Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Tangney for his question. The simple fact is that when this government came to office we inherited, from those opposite, an economic shambles. A Liberal government, no less, had delivered a trillion dollars of debt with nothing to show for it. Headline inflation was at 6.1 per cent. Interest rates were starting to rise. The budget was in a complete mess. In areas such as defence and infrastructure, we saw billions of dollars of commitment without a dollar behind them.

Through the leadership of the Treasurer and the finance minister over the last 2½ years, we have methodically worked to put the budget back into order. And since we were last here, in September, the government has officially booked its second surplus—a Labor government in power for two years with two surpluses, something those opposite never did, despite promising that they would do it each and every year. Since we were last here, we have learnt that inflation now is at 2.7 per cent—less than half of what we inherited from those opposite.

We understand that Australians are doing it tough. As I said earlier, inflation is impacting countries around the world. We're not immune from that, and the best thing we can do is to wage a war on inflation, which is what we're doing. And we are now succeeding on that. Where we are spending money, we are focused on the cost of living, with tax cuts for every income earner as well as energy rebates. We have seen more-affordable child care and cheaper medicines, and all the while we've actually seen record investments in defence.

This government is utterly focused on the basics of prudent economic management and sensible national security on Middle Australia. But those opposite are not so much interested in Middle Australia as they are in the Middle East. We've seen over the course of this week— really, over the course of the last few months—questions asked on visas, questions which have sought to undermine confidence in our national security agencies, questions which are about trying to create a faux divide on foreign policy, which simply does not exist. They are doing all of this so that they do not have to speak about the economy because this bunch of Liberals have forgone any claim to credible economic management or to sensible national security policy. They could not be further from their historic mission.

As we leave here today you can count on the fact that the Liberals will continue to be the party of division, of distraction and of rank politics. But on this side of the House there is a government which is committed to focusing on Australians, on their personal budgets, on their households, on their lives—

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