Daniel Mulino (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's with great pleasure that I rise to speak on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2023-2024, given the strong budget that I'm able to speak about in this session. When this government came to office, it inherited a situation where inflation was on the rise due to a range of global factors. There was the illegal and immoral invasion of the Ukraine by Russia, which clearly had a significant impact on energy and food prices and their volatility, and of course there were also supply chain issues that were still impacting globally as a result of the overhang of COVID. What we inherited was a situation where inflation had already started rising—indeed, the largest single quarterly increase had already occurred—under the watch of the previous government. Interest rates had already started increasing under the watch of the previous government.

For those from the other side who want to ask questions about our budget, a little bit of self-reflection might be in order when, notwithstanding the fact that all of these issues were in existence, their last budget when in office had zero dollars in saves. They come in here and talk about spending when in fact there's been a gargantuan turnaround under this government—a projected $80 billion deficit turned into a surplus, which is the right response for the times. Under their last budget, there were zero dollars in saves. They handed over to this government $1 trillion in Liberal debt, and this government, through very responsible fiscal management, is paying that off, which will have benefits over the medium and longer term.

Oppositio n members interjecting—

Let's ask: what is at the heart of this budget? At the heart of this budget is responsible management of the fiscal position and, at the same time, reasonable, proportionate, well targeted cost-of-living relief. It's absolutely critical that we have both of those components to the budget. On the one hand, we have cost-of-living relief, which includes energy relief for households, rental relief for households, strengthening Medicare, a substantial increase in the bulk-billing incentive and a substantial pay increase for those working in the aged-care sector. We've also moved to strengthen industrial relations protections. We've seen increases in wages for those most vulnerable, which those opposite fought against tooth and nail. They said it would destroy the economy. It clearly hasn't. We have all of these critical measures that are absolutely essential at this time for the most vulnerable—a measured, appropriate, cost-of-living package.

At the same time as putting that in place, we've managed a substantial turnaround in the budget situation, a change in the fiscal position, which is absolutely critical if we're going to be successful in the fight against inflation. As I mentioned before, the forecast for 2022-23 was for a nearly $80 billion deficit, and now we have a forecast of a $4.2 billion surplus.

Opposition members interjecting—

How did we achieve that? Well, of the short-term fiscal upgrades, 87 per cent were returned over the past two budgets. Again, that's significantly more than those opposite. The volume of interjections reflects nothing more than their embarrassment at their time in government. I take it as a compliment that those opposite arc up when faced with the facts. It's embarrassing for the previous government that they returned so little to the bottom line, which is exactly what was driving the substantial increase in debt. But at an 87 per cent return to the bottom line, the tax upgrades over the last two budgets are going to significantly help in the battle against inflation, which is what we have at the centre of our policy, and what must be at the centre of our policy.

As I mentioned before, savings identified by this government are at the heart of the fiscal strategy. There were $17.8 billion in savings in the last budget. Added to savings in the October budget, this totals $39.8 billion over two budgets. As well, there is restraint, limiting average real spending growth to 0.6 per cent over the five years to 2026-2027. If we look at the budget in a holistic sense, it has the savings, it has the fiscal repair and it has the return of the short-term fiscal uplift to the budget bottom line. That has seen a massive turnaround in the bottom line of the budget but, at the same time, responsible, targeted, well-designed cost-of-living relief, which is absolutely critical for those most vulnerable. So the government is fighting inflation, as it should, but in a careful way.

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