Matt Burnell (Spence, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Once again, this chamber had been hit with yet another example of an opposition looking to weaponise a cost-of-living crisis while falling short of offering any actual assistance towards helping those it represents. And it's a shame that the party of Menzies, supposed representatives of the forgotten people, only chooses to remember its constituents when they are politically useful, spending its time in this place jamming the Australian people into a numbers game rather than putting forward an actual plan to assist them.

I don't wish to dismiss the importance of this matter. The member for Forde has done well in bringing attention to the financial pressures Australians are under. But this difference between his party and my own is that those opposite will just sit and throw stones at every glasshouse in sight, whereas members on this side, having inherited these conditions, acknowledge the strain our country is under and offer real solutions with real policy to lift that pressure away from the back of everyday Australians.

The government has and will continue to demonstrate this fact, because it is a Labor government. When our communities asked for more relief, we delivered it through our tax cuts in July. That is 91 per cent of my electorate, 67,000 people, saving an average of $1,217 per year, which is around $800 more than they would have saved under the plan of those opposite. That is real action, putting more money directly into the hands of Australians, with 11½ million people all receiving a bigger tax cut across the country. Despite this, those opposite remained kicking and screaming, dragged towards supporting these changes by their constituents because their conscience couldn't manage it.

Make no mistake, if they had been at the wheel, these changes would not have happened. Those 67,000 people in my community would be receiving no extra help under a coalition government. Tax cuts are not the only means of cost-of-living relief those opposite would prefer shot down. To provide another example, this government is investing $30 billion into new housing initiatives throughout the next decade. This is funding to get new homes built sooner, to provide the infrastructure needed to support new developments and to build more social and affordable rentals. It is policy to increase the supply of housing in this country, to make the roof over the heads of everyday Australians more affordable. These are initiatives to address the housing crisis all of our communities currently face. And how does the opposition react to such proposals? They proceeded to threaten billions of dollars to boost the Australian housing supply last year under the Housing Australia Future Fund, with no alternative vision for this country.

We can only assume those opposite would rather see Australia's housing supply in an even worse state. They chose not to offer any solutions themselves nor let this government get on with the job. Unfortunately, this behaviour has become a fundamental characteristic of the opposition. But that hasn't stopped the Albanese Labor government from performing the task at hand, delivering $300 of electricity bill relief to all Australians, making child care cheaper, delivering a 15 per cent pay rise for early learning employees without increasing costs for parents, strengthening Medicare to deliver increased bulk-billing practices across the country and making medicines cheaper. In fact, in Spencer alone, my community has already saved more than $2 million since the commitment was delivered.

We're also keeping wages moving forward, with 2.6 million low-paid workers receiving a third consecutive pay rise from July this year—all this with peak inflation halved since coming to government. These solutions put money directly into the pockets of Australians, and they are not the end of the story. My colleagues and I, like all Australians, are acutely aware of the challenge of a rise in the cost of living.

My electorate of Spence is one of the most socially and economically disadvantaged divisions in the nation. It feels this pressure the most, which is why I'm proud to be part of a government delivering real cost-of-living relief through real policy direct to everyday Australians. Could the same be said of those opposite, having held back this relief at every opportunity just to stay political irrelevant? The member for Forde calls for government to address cost-of-living pressures but fails to vote for policy that would do so, because he and his colleagues would rather weaponise the wellbeing of those doing it tough in our communities for the political good of the coalition. Stop spending time turning facts into your political fiction and start offering something for the good of this country.

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