Sally Sitou (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Sixty-five thousand dollars is a figure worth remembering. It's a figure that all of us in this place should know. It's the amount the median Australian worker earned in 2022. Half of all workers earned more than this; half earned less than this. From a salary perspective, this is middle Australia, and until recently that middle earner was going to receive a tax cut of about $500 a year. However, the Albanese Labor government's changes mean that worker will now get a bigger tax cut. Almost three times that original amount, they'll now get a cut of $1,304. Everyone in this place knows that the cost of living is the No. 1 issue for our communities. It's true in my electorate of Reid, too. It's a diverse electorate, culturally, linguistically and economically. There are about 100,000 workers in my electorate. We're one of the larger working populations across the country. Every one of those workers will now get a tax cut, and four out of every five of those taxpayers will get a bigger tax cut thanks to the Albanese Labor government.

I'm proud to be part of a government that has been focused on addressing cost-of-living pressures. We've walked the tightrope between taking the heat out of the inflation challenge and providing help to those who need it, as well as providing the reform the country needs to build a stronger future. On child care, thanks to the minister here today, we've helped parents through our cheaper childcare policy, which has helped provide an average reduction in out-of-pocket childcare expenses of about 11 per cent. On aged care, we reformed the sector, implementing the recommendations from the royal commission while making sure we provided aged-care workers a 15 per cent pay rise. We've successfully argued for an increase in the minimum wage. That's the challenge for all Labor governments—to build for the future, to leave nobody behind and to provide the conditions for workers and businesses to flourish. That's what the Albanese Labor government's tax cuts will do.

But what are the opposition doing? Well, it has been quite a journey. First, they were repealing it. Then they were opposing it. Then they were reviewing it. Then they were backing it. Now they seem to have settled on a position of having their cake and eating it too—on the one hand they say that they will support these changes, but on the other hand they say that these changes aren't enough. That would be a coherent argument if they hadn't opposed every other intervention to take pressure off families. It would be a fair argument if they hadn't opposed the childcare changes, if they hadn't opposed our intervention into energy markets to provide energy price relief, and if they hadn't spent the previous decade suppressing wages as a deliberate design feature of their economic policy.

On this side of the House we have taken a very different course. We want workers to earn more because that's the best way to manage cost-of-living pressures. We want workers to earn more and to keep more of what they earn. The average full-time aged-care worker on around $70,000 a year will now take home around $1,400, rather than the $625 under the original stage 3 tax cuts. A software engineer on about $115,000 a year will now receive a tax cut of $2,554 thanks to these changes. This will mean more money in the pockets of local residents in the electorate that I get to represent. It will help them pay for groceries, mortgages and bills.

These changes are great for Australian women. Nine in 10 working women will get a bigger tax cut under Labor's new tax plan. Ninety-seven per cent of childcare workers, disability workers, and aged-care workers will be better off, 96 per cent of nurses will be better off and 98 per cent of teachers will be better off. These changes have been well received in my electorate. A resident from Croydon wrote the following: 'I congratulate the Albanese government for the recent decision to change the stage 3 tax cuts. The new proposal is rational, given the change in domestic and international circumstances since the original proposal.' A resident from Liberty Grove said, 'Well done for not getting stuck with a promise from the past instead of making the best decision for our future.' A resident from Abbotsford emailed this message: 'Congratulations. I'm thrilled that your government has had the courage and integrity to change the stage 3 tax cuts in spite of the political risks this may pose.' This was the politically difficult decision to make, but we made it because it was the right thing to do. These tax cuts are better for all Australians.

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