Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question, and I send my regards, through him, to David, his constituent, and his partner. Many Australians do work damn hard in this country—they work damn hard and they do it tough to put food on the table for their families and to aspire to a better life for their kids.

One of the things that you can do, of course, to improve people's situation, is to get wages moving again. It's one of the things that we have been determined to do. And that was recognised by the RBA governor when he said that, 'wages growth is stronger than it was a few years ago, which is a welcome development'. He was very appreciative.

I note that the member for Lilley, the Minister for Aged Care, just gave an answer speaking about people in the aged-care sector. Now, during the pandemic we spoke about people who were the heroes of the pandemic, looking after our older, vulnerable Australians during that very difficult time—not thinking of themselves, but thinking of others. During the pandemic, one of the things that we said we would do was to not just give them our thanks, but we said that they deserved a wage rise, to be better off. When the member for Lilley was giving that response, about the more than $11 billion that will be in tonight's budget for people in the aged-care sector—people who are doing it tough—those opposite just interjected throughout her answer—

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