Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, Labor left hundreds of billions of dollars of debt, supported every dollar we spent during COVID and proposed $80 billion more in spending. Unemployment has now hit a 50-year low and our economy, though, is stronger than those of the US and the UK, which look certain to go into recession. Prime Minister, Australians are hurting and the cost of living is going up and up under your government. Before the election you had a plan to help; now you only have excuses. Prime Minister, where is the plan?

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

ALBANESE (—) (): Well, I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his projection in that question! The fact is that the former government has left Australia with a trillion dollars of debt—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

They left Australia in a position without any economic strategy going forward and without having an energy policy, in spite of 22 efforts. We on this side have been very busy implementing our plans. There's our plan for cheaper child care, which has been introduced this week. We'll wait and see if they vote for it! Remember that when we announced that, in my first budget reply, they opposed removing the cap. They said that it was reckless, but then, of course, they did it.

But they didn't go down the track of where they needed to, because they never understood that women's workforce participation is something that can benefit the entire economy—something that leads to growth and that boosts productivity. It's just like they didn't understand the support that we had. They tried to jump on for the cheaper medicines but didn't quite get there. We'll wait and see. I don't know if they're supporting our cheaper pharmaceuticals plan, the first reduction in pharmaceutical costs since Labor introduced the PBS 75 years ago. The first ever reduction, making an enormous difference to families out there. Of course, what they say is, 'We forgot to do it in our first year, our second year, our third year, our fourth year, our fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth years. If you had elected us four or five times, we would have got around to doing that. But we just didn't get around to doing it.'

We brought together business, unions and civil society groups at the Jobs and Skills Summit again to make sure that we work for our common interest. The leader of the Nats was there—he wasn't going to miss out on that opportunity—but of course the Leader of the Opposition showed just how irrelevant he was by refusing to participate, even though the shadow Treasurer called for an invite and wanted to go, then boycotted as well. And remember this: they opposed the increase in the minimum wage. They opposed it and said the sky would fall if the minimum wage went up by $1 an hour. That's their record.