Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is five months and five days since Labor took government, after nine years of malaise, of wasted opportunity. The contrast is extraordinary. It's been five months and five days of hard work and extraordinary energy from the members on this side, making the most of every day in government to deliver for the country that we all love and want to see prosper. The contrast is really clear.

What we saw last night when the member for Rankin, the Treasurer, delivered this government's first budget was extraordinary. It's responsible. It's sensible. It's right for the times. It's going to help those who need it most, in a beginning move, but it is fiscally responsible and it is measured and it makes sure that everything we're committing to has an economic dividend. I am so proud today to be a member of this government, and I want to congratulate every member here for representing their communities with honesty, with clarity and with commitment and for giving us a compelling message for the Australian people and setting us up for the future. Thank you, everyone.

Pat Conaghan (Cowper, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Scrolling through the headlines this morning to see the response to last night's budget, I came across a comment from one Luke Douglas, who said:

Watching Dr Jim presenting the budget last night was like watching Santa bypassing your home on Christmas Eve.

I couldn't have put it better myself. It would be funny if it weren't so serious. The Treasurer's budget sleigh, pulled by reindeers renamed Slasher, Dashed Hopes, Cut It and Victims, flew straight past the homes of regional Australians, gleefully calling their empty stockings pork barrels. One notably empty stocking in my own electorate belongs to Southern Cross University in Coffs Harbour. The Treasurer has slashed the $27 million previously budgeted that was allocated to complete the campus's health services precinct. The precinct would have had a health clinic with speech and voice labs, mental health and therapy rooms, rehabilitation and exercise studios, and consultation rooms. These facilities would have created local jobs, guaranteed essential healthcare services and contributed to the growth and prosperity of the region. Are jobs, health and education not supposedly the focus of this new government? Or was that just for their metro mates? There was no, 'Ho, ho, ho.' It was all, 'No, no, no.'

Kate Thwaites (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

After a decade of the needs of Australian women being ignored in this place, after a last term when the previous Prime Minister told women who came to this place demanding their right to be safe that they were lucky they weren't being shot at—after that, the best we've been offered for a decade—what a refreshing change to be in this place last night for a budget that delivered cheaper child care and a budget that delivered an expanded paid parental leave scheme.

On this side of the House, we get modern families. We get the needs of modern women. We get that families want support to do the juggle between work and family and that men and women want to do this. What we are setting up with an expanded paid parental leave scheme is a scheme that allows Australian women to care for their children and also allows Australian men to care for their children, so that we set up a caring dynamic across the lives of our families where men are involved in bringing up their children.

We know that this is good for women, it's good for men, it's good for children and it's good for all of us, because we've all got businesses in our electorates crying out for people to work. We've all got women who want to get back to work. This budget delivers for Australian women, and I'm so proud to be here as part of the Labor government delivering it.