Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Fair dinkum, have you ever heard five minutes of more dribble in all your life? You would have thought, as he scurries out of the chamber, that they'd have voted for every single cost-of-living measure put in place that brings down prices of food, energy, medicine and increases the ability to go to doctors. But they didn't; they voted against every single one. Not one single cost-of-living measure that we have put in for the last two years have those opposite supported. In fact, today we find out in the Senate they had the opportunity to put more affordable housing out for people to be able to get access to cheap, affordable housing where they want to live. Guess what? The old mates in the tory party over there decided they want to vote against that because they think the only people that should have houses are their rich mates.

Why would you do that if you want to come and bring in an MPI that talks about cost of living and talks about that? In four sleeps—four days—every single Australian taxpayer is going to get a tax cut to help. Every single Australian taxpayer! We have the member for Petrie over there who cries every day because of the changes we made to make sure that people on low and middle incomes got tax cuts. His got halved, and now the poor fellow is upset that he's not getting 10 grand extra in his pocket. He's upset that he's not getting that, but to do that we made sure that people on normal incomes receive money in their pocket. They're the ones that need it. Not the member for Petrie and not those sitting opposite that come in here and bellow and carry on about the cost of living, when every single time there has been an opportunity to support people doing it tough those opposite have voted against it.

I'm going to say something that will floor people. Listen to the member for Barker. As he said, don't listen to what they say, listen to what they do. So grab his voting record and see that every single time, without fail, he has voted against cost-of-living measures to help people—cheaper medicines, 60-day prescriptions, making sure that pensioners who do it tough have their PBS capped so they're not going to be more out of pocket. When we came into government, inflation was going up and had a six in front of it. It was six per cent and it kept going, it was on that trajectory. But what we did was turn that around. We know it still isn't where we want it to be, but I tell you what, it's a damn sight closer than what it was and what it would have been if they'd still been in power.

We talk about a housing crisis. The housing crisis did not start the day they lost power. There were multiple times during the Turnbull and Morrison mess that they even talked about a housing crisis. Way back in 2017. Yet it continued. The difference is that we actually go out of our way to try and address and fix those problems. They sat on their hands.

Remember old smoking Joe Hockey, 'We will deliver a surplus in our first year and every year.' Now, I'm not sure who's really good at maths—we won't rely on that lot—but if you've had nine years in government and you've delivered no surpluses, in fact you left a trillion dollars of debt, I'm tipping that they would be choking on their black mugs. They spent more money on black mugs and doing those fancy, flash ads with Josh Frydenberg and Morrison running down the corridor. 'We've got the budget back in surplus.' Nine budgets, nine deficits, and they left the biggest debt in history. We get in, and in our first two budgets there are two surpluses. In fact we wiped $150 billion—just like that—off the deficit.

We actually stand up for Australians. They want to stand on them. They think it's only the elites and their rich mates that deserve help and support. But we know it's people on the NDIS, it's pensioners, it's people doing it hard—mums and dad in Australia everywhere. That's why we supported and brought in the HECS debt cuts, which make sure people doing it tough have the support. We're bringing in the energy rebate, $300 off everyone's power bill. You don't hear them crowing about that. By the way, where's the $550 you promised when you were in government. You never delivered it. In fact you made it dearer and harder and you have never, ever stood around and supported people doing it tough.

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