Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm not really sure what that was. It was kind of all over the shop. It felt like his heart wasn't in it. It had the normal kind of expected, de rigueur division, complaint and signature negativity—not as much nastiness as we might be used to. It did sound like he had a bit of a cold! But I would say it's not consistent with the Leader of the Opposition's 'smile a bit more' strategy—'try to make people think you're a little bit nicer!' He's going to have to run back to the office and work a little bit harder on that. But maybe it's for another purpose. Maybe that little rant was for his TikTok account. That's right: the Leader of the Opposition, the guy who spent years huffing and puffing and railing at young Australians for scrolling down their TikTok, has got amongst it. He's actually joined TikTok.

He was talking about the numbers.

I had a look—well, I got my staff to have a look because it's not in my parliamentary phone; let the record show—and at 3.19 pm this afternoon, one week in, the Leader of the Opposition now has 26 followers on TikTok. You can find him under the category of hashtag #rwnj, hashtag #desperate, hashtag #nasty. But I'll give him a little tip—I'm very popular on TikTok; I've got 145,000 followers—you've got to put your heart into it. You've actually got to mean what you say.

I know it's Thursday at the end of a difficult week, and I'll start on a conciliatory note. It gets a bit testy on Thursdays; it gets a little bit testy in here, but this is astounding—miracles do happen. The opposition actually brought forward a topic for debate of some relevance to Australians. After month after month after month of studiously avoiding asking questions about the economy and about the cost of living—they talk about any topic except the cost of living and the economy—they've shown a little bit of interest this week. I'll give them that. They're kind of getting back on the game. They weren't very good at government; from what we've seen in the last two years, they're not very good at opposition. They're certainly not very good at being the alternative government and actually having any policies, but they're starting to figure it out. You've got to at least pretend to care about the things that Australians are worried about. Let's be very clear: the government's No. 1 priority is helping Australians doing it tough with cost-of-living pressures. It's coupled with the core economic challenge of getting inflation down.

I had a community morning tea last week and was talking to people, mainly older people, who know what inflation does to an economy. Left unchecked, inflation destroys the incomes, savings and wealth of ordinary, everyday Australians. Actually, the people with a lot of wealth do really, really well in an inflation crisis. The people that the opposition represent—their core supporters—actually do really well in an inflationary crisis because their assets go up in value. But everyday Australians take a hit.

But they don't want to ask about—I still haven't heard a question on it this year—the tax cuts. They don't want to talk about the government delivering two back-to-back surpluses, the first time that's happened in this country for nearly 20 years, putting downwards pressure on inflation. They don't want to talk about the $300 energy rebate going to every household and to small businesses across the country. They don't want to talk about the progress that we're making with Medicare bulk-billing and restoring bulk-billing. For the first time in a very long time, we've seen bulk-billing rates rise—they don't want to talk about that. They don't want to talk about cheaper child care. They certainly don't want to talk about fee-free TAFE. They said fee-free TAFE was a waste of money. Well, try telling that to the now more than 500,000 Australians who, in the last two years, benefitted from Labor's fee-free TAFE.

They don't want to talk about cheaper medicines, the 60-day scripts. Now, I'll make a little confession. My daughter doesn't really think that much of politics. She keeps a bit of an eye on it, but she actually called me on this one last year. She rang me and said, 'Dad, you've finally done something useful.' I said, 'Oh, what's that, darling?' She told me that these 60-day scripts, which put downwards pressure on and cut the cost of medicines, benefit her. It's not just older Australians; she's on lifelong blood thinners for DVT. There have been hundreds of millions of dollars saved, but they don't want to talk about that. But, of course, if you want to talk about the standard of living or the cost of living, it's not just money out; it's also money in. That means wages.

In their time in government—in nearly a decade of decay, division, dithering and dysfunction—they had a deliberate policy. Their deliberate policy was to oppose wage rises at every turn and keep wages low. When the now Prime Minister was asked in the election campaign—the journalist thought it was a gotcha question—'Will you support a $1 rise in the minimum wage?' he said, 'Absolutely.' The former prime minister and this rabble over there dithered for a couple of days till they realised maybe that actually wasn't a very good idea.

