Angus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister's cruel hoax of a budget offers cash-strapped Australian families 70c a day in 15 months time. Prime Minister, when Australians with a mortgage are $50,000 worse off under Labor, isn't this a budget for the next five weeks, not the next five years?

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It hasn't dawned on the shadow Treasurer that he's asking that question on the same day that he voted against tax cuts for every Australian worker. Now, if the shadow Treasurer genuinely cared about cost-of-living pressures and living standards in our economy, he would have voted for our tax cuts, but instead he voted against those tax cuts. This was the consequence of the brain snap that the shadow Treasurer had in the budget lock-up yesterday, when he decided, in the face of these cost-of-living pressures, to recommend to his backbench that they vote against a tax cut for every Australian worker to help them with the cost of living. That's why they're all looking at their phones and looking at their shoes—because they know once again that the shadow Treasurer has been found out and he has been found wanting. This is why one of them described the shadow Treasurer to the Australian as a dead weight. I couldn't agree more.

What the budget is all about is providing cost-of-living relief, cutting taxes for every Australian taxpayer, strengthening Medicare and building Australia's future. It's disappointing but not surprising to see that those opposite voted against our tax