Sam Rae (Hawke, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I reckon the member for Hume is the Dennis Denuto of the Australian political discourse. It's not a huge amount of value he adds to it overall. He sits behind the Leader of the Opposition in question time and throughout the proceedings of the parliament, and one would expect he is feeding through the very best advice to the Leader of the Opposition. We know the Leader of the Opposition's not all that interested in the Australian economy; he's never particularly taken a great interest. He has his head down whenever the Treasurer is on his feet, flicking through the Trading Post looking for jousting sticks. The reality is he's got that big old brain sitting behind him—the Dennis Denuto of the Australian political discourse—and you'd expect the best advice to be coming up to the Leader of the Opposition. If I was the Leader of the Opposition I would be expecting the best advice to be coming up. Sometimes he sort of turns and motions for it to come, and all that seems to materialise is that eternal offer of a glass of water that comes from the member for Hume. At the end of the day, it is apparent to everybody in this chamber and, more importantly, apparent to everybody in Australia that the member for Hume, in his position as shadow Treasurer, and indeed the entire Liberal Party haven't overcome their decade of waste and mismanagement in office, and they intend to continue to prosecute a policy vacuum when it comes to the economic interests of Australian households.

Now, 1 July is bearing down upon us. And on 1 July every single Australian taxpayer will wake up to a tax cut. Labor's tax cut plan will deliver tax cuts for 13.6 million Australians. In my electorate of Hawke alone 73,000 people will wake up to a tax cut on 1 July. They won't have to fill out forms, there won't be colour-coded spreadsheets, there won't be any bureaucratic process the Liberal Party can cut services from in order to access those tax cuts; they will be immediately available to every single taxpayer in Australia. This stands in stark contrast as an approach to the Liberal government of the last decade.

We have the cost-of-living challenges that our people face as our absolute No. 1 priority. What did we get from a decade of Liberal government? We got a trillion dollars of Liberal debt. That is the legacy of a decade of Liberal government—a trillion dollars of debt. I see the member for Casey smirking away over there; he and I have discussed this many times. A trillion dollars of Liberal debt is the legacy of a decade of waste and mismanagement from the Liberal Party opposite. And Australians have woken up to this fact, this false reality that the Liberal Party have projected for oh-so-long that they are the superior economic managers. They have been left by the Liberal Party with a trillion dollars of Liberal debt. And what have we done with the Australian budget? What have our Treasurer and our Prime Minister done? We have now delivered consecutive surpluses in the Australian budget—something that those opposite, despite the mugs, weren't able to do for nearly a decade. They made promises, they made political statements, they stood on their soapboxes, they projected their superior economic management skills but they could not get to a single budget surplus in that decade.

Not only are we delivering a budget surplus; we are also delivering on the cost-of-living measures that are so necessary for the Australian community. We are delivering tax cuts for every single taxpayer, as I discussed. We are delivering power bill savings; every single household will get a $300 rebate on their power bills. We've increased Commonwealth rent assistance by an additional 15 per cent. And we've wiped almost $3 billion in student debt, helping more than three million mostly young Australians who are training to do the jobs of the future that our economy requires.

I can hear the member for Longman; he's been carrying on up there all afternoon. It doesn't matter what you do to the member for Longman; he is still an absolute rissole. The reality is the Labor government is getting on with ensuring that Australians earn—

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