The government is getting wages moving. If you want to talk about the cost of living and the standard of living, then getting wages moving is key. The government has backed minimum wage rises for 2.6 million low-paid workers—a third consecutive pay rise, opposed by those opposite. The caring professions and the gender wage gap in particular are a real focus of the government's work, as is backing wage rises for aged-care workers and backing wage rises for early childhood workers.

But I do give them credit. In that whole wasted decade, they did actually achieve something. One of their policies worked. Real wages went backwards in their decade in office, and they can't blame COVID. That's the thing. They can't hide behind the pandemic and say, 'It's all because of COVID.' Between 2013 and 2019, before the pandemic, real wage rises were, under their watch, 0.7 per cent lower. In their first six years in government, they sent real wages backwards. That was their deliberate policy, and they achieved it. They were punting for the wooden spoon in the OECD. They almost got there. They were in third-last place, on their watch, out of 35 OECD countries. So it sets up a very clear contrast, doesn't it? The government, Labor, wants Australians to earn more and keep more of what they earn. The Liberals, the opposition, want Australians to work longer for less.

I'm really happy to talk about the economy and the cost-of-living pressures that all Australians are feeling. I see it in my community in Bruce, which borders your electorate, Member for Isaacs. The human diversity in my part of Melbourne, south-east Melbourne, is our defining characteristic. It's one of the most multicultural places in Australia, with people from more than 150 countries, speaking more than 200 languages, and with more than 100 faith traditions every day. Go to the Dandenong Market. You'll see the whole world there.

As a government, our No. 1 priority is delivering cost-of-living relief for every Australian—and I mean every single Australian. My new role in the ministry, looking after citizenship and multicultural affairs, means that I get out right across the country now and talk to every Australian—every kind of Australian, not just the Bob or the Karen or the Russell or the Anne or the other Anglo folks that the coalition always talks about, such as the Cecil. We had Cecil today—safe Cecil. 'We'll give Cecil another run.' It is something curious that I've observed over quite some time now about those opposite. In question time, the opposition often ask ministers about people they claim to have heard from in their electorates, raising an issue. 'Fred from my electorate says you're awful. What do you say?' 'Jane, from a microbusiness in a small town in my electorate, says everything is terrible and it's all your fault. Why are you so bad?' It is that kind of vibe. But it's funny how they never seek to raise an issue on behalf of Mohammed or Mateo or Mozhgan or Chen or Amrit or Ezekiel or Leila or Dikran. Do Australians from non-Anglo backgrounds not exist in coalition electorates, or do they never go and talk to those people and hear about their cost-of-living pressures? Maybe they just don't speak up to them. Could it be that they just make up their fictitious questions from constituents and never think of non-Anglo Australians? Hmm. Every single time they come in here and tell stories, it's always people with Anglo-Celtic names that they're raising. Have a look.

But, in talking about cost of living and standards of living, I want to be very clear. When it comes to modern multicultural Australia, it's always important to remember that we have far more in common than we have difference. Everyone cares about a strong economy. Everyone is getting a tax cut because of this government, and it was the right thing to do. We took a political whack to the head earlier in the year when we made that decision to restructure the tax cuts and push more money to low- and middle-income earners. Under their proposal, low- and middle-income earners would have got nothing, while all the benefits went to high-income earners. What's their policy on that now, I wonder? Does Bob or Russell or Anne or Cecil or Mohammed or Mozhgan or doing-okay Dylan get a tax cut still, or are you going to roll them back still? Is that their policy? We'll see.

Inflation, though, is trending down, and that benefits every Australian. Everyone cares about Medicare—our universal health system. It's something people new to this country find miraculous and become rightly proud of. That's a Labor legacy. No-one comes to this country wanting to be poorer. Everyone comes to this country wanting a better life for their kids through education. I hear this day in and day out in my electorate, every weekend, when doorknocking, out on street stalls or going to events. I actually go doorknocking because it cheers me up. It's a bit like going to the gym sometimes. Getting there's a little bit hard, but then, once you're there, it's actually pretty good. It cheers me up because you actually talk to normal, everyday people. You get outside your toxic emails and the social media bubble.

The government is on the side of every Australian getting a fair go. Of course, if the opposition were fully upfront in this debate, they'd tell their fake constituents that they've opposed every single cost-of-living measure that the government has put forward over the last two years to make their lives better, whether it's tax cuts, energy rebates, pay rises for low-income workers or, now, the Future Made in Australia policy. (Time expired)

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