Tracey Roberts (Pearce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Since parliament last met, how has the Albanese Labor government been addressing cost-of-living pressures and delivering for Australia?

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

I thank the member for Pearce for her question. I was with the member for Pearce just last week in the great state of Western Australia, where I visited Karratha and Perth over a three-day period. We are working for Australia every single day. Relieving cost-of-living pressures is, of course, our No. 1 priority. Since the last sitting of parliament we have delivered, from housing right through to health.

We have, through the National Cabinet, announced the most significant housing reforms in a generation: a new national target to build 1.2 million homes; a National Planning Reform Blueprint for planning and zoning so that people can live close to their work and their families; and the $3 billion New Home Bonus to incentivise state governments and territory governments to get homes built. We've secured a better deal for renters, making renting fairer, and we're working with states to deliver Help to Buy, which will help people to purchase homes of their own.

We also began on 1 September the second round of our cheaper medicines policy—two months worth of medicine for the price of one. I noticed on 1 September Senator Ruston put out a media release saying the coalition support sixty-day dispensing. They'd been opposing it ever since it was announced, but they've put out a release saying they're supporting it now. It will make an enormous difference. We are also working with community pharmacies to make sure that their interests are looked after.

An incident having occurred in the gallery—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

Order! The Prime Minister will pause. I remind all visitors today there are established forms of behaviour. You are here to observe and not to participate. I ask all members in the galleries to refrain from interjecting, conversing and signalling.

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

And, of course, we have our fee-free TAFE target. That target was for 180,000 spots, but instead fee-free TAFE enrolments have hit more than 214,000. I met with many of the young apprentices, people training in everything from nursing to hospitality to construction, today. This is the one-year anniversary of the Jobs and Skills Summit, where that policy came from.

We've opened five urgent care clinics since the last sitting of parliament, taking pressure off the public hospital system. While we were in WA, we signed a Rewiring the Nation deal to secure WA's energy supply. Whether it is energy policy, housing policy, health policy or skills policy, we are working each and every day for Australia with positive plans—the ones we took to the election and more—and making sure they are implemented.