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

I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question, once again showing that he has absolutely nothing positive to offer the Australian people—absolutely nothing. There are three vital ways that we are tackling cost of living: getting costs down for families, getting wages up for workers and getting the budget onto a stronger foundation. On all of those measures, those opposite oppose everything positive that is put forward in this parliament. The Leader of the Opposition has nothing positive to offer the country. He just says no to everything that is put forward, opposes change and can't even lead his own party. He can't even appoint a shadow minister to replace Stuart Robert, who resigned about five months ago, because he is hampered by those people on his backbench.

Despite the opposition by those opposite, we've delivered $23 billion in cost-of-living relief to Australians—$23 billion. There is cheaper child care, which began in July, and more Medicare bulk-billing, which began just this month with a tripling of the bulk-billing incentive. And there were cheaper medicines on 1 January and, again, there was the 60-day dispensing. This is the first question on the cost of living that we've had from them for months! Jim Chalmers doesn't have to worry about not being here because he won't get a question as the Treasurer!

We had the energy bill relief, which we put together with the states and territories last year and which was opposed by those opposite. There's fee-free TAFE training—over 220,000 places making a difference for free. And building more affordable homes, again, was opposed by those opposite. It's just like they opposed our actions that have got wages growing at the fastest rate in a decade and just like they opposed the pay rise for age-care workers at 15 per cent. And it's just like when they said that an increase in the minimum wage would lead to the whole economy collapsing. We've created 550,000 jobs since we came to office. More jobs have been created on our watch than under any first-term government in Australia's history, and we're not even halfway through. And we did something those opposite never did: we turned a $78 billion deficit into a $22 billion surplus!

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