Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Supporting our most vulnerable and delivering a slim, responsible budget surplus are not mutually exclusive. Just because the Greens can't fathom that doesn't mean Labor can't do it. The best way that we can respond to a cost-of-living crisis is to halt the scourge of inflation, and for the government to pay its dues. Much in the same way that households feel the cost-of-living pressures, so do government. It's easy to posture and post moronic graphics on social media, all the while moving the goalposts on acceptable fiscal policy, but it is a whole other matter to deliver a budget that supports single parents, invests in women and restores funding to our national institutions.

We've had to clean up and consolidate projects that the other lot left behind, because it has become increasingly obvious that the opposition can't finish anything. But the Greens can't fathom balancing a budget or understand the real, grown-up challenges that come with a budget. I suggest that maybe it's time they grow up. Maybe it is time they gave up word art and got into the modern day when they're posting their memes. What we saw last night was just an example of the student-politics-based Greens party in this place. They've gone from a green environmental movement and a social justice movement to nothing but a bunch of obstructionists, who actually sit there and pontificate about all these wonderful things that they could do, but they will never be in a position to do them, and they never do. The hypocrisy over there is writ large. You hear them talking about how we should have rent freezes and we should do this and we should do that. The Greens own 15 investment properties. That includes members who have three.

See this speech in context