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

I thank the member for Fowler for her question and for her acknowledgement that Labor's cost-of-living tax cuts will provide tax relief for every single taxpayer in her electorate. They will do something more than that: they will provide more tax relief for 90 per cent of taxpayers in Fowler. Ninety per cent will benefit. Ninety-eight per cent of young taxpayers in Fowler will benefit. More than 90 per cent of women in Fowler will benefit. We have found the best way to provide cost-of-living relief for people in her electorate and in every electorate around Australia, by providing tax relief for all 13.6 million taxpayers. We could have sat back and said, 'Well, we acknowledge the fact that low- and middle-income owners are under pressure, but it's too difficult to do anything about it.' That would have been the easy decision. What we didn't do was that. What we did was to make a difficult decision in the interests of Australian taxpayers—in the interests of middle-income Australians in particular. But also many of those in the member for Fowler's electorate will be amongst the 1.2 million Australians who will benefit from either being taken out completely from the Medicare levy or having their Medicare levy reduced.

I thank the member for Fowler for indicating her support for our tax package. It comes on top of our energy relief plan as well. I noticed yesterday the Leader of the National Party out there on morning TV saying, 'Why don't they consider doing something about energy price relief?' As we say—

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