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

One of the first things you can do to provide people with assistance is to ensure that they get access to a job. We've done that with more jobs created on our watch than any other new government in Australian history—650,000 of them! Not only do we want more jobs; we want them to pay more. We want them to be more secure. With the passage of the legislation across in the Senate today, that's precisely what we are doing.

Those opposite think it was okay for people who are delivering food to Parliament House here or engaged in the gig economy to have absolutely no minimum standards whatsoever. Nothing! That's what they voted for. We want people to earn more. We want people to be in secure work.

But there's something else we want as well. We want people to keep more of what they earn. That is why we've introduced tax cuts to assist middle Australia on low and middle incomes. Do you think maybe that people on $45,000 a year and less should get a tax cut? We do. That's why we changed the unfair system. It's so that it can deliver for people who are under financial pressure. This mob speak about doing things timely. They worry about the fact that our tax cuts will come in on 1 July, and then they say, 'But five years ago we did something.' We are doing something, as a priority, to deliver every Australian a tax cut.

In addition to the tax cuts, of course, there's other legislation before the parliament that will assist 1.2 million people on modest incomes, such as the Medicare levy, to either take them out of the system completely or reduce the amount they have to pay. That's what we have done.

We are about providing assistance. Those opposite complained. They said they'd oppose it, that they'd fight it, that they'd roll it back. Now, they say, 'Actually, we're going to vote in favour of it,' but they would never have done anything— (Time expired)

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