Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

We've seen a rare occurrence: the Treasurer speaking, followed by the shadow Treasurer actually having something to say! He didn't quite get to 30 minutes, but, after I speak, I'm looking forward to the Leader of the Opposition explaining to people why he doesn't support tax cuts for hardworking Australians. Then again, it shouldn't come as a surprise, because this time last year they were in here, firstly, saying they would oppose our tax cuts, then saying they would roll them back and then demanding an election—that was a year ago—just to stop hardworking Australians getting a tax cut.

What last night's budget was about was building on the foundations that we have laid in our first term for a stronger economy in order to deliver even more in our second term. This is a government that came to office in the middle of what have been five difficult years. We had the COVID pandemic with its long tail and the issues with supply chains that arose out of that. We then had a global inflation crisis, exacerbated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. That saw, around the industrialised world, inflation and unemployment in some countries hit double digits, in either or in both. We have New Zealand, just across the ditch, in a deep recession. And our task has been to navigate these turbulent seas whilst keeping our eye on the horizon, to navigate the circumstances and bring inflation down whilst providing cost-of-living relief, whilst making sure we didn't follow what some of the pointy-headed economists would say, which is you need unemployment up and you need people to suffer. That is not the Labor way. The Labor way is to get inflation down whilst supporting working people. That's why what we have done is get inflation down. We've got wages up, we've got taxes down, we've got employment growing, all of it achieved on this Treasurer's watch with the four budgets that we have produced.

In addition to that, when we came to office—just to go through some of the figures—inflation had a six in front; now it's at 2.4 and falling. Wages had gone backwards five quarters in a row. Now they've gone forwards five quarters in a row. Living standards were falling. Now we see a per capita increase in living standards, making a difference for Australians. Interest rates had started to rise before the last election. Now they have started to fall, before the coming election. All of these measures are important, but nothing's more important to the Australian Labor Party than jobs, and we have created 1.1 million jobs on our watch, more than any government in Australian history. Average unemployment is lower than at any time for any government in the last 50 years, and we've done it because we have had a cohesive strategy going forward to strengthen the economy while looking after people, while dealing with the immediate pressures, but with our eye always on the long term.

If you look at the measures, I want to go through three categories: what we've done, what we will do in our second term and what the risk is. On tax cuts, what we've done is make a difficult decision. I went to this place that's foreign to the opposition leader, known as the National Press Club, and I put the case for tax cuts for every taxpayer, not just for some. That particularly assisted young people. It particularly assisted women. It of course made sure that some people missed out. It's difficult saying to people, 'You are going to get legislated nine grand, but you're going to get 4½ grand in your pocket. But, you know what, the country's going to be stronger for it because Middle Australia will benefit.' We did that. What these tax cuts in this legislation do is build on that, once again having a tax cut for every Australian taxpayer, not just some. Together with the measures that began this financial year, they will benefit average Australians by over $2½ thousand. That's $2½ thousand extra money in their pockets.

Then we go to energy bill relief. We intervened in the market. Those opposite have talked a bit about gas and securing gas in the last couple of days. We intervened at the end of 2022 to make sure that we have security, to make sure that we can direct gas for domestic supply when it's needed and to make sure that we have a mandated code of conduct, not the voluntary thing that those opposite had during their so-called gas led recovery that they announced a decade ago, when nothing happened, which didn't result in anything at all. We did all that. You know who voted against it? They did. We brought parliament back, and they voted against it, like they voted against our cap on gas and coal prices. And then they had the hide to say, 'Energy prices—we care about it.' They voted against caps—

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