cost-of-living pressures people face. We backed a minimum wage increase. We went to the election saying we would do it. We wrote to the Fair Work Commission asking for it, and it has been delivered. We have introduced legislation for cheaper, cleaner energy. We have said that the May budget will have bill relief for families, which was opposed by those opposite. We are going to deliver cheaper child care—an idea that the then Leader of the Opposition put out almost three years ago. It was there for them to grab when they were in government and they chose not to. We're delivering cheaper medicines. At $12.50 per script, it is cheaper for families. We are delivering fee-free TAFE, expanding paid parental leave, building more affordable homes and ensuring that pensions increase in line with inflation. This is the responsible cost-of-living relief Australians expect from a responsible government.

See this speech in context