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

It is entirely relevant, because in the last 10 months of this government we have been cleaning up the 10 years of mess that was left by those opposite, and that mess started when the Leader of the Opposition was appointed as the health minister. He offered Australia a $7 GP tax—a fundamental assault on Medicare. He tried to increase the cost of medicines by $5. And then he had his big, bright policy idea: that we would charge people when they rock up to emergency departments.

That was what happened in the first 10 months when the now Leader of the Opposition was in the position of health minister. No wonder one of his other achievements in his first 10 months was to be voted the worst-ever health minister.

But we can continue. Let's look at his 10 months as opposition leader. The Leader of the Opposition, in his first 10 months, couldn't even get invited to the campaign launch of the New South Wales Liberal Party. He showed his fantastic judgement in the first 10 months when he called the robodebt royal commission a 'witch-hunt', when, as it has turned out, it has exposed so much of the failure that sat underneath the Morrison-Abbott-Turnbull government. We found ourselves seeing the Leader of the Opposition defending the secret ministries. Then, when it came to whether or not there were any new policy ideas from the Leader of the Opposition, he found that he didn't even have his own policy ideas. He was still stuck with Tony Abbott's one-word policy prescription, 'no'—or, to turn it into a three-word slogan, 'no, no, no'.

I have to wonder why we are having an MPI about the last 10 months, because, if we were to talk about the last 11 months, maybe we would also be covering things such as the secret ministries scandal, which saw the then Prime Minister, the member for Cook, holding five secret ministries. There were two secret assistant ministers, which we only found out about last week. None of them had the guts to stand up and tell us about the two secret assistant ministers operating in the Morrison government. I thought it was interesting that the shadow minister opposite didn't mention that the inflation problem started on their watch, didn't mention that interest rates started increasing on their watch and didn't mention that, when they walked out the door, they left a trillion dollars of Liberal debt for the Australian taxpayers to repay.

Of course, I'm disappointed that the shadow minister is no longer here, because they also left us with a secret energy price increase. I'm fascinated by this, because what we know about the secret energy price increase is, firstly, that the shadow minister, when he was asked on 26 October last year whether he had known before the election that prices would rise, said, 'No, I didn't.' A week later, on 1 November, when he was asked if he had signed the regulation delaying notification of the price rise, he said, 'I did, as it was recommended by the industry department.' So we have someone who is lecturing the current government when his own record was one of deception, hiding things from the Australian people before an election, and then refusing after the election to even own up to it.

I will take the interjection from those opposite, who are saying they want to hear more about what the Albanese government is doing for the people of Australia. I take that interjection. Let's look at it. We supported an increase—again, because of a choice the Australian people made—to the minimum wage. We said, 'Absolutely we support it.' Those opposite went to the election saying they didn't support an increase in the minimum wage. We have backed a pay increase for aged-care workers, 15 per cent, so that they start to get the pay they deserve for the work for which we have for far too long said, 'Thank you,' but not given them the pay that they deserve. We've cut the price of PBS medicines down to $30, saving a family with two or three scripts a month up to $450 a year, and in 100 days from today we will see child care cheaper for 1.2 million Australian families. I will contrast that with what we saw from those opposite, who proudly presided over a 49 per cent increase in the cost of child care for working families in Australia over 10 years.

Also, when it was clear that we needed to take urgent action because of the challenges in the energy market, we brought this parliament back on 15 December, brought legislation into this place and asked every member: did they want to vote for cheaper electricity or did they want to vote for higher energy prices? Those in the opposition voted for higher energy prices. They voted against price relief for families in their own electorates. Then they come in here with stories about their constituents, and never do they say that they have explained to those constituents or to businesses that they voted against energy price relief. They simply ignore the fact that, when they were asked to act and to do their fundamental job of voting for legislation in this place, they chose not to vote for energy price relief.

I know that we have some fantastic speakers on this MPI coming—maybe not on that side, but I'm pretty confident on this side. As to some of the other things that have been achieved, I want to commend the work that the member for Macquarie has done in making sure that we once again value our arts and creative industries. I commend her and the minister for their work on the Revive cultural policy, a fantastic piece of work that had been missing for 10 years. We didn't have a national cultural policy. We didn't get rid of it; I don't know who did. But I'm pleased that we have a government that once again believes in making sure we have a proper cultural policy with new money.

I want to commend the work of the member for Jagajaga, who's been out there campaigning for cheaper child care. She knows it's not just about helping families with cost of living; it's about investing in our children and the productivity of our economy. She's been a leading campaigner for that.

I want to commend the work of the member for Lalor, as the Chief Government Whip, who has made sure so much of the government's legislative agenda when it comes to Jobs and Skills Australia, to those 20,000 university places, to legislation to open the doors of opportunity—again, people on this side are committed to making sure—

An opposition member: Give the member for Hunter a rap!

I will give the member for Hunter a rap. He never left a trillion dollars of debt! The member for Hunter didn't spend $3.4 billion on submarines that were never built. He's never spent a billion dollars on government advertising. He is a fantastic advocate for his region, and he is also a strong advocate for manufacturing jobs. He has been, in this place, time and time again, asking those opposite to back the National Reconstruction Fund so that we can once again back manufacturing in this country, as opposed to those opposite— (Time expired)

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