Sam Rae (Hawke, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This budget is indeed a Labor budget. It's a budget that is delivering real cost-of-living relief for people in my community and communities like ours all across Australia. It's a budget that gives more support to those who need it most. It's a budget that strengthens our Medicare system, making it easier to see a doctor and cheaper to get much-needed medicine. It's a budget underpinned by responsible, considered and necessary restraint to lay the foundations of a stronger, more resilient economy for the future. And it's a budget that delivers a modest but important surplus for the first time in 15 years.

This budget reflects the priorities and the posture of this government and our Prime Minister. It strikes the right balance between dealing with the immediate challenges we face here at home and setting Australia up for the challenges of the future. It is about targeted cost-of-living relief for families, fixing the mess left by the Liberals opposite in their wasted decade in government, and rebuilding a stronger and fairer economy for all Australians. From Sunbury to Ballan, and in every town and suburb in between, people across my electorate are under pressure. Inflation and interest rate rises driven by disrupted supply chains and Putin's illegal war in Ukraine are having a real impact on household budgets. Despite record job creation and wage rises, after the former Liberal government's deliberate strategy of wage suppression, we still need to ease that pressure on Australian households while keeping downward pressure on inflation.

Our budget does just that with targeted cost-of-living relief. In my electorate of Hawke more than 38,000 people will save money because this government is making hundreds of much-needed medicines cheaper and allowing people to buy two months worth of medicine for the class of a single month's prescription. By tripling the bulk billing incentive for 29 GP clinics across our community, nearly 84,000 people will have better access to bulk billed GPs, reducing the out of pocket costs of seeing a doctor in Hawke. Over 10,000 people in Hawke will benefit from our responsible increase in the base rate of JobSeeker and other payments; 8,520 households will benefit from our 15 per cent boost to the maximum rates of Commonwealth rent assistance; and, one of my favourites, our affordable childcare package is helping more than 6,800 families in Hawke save money and enable parents to return to work. Our energy rebates will reduce power bills by an additional $250. These are real and responsible measures that will keep money in the pockets of the people in my community without adding to inflation.

This is what a Labor budget looks like. While there is so much to be proud of and is, I'm particularly pleased with its focus on strengthening our Medicare system and making it easier to see a GP. There is not a week that goes by without me or my office hearing from people in our community who are struggling to see a bulk-billed doctor. I've shared examples in this place before—letters from constituents whose GPs are retiring, leaving their patients with no doctor because a clinic cannot find a new one to hire, or stories of GPs so overwhelmed that they simply cannot afford to continue bulk-billing. It is heartbreaking but it is not surprising. After a decade of attacking our healthcare system, the Liberals left Medicare in the worst shape it has ever been. It all started with then health minister and now Leader of the Opposition—who, I might add, was voted the worst health minister in Australia's history by GPs—and his plan to introduce a $7 co-payment for people simply trying to access necessary medical help. That will go down as nothing more than a liberal GP tax forevermore. But that plan didn't work, so what followed from those opposite was more discrete, more covert, more insidious. They are gutted our health system with chronic underfunding and total neglect. As a result, bulk-billing rates are declining, and only 14 per cent of medical graduates now choose to work in general practice compared to the historical benchmark of 50 per cent.

This Labor budget begins to fix that. This government—the Albanese government—is investing $3.5 billion to halt the steep decline in bulk-billing with the largest one-off increase to the bulk-billing incentive ever. The incentive will be tripled for the most common consultations, making it easier for 83,888 people—that's nearly 84,000 people—in my electorate alone to see a GP and to be bulk-billed—that is, not pay anything additional. All the while, we are reducing the pressure on local emergency rooms and GP clinics by establishing an urgent care clinic in Sunbury, which will be operational this year, and by implementing two-month prescriptions to halve the number of doctor visits required. This is beneficial for our primary healthcare system, it is beneficial to Medicare and, very importantly, it is beneficial for patients.

This budget also provides a much-needed pay rise for a group of workers who deserve it the most: aged-care workers. Aged-care workers are the best among us, and their patient, loving care for some of our most vulnerable Australians is nothing short of incredible. However, their work has been made more difficult owing to the sector's insufficient funding and inadequate pay rates across the sector. For too long, those working in aged care have been asked to work harder or longer without adequate awards, but this budget changes that. It allocates $11.3 billion dollars to fund the Fair Work Commission's interim decision for a 15 per cent increase in minimum wages for many aged-care workers. This will benefit nearly 56,700 award aged-care workers in my state of Victoria, who will earn between $129.20 and $341.24 more per week if they're working more than 38 hours. It represents fairer pay for their hard and important work and creates more opportunities for those working in our care economy.

This budget delivers real and targeted cost-of-living relief. It strengthens our Medicare system and helps some of our most deserving Australians with a pay rise. Importantly, it achieves all this while strengthening Australia's finances through restraint and responsible budgetary management. After the 10 long, wasted years of the previous Liberal government, our economy has been left with a trillion dollars of Liberal debt. Those opposite, who delusionally claim the egotistical mantle of being superior economic managers, failed to deliver a single budget surplus, despite what the former member for Kooyong's mugs might have said. They couldn't deliver a surplus because of their rorts, their wastefulness, their unproductive spending and their shameless sandbagging of their own interests. They were motivated by media stunts and press releases, and they forgot that their job was to deliver for the Australian people.

This government, the Albanese government, is about more than announcements. We are about responsible governance for every Australian, and so our budget forecasts a modest but important surplus, ahead of most major advanced economies. It also delivers lower deficits and reduced debt over each year of the forward estimates. We are returning 82 per cent of revenue upgrades to the bottom line in this budget, with a total of 87 per cent across this budget and the October budget. We're making a further $17.8 billion in savings and spending reprioritisations, totalling $40 billion across both budgets. We're limiting annual growth in real payments to an average of 0.6 per cent over the next five years. By returning most of these revenue upgrades to the budget, the government is reducing that trillion dollars of Liberal debt and reducing our interest costs. This will provide a stronger and more sustainable fiscal position for Australia. Moreover, we have achieved this while providing responsible cost-of-living relief, investing in a stronger and more secure economy, funding the critical services that Australians rely on and supporting small businesses throughout our country.

This is why I was so pleased to have the Treasurer visit John from Keemin electrical in Maddingley, in my electorate of Hawke, last week. There is much to commend about John and the work that he does. But in my opinion there are a couple of things that I think are best. John employs 25 people in Hawke, and they're training three apprentices. Their core business involves helping other small and medium-sized businesses save money by maximising their energy efficiency and reducing waste. This is excellent for local jobs, it's excellent for local business and it's good for our planet. I was proud to bring the Treasurer to meet John, his son Jesse—Jesse's got a pretty impressive haircut; the Treasurer will know what I'm talking about—and the entire team at Keemin so we could inform them about how our budget was assisting businesses like theirs by increasing the instant asset write-off, providing more relief on power bills for small businesses and supporting 3,315 apprentices in Hawke to complete their training. Most importantly for Keemin, this budget supports small and medium-sized businesses in electrifying, improving energy efficiency and reducing emissions, by introducing a small business energy incentive.

This is what Labor's budget is all about. It's supporting everyday people and businesses just like John's—businesses and communities all across Australia. It's taking the pressure off families. It's making it easier to see a bulk-billing doctor. It's providing a much-needed pay rise for those who deserve it most. And because it's measured and responsible, this budget is doing all of that while putting Australia's economy on the best possible footing to deliver a better future for everybody in our country.

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