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

My question is to the Prime Minister. What additional cost-of-living support will the Albanese Labor government deliver to help Australians from 1 July and what measures have been rejected because they would drive up the cost of living?

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've always said that we're not just here to occupy the space; we're here to make a difference to people's lives. On Monday, we'll be making more of a positive difference to more Australians' lives, with a tax cut for every taxpayer, $300 in power bill relief for every household, freezing the cost of PBS medicines and a pay rise for 2.6 million workers on award wages. We want people to earn more and to keep more of what they earn.

There'll also be an extra two weeks of government paid parental leave, which will make a difference for people like Caitlin, a youth worker employed in the northern suburbs of Adelaide. She has a two-year-old daughter in child care. As a result of Labor's tax cuts and the pay rise for award wage workers, Caitlin will be $3,584 a year better off. That's on top of the help she received over the past year with cheaper child care.

It will make a difference to people like Helen. Helen's a single mum with a 12-year-old daughter. She's a retail worker employed by Coles. Our changes and the pay rise will mean that she will be $2,238 better off each year, making a practical, real difference as a direct result of the changes that we have made, both of which were opposed by those opposite. They opposed people earning more and they opposed people keeping more of what they earn through Labor's tax cuts.

It will make a difference to every Australian earning less than $45,000 a year, who would have received not a single cent if those opposite had had their way. That's what it means to help people under pressure, while not adding to inflation. But, of course, those opposite said no to it all. They said no to getting wages moving. They said no to power bill relief. They said no to cheaper child care. And they said no to tax cuts for every taxpayer. And, in saying no to all of this, they said no to lowering inflation. They voted against power bill relief that knocked three-quarters of a per cent off inflation, and now they are pushing a plan for the energy source that will push bills even higher. The highest cost of any new energy source is nuclear, and that's the road that they are going down even though it costs too much and it takes too long. It will also, of course, add to uncertainty and lead to less investment in the rollout that we need right now.