Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to talk about the people in my community—people that I have been visiting at sporting events across the last few weeks. I've been to the Werribee Football Club. I've been to the Wyndhamvale Football Club. I've been to the Tarneit Titans football club. I've been to the Hoppers Crossing Netball Association. I've spent some time with the Wyndham Netball Association and the Hoppers Crossing Netball Association representative teams at an enormous event at our recreation centre, Eagle Stadium, recently. And what people have been talking to me about is how tough they're doing it—how tough it is in their budgets at home.

I'm pleased to be able to have these conversations with them and pleased to be able to share with our community today the good news around a 3.7 per cent pay rise for the lowest-paid wage-earners in our country which will mean an enormous amount to many in the community that I represent. Of course, we're all looking forward to 1 July, when the 95,000 taxpayers in the seat of Lalor will get a tax cut. That is a tax cut for every taxpayer in Lalor, and the average tax cut will be $1,441 a year. That's because Labor is committed to people earning more and keeping more of what they earn. Our budget also announced $300 in energy bill relief to assist those families and households across the city of Wyndham and in the seat of Lalor.

I'm really proud of the responsible economic management that we're seeing from the Albanese Labor government, from our Treasurer, Jim Chalmers. We're driving down those deficits and giving surpluses in our economy. We're getting wages moving, and the 3.7 per cent pay rise is emblematic of that. That's on top of the 15 per cent pay rise for aged-care workers, many of whom live and work in my community. It's incredibly important to think about that. It's about the HECS-HELP relief for the 19,000 people in my electorate who have a HECS-HELP loan. It's about the cheaper medicines. It's about the rent assistance and the fact that we have 8,000 households who have had an increase in their rent assistance of 40 per cent across the two years we've been in government. This is a government that cares about the people doing it tough and is committed to responsible economic management. This government is doing the things to help people get through the tough times but is keeping the Australian economy on the right track.

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