Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister update the House on steps the government is taking to support household budgets of hardworking Australians and reduce cost-of-living pressures, including in my electorate of Swan?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question, because he knows, as we all do, that Australian families are struggling under the weight of constantly increasing power bills, which more than doubled in some parts of the country under the Labor government. They know that the greatest threat to household power bills, the greatest threat to affordable and reliable energy, electricity and gas, is the reckless energy policies of the Labor Party, whether in this chamber or in state governments around the country. Everything we are doing is focused on improving the opportunities of Australian families and the businesses that employ them, and the Labor Party stands in the way of affordable energy, reliable energy, with its unrealistic, reckless, uncosted emissions reduction targets, double what we have already contracted to in Paris, and renewable energy targets double what has been contracted under the renewable energy target.

The absurdity of the Labor Party's position is this: the very workers they claim to represent have their jobs threatened by Labor Party energy policies. If the honourable member opposite still has a few contacts from the AWU in his smart phone, he could call up the workers at Portland and ask them what they think about the Labor Party's renewable energy targets. We are focused on the concerns and needs of every Australian family and every business.

With child care, the security of child care—

Ms Butler interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Griffith is warned.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

is also a platform on which the opportunity to work and get ahead depends. Energy security provides the platform for households to manage their budgets; for businesses to invest, to employ; for people and their businesses to get ahead. And child care security and availability—that too is a platform for opportunity. We are listening to Australian families and Australian businesses. We know that they need reliable, affordable energy; they need affordable and available child care. We are offering both. The Labor Party stands in the way, driven by ideology, unwilling to recognise that it is its policies that are putting the livelihoods and the jobs of so many Australians at risk.