Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

At the end of the day, it comes down to the policies. We can move motions and trash-talk each other here in the House, but, at the end of the day, it comes down to the policies. The opposition can't avoid the inescapable fact that they have no policies to help Australians get through this difficult period where they're feeling the pinch of cost of living. The member for Hume had 10 minutes there—10 minutes of feigned outrage—but you didn't hear one policy from the member for Hume. I challenge those that are coming after the member for Hume to outline one policy—just one policy—that they're going to implement that will help Australians get through this difficult period.

We all understand that Australians are feeling the pinch, that inflation has eaten into their real incomes. That's something every Labor MP and senator knows. That's why we've been consulting our communities about how we put in place policies to deal with those issues. The government's listened and responded by implementing policies that assist households and small businesses through this difficult period by easing the cost of living. What we don't see from the opposition are any policies to assist Australians with their energy costs or with their costs of living—not one policy. You can yell and scream and move motions, but what matter are the policies.

The Albanese government has acted. As soon as we got elected, we moved to ensure that we reduced the impact of electricity prices. After a decade of inaction from those opposite, when it came to a transition to renewable energy the outcome was increasing electricity prices and energy prices. When they were in government, they actually moved to change the law to hide those energy cost increases from the Australian people. They hid them. We didn't do things like that. That's immature. We took a mature approach and, instead of trying to hide those electricity price increases, we came up with policies to help cushion the impacts for households and small businesses. It was in the form of our energy price relief plan. We introduced price caps on electricity and gas prices—a cap of $125 a tonne for coal and a $12-a-gigajoule cap on gas. We partnered with the states to deliver energy bill rebates for households and small businesses. Those rebates begin on 1 July. We introduced a mandatory code of conduct for the east coast gas market to ensure that we were dealing with the supply issues. They are some of the short-term policies that this government has implemented to help Australians during this difficult period.

We also have a longer term outlook, ensuring that we're implementing policies to help households and small businesses improve their energy efficiency and energy costs through the Household Energy Upgrades Fund. That was announced in the budget a couple of weeks ago. We're introducing a fuel vehicle emissions standard to ensure that over the longer term we can reduce the motoring costs of Australians by introducing more fuel-efficient vehicles into the Australian market and stopping producers dumping the vehicles that they can't sell in Europe, the United States and Asia but they can sell here in Australia because we don't have a fuel efficiency standard. That's another long-term policy of this government. They're the policies Labor that is implementing to help Australians with their energy costs.

What are the policies of the opposition? There aren't any. There are no policies to help Australians with their energy costs. What did the opposition do when Labor introduced these policies into the House? They opposed them and voted against them. They can't escape the fact that they voted against the price caps in energy markets. They voted against the measures that were put in place by the government to reduce the impacts on people's electricity bills. That would be okay and I could understand it if they had an alternative policy. It's okay to vote against our policies. We understand that. But you've got to come up with an alternative. Anyone can vote against something, but when it comes to the alternative that's where they fail. Australians are rightly asking: 'What would you do to assist households and small businesses to get through this difficult period?'

Our support for Australians doesn't end with electricity prices. There are other areas outlined in the budget where we are assisting Australian households and small businesses. We're reducing health costs. The largest indictment, in my view, on the previous government was the decimation of Medicare. They underfunded Medicare and it resulted in GPs starting to charge co-payments of their patients. It's been happening across the country for the last four or five years. We have listened to what the Australian people have said, and they're disgusted at the undermining of Medicare. We have acted. We've tripled the bulk-billing incentive in the budget to ensure that under 16s and concession card holders can continue to have-bulk-billed consultations with their doctors. That policy is so good that those opposite are supporting it. They're actually supporting our policy, and we welcome that. That's good. That's a good thing. We're also reducing the cost of medicines. We're reducing the co-payment under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. We're introducing 60-day dispensing.

It doesn't end there. We're helping families as well. Our cheaper childcare policy begins on 1 July, where we will increase the childcare subsidy for most families and remove the cap on the family payment as well. That begins on 1 July. In the budget we outlined our policy to enhance Paid Parental Leave as well.

What's been the approach of those opposite? They've opposed those policies. Have they come up with an alternative? I can't hear it. I dare say we're not going to hear it from the rest of them when they speak on this.

When it comes to housing, we know that Australians are struggling with the cost, and, again, the government is acting. In the budget we've increased the rate of rent assistance to help some of the most vulnerable Australians to deal with their housing costs. We're reducing the withholding tax on build-to-rent schemes to ensure that there's an incentive for builders to supply more housing to the market. We have a housing future fund from which we propose to build 30,000 additional properties across the country. But guess what? It's opposed by those opposite. Even worse, they've teamed up with the Greens to stop that going through the parliament. Again, what is your alternative? Where is your alternative policy? We'll wait to see if any of them outline it when they speak.

We're also ensuring that some of the most vulnerable Australians are not left behind. We're increasing JobSeeker, we're increasing single parent payments and we're increasing support for Australians' incomes. We've supported wage increases in the minimum wage case. We're supporting an increase of aged-care workers. Again, these are all opposed by the opposition. Where is the alternative policy? It's simply not there.

At the end of the day it comes down to the policies. We all know that inflation has put pressure on household incomes. We all know that Australians are feeling the pinch, but what Australians want to know is what you are going to do about it. How are you going to assist them? The Albanese government is acting. I've just outlined 15 policies that we have implemented or are in the process of implementing to help Australians get through this difficult period. If you want to be the alternative government, then you've got to outline policies, but you haven't got any. You do a lot of talking, you do a lot of trash talking, you move a lot of motions, but you have no policies. Outline just one.

Now, the mover of the motion had 10 minutes. He didn't outline anything. I thought: 'I'll try to do some research to find out if there are any. I haven't heard any from those opposite.' So I went to the Liberal Party website. There's 10 minutes of my life I'll never get back. Do you think I found any policies? There were these big, bold letters there, with a photo of the Leader of the Opposition and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition: 'standing up for hardworking Australians'. I thought: 'Okay, I'll click on this to see if there are any policies and see how they're doing them.' There's nothing there. There's nothing behind it. There's a press release from the Leader of the Opposition.

Then I went to Peter Dutton's website. I thought that maybe he would have something. I didn't waste as much time there, only two minutes. Again, there were no policies—not a single policy—but there was a link to his budget reply speech. I thought: 'I'll have a read of this in case I missed something when he delivered it.' They did have two policies in that. One was to allow Australians to raid their super to buy their first home. But guess what? That's not a new policy; that's Morrison's policy, so you're picking up old policies and rehashing those.

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