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

They're embarrassed by their budget of 10 years ago, when we saw the coalition unplugged. We know that the inflation figure that we inherited was 2.1 per cent in just a quarter, and today annual inflation's at 3.6 per cent. On wages, of course, the biggest drop, outside of the pandemic, in real wages this century occurred in the March quarter of 2022—again, down 1.4 per cent. Our government has seen real wages rising for three consecutive quarters. There was a sluggish labour market under them. Under us, employment growth has doubled—780,000 new jobs created. Productivity under them was the worst in 40 years. Under us, it is up in the last three quarters. Business investment declined, under them, to the lowest levels since the early 2000s. Business investment has grown in every quarter under Labor—up 13 per cent in real terms.

But, of course, budget policy will be there for all to see tonight—something that would be familiar to them. They produced mugs saying that there was a surplus, but that's all it was. They treated Australians like mugs. They never produced a surplus in almost a decade in office. Tonight we will see the second surplus in a row, with a $9.3 billion projected surplus, following on from last year's $22 billion, which is better than the $78 billion deficit that we inherited from them.

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