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

No-one's got a problem with that, Mr Speaker! My question is to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister promised Australians cheaper mortgages, but since his election interest rates have gone up 10 times—the fastest rise in history. The Prime Minister promised a $275 cut to your power bill each year, before the election, but Labor's intervention in the gas market is causing prices to skyrocket. The Prime Minister promised families would be better off, but the cost-of-living crisis has never been worse. Why do Australians always pay more under Labor?

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

I thank the member for his question. We did promise and we are delivering on making a difference to people. We are making a difference with the cheaper medicines policy that we brought in on 1 January. We are making an enormous difference, contrasting with the person who asked the question, who, when he was health minister, wanted to jack up the price of essential medicines by $5 per script. There's a contrast. Cheaper child care starts from 1 July. When the legislation was carried, the shadow finance minister said this: 'It's certainly not the policy that we would have introduced.' Never a truer word was said! On 1 July we're extending paid parental leave to six months. The Leader of the Opposition was a senior minister in the former government, which repeatedly tried to cut government funded paid parental leave for tens of thousands of families.

We said we'd get wages moving again. But those opposite voted against the secure jobs, better pay legislation. When we said that the minimum wage should be increased by just $1 an hour, they said it would wreck the economy and it was reckless. We talked about the Energy Price Relief Plan. In the question, which, of course, is complete—

Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You said $275—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Fairfax will cease interjecting.

Honourable members interjecting—

Order, members on my left and right!

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

It is complete nonsense that somehow the cap on gas and coal that we introduced in conjunction with state and territory governments, Labor and coalition, wasn't working. That's not what the Australian Energy Market Operator said on 28 April. They said:

… wholesale spot prices averaged $83 per megawatt hour (MWh) for the March quarter, down from $93/MWh and $216/MWh in the previous December and September quarters.

Our plan is working there. Similarly, the regulator, Clare Savage, said this on 20 April:

Our latest quarterly wholesale report—

for January to March—

shows forward base futures prices for electricity initially stabilised during the early part of 2023, and … remain well below levels observed in 2022.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Fairfax will cease interjecting.

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

They've got nothing but negativity over there. (Time expired)

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Deakin will cease interjecting.

So will the Deputy Leader of the Opposition.