Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm happy to speak on this cost-of-living motion brought by the coalition. Like everyone in this parliament, I know that my electorate is experiencing some extreme cost-of-living pressures at the moment. I speak in the context of the Liberals, under the member for Dickson, having only one playbook when it comes to Labor's initiatives, and that's negativity and even more negativity. They've consistently voted no when it comes to supporting cost-of-living measures—consistently! So don't listen to their words; look at their deeds. They talk about the cost of living but then vote against measures that would actually help people.

We know that Australians are doing it tough, so the message they're sending is, 'Not tough enough; we won't vote for these measures because they're put forward by the Labor Party.' The Albanese Labor government made the responsible decision to change the Morrison stage 3 tax cuts so that three million Australian workers wouldn't receive a tax cut on 1 July this year. We changed that. Instead now every single one of the 13.6 million Australian taxpayers will receive a tax cut. The average taxpayer on an income of $73,000 will get a tax cut of $1,504—an extra $804 compared to Scott Morrison's plan.

The tax cuts come on top of a swathe of measures that are already easing pressure points such as energy, child care, health, housing, rent, education and employment. Our energy bill relief fund is $1.5 billion worth of support for five million households and one million small businesses. This is in addition to the caps on gas and coal prices, which reduced electricity price growth by 25 percentage points in 2023-24. What did those opposite do? They voted against it—unbelievably.

I know that those opposite make up their own mind every time they cast a vote unless they're a part of the leadership and are bound. So I looked around. I heard these speeches about the tax cuts and about how we need to relieve pressure on people. Not one of them crossed the floor. All these free-thinking Liberals, who aren't sheep or Nationals, who are able to vote on whatever they like, all lined up with the member for Dickson and voted no. So Labor has focused on supporting families, delivering cheaper child care, and increasing the childcare subsidy rate to 90 per cent for families with lower incomes.

We're expanding paid parental leave so that more parents are eligible, and, from July this year, parental leave pay will increase by two weeks each year until it reaches 26 weeks in July 2026. That's practical support. And we've expanded the eligibility for the parenting payment single until the youngest child turns 14. That was a long festering sore for me. That will benefit around 57,000 single principal carers, and the overwhelming majority of those people are women.

We've made seeing a doctor easier with the development of Medicare urgent care clinics. We've backed this up with cheaper medicines. A two-month supply for 300 PBS medicines will be available for the cost of one month, effectively cutting the cost in half. This is in addition to the election commitment of cutting the general co-payment down to $30—something they lined up with campaigners and lobbyists to say, 'No, we're opposed to this.' Do you know how many people in my electorate have said, 'We are opposed to being able to get medicine over two months?' Do you know many people have emailed me about it? Taking out pharmacists, it's zero, nada, zip. None at all.

We are boosting training with fee-free TAFE for 180,000 people, and we're building on this with another 300,000 places across Australia. We're also providing solid and measurable assistance to renters and homebuyers. That's 1.1 million households that will benefit from an increase to the maximum rate of Commonwealth rent assistance to 15 per cent. For people wanting to own their own home, our Help to Buy scheme will support 40,000 Australians over four years to buy a home. That's also backed up by the Housing Australia Future Fund. All of these measures are underpinned by real wages growth that those opposite were opposed to during the election campaign. We promised to get wages moving again and we have done so. We are helping out all sorts of Australians.

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