Sam Rae (Hawke, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

For the last five-quarters, indeed. Unemployment is very, very low—historically low. Interest rates, which have been a burden on Australian households, are coming down. And now, on top of that, we are seeing that growth in our economy is starting to rebound. We've got to think about where we were just three years ago. I know the member for Casey has joined us because he does enjoy reflecting on where things were three years ago with me. The Liberal government, the Scott Morrison Liberal government, left the Australian people with $1 trillion of Liberal debt on the books—$1 trillion of Liberal debt. They had nothing to show for it. There was no economic dividend from their ridiculous pre-COVID and post-COVID expenditure. We all remember the wastage that went on, the colour-coded spreadsheets and the rorts. They left Australians with $1 trillion of debt on the books and nothing to show for it. They come here pretending or hoping that the Australian people will have forgotten that ridiculous mismanagement of the Australian economy and our budgetary circumstances. They left us with inflation peaking under the former Liberal government at 6.1 per cent. We're now back within the two to three per cent band. And, of course, the interest rates began rising under that government.

Labor inherited a budget and an economy from the Morrison Liberal government that had seriously deteriorated. When you think again about the turnaround—inflation down, income up, unemployment being very low, interest rates coming down and growth starting to rebound—those three short years have been used very productively. We've now legislated, or at least moved through this House, the top-up tax cuts to the very substantive tax cuts that the Prime Minister made the important call on last year to ensure that every Australian taxpayer got a tax cut. That's 73,000 taxpayers in my electorate.

When we talk about the long term, as this MPI seeks to do, I think we need to focus on the fact that this combined package means that the average worker in my electorate or perhaps the member for Reid's electorate would be paying $30,000 less in tax in 2035-36. When we talk about the long term, we're talking about saving families with an average worker $30,000 a year in tax. I know that, when you break it down to what it's worth on a minute-by-minute basis, the Liberal Party opposite get a cheap sound bite out of that, but this is substantive money. This is the kind of saving that will have an impact on people in my community and it is the kind of impact the people in our communities so desperately need.

Let me remind you again: inflation is down, incomes are strengthening, unemployment is very low, interest rates are coming down and now growth is starting to rebound. People have been doing it very tough in our communities over the last number of years. Again, that's what happens when the Liberals leave us with $1 trillion dollars of debt, leave us with inflation spiking above six per cent and leave us with inflation rising. They come to the dispatch box. They want the confidence of the Australian people to manage our economy and budget; they do not have it.

See this speech in context