Damian Drum (Murray, National Party, Assistant Minister to the Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister update the House on the actions the government is taking to reduce cost-of-living pressures, including in my electorate of Murray? Is the Prime Minister aware of any alternative approaches?

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

I thank the honourable member for his question. Everything the government is delivering is designed to drive down the cost of living, whether it's in child care, medicines or energy, so that families and households get the help they need. We are delivering on lower prices. Labor's policies will drive prices up.

On energy, as we've just heard, the Leader of the Opposition says he supports cheaper energy publicly, and yet the Labor Environment Action Network says price increases are a sign of the market working. We know that Labor's own 50 per cent renewable energy subsidy will drive prices up. How can forcing more and more renewables into the market do anything other than force prices up? If renewables are cheaper, as many on the Labor side and many in the industry contend, then there'll be more of them and prices will be lower. As Rod Sims has said again and again, subsidising one technology or another leads the way to higher prices. We have to ensure that the market works, and, if it works competitively, you get lower prices.

It is not just on energy that Labor is fighting Australian families. Our plan for child care benefits up to a million families, with a typical family receiving $13 more support every year per child. Labor opposed those changes. Labor voted against them despite calling for action and despite the greatest level of support going to families who need it most. When it comes to affordable medicines, Australians know that, when a drug is recommended to be listed on the PBS, we will list it because we can afford to. That's why we have been able to list one new or amended PBS item every day since October 2013, more than 1,700 items in total. That includes the listing this month of Imbruvica, a treatment for a form of lymphoma cancer which would otherwise cost patients $134,000 for a year's treatment. Compare that to Labor's record: they had to freeze the listing of some medicines because, according to the former health minister, Nicola Roxon—

Mr Dreyfus interjecting—

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

The member for Isaacs is warned.

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

there are financial consequences which Labor failed to manage. When it comes to tax, we believe Australians should keep more of the money they earn. Labor, on the other hand, voted to increase the tax that working Australians pay. Our plan for personal income tax relief means lower and middle-income earners will be better off by up to $530 this year and better off in the future with our elimination, for the vast majority of Australians, of bracket creep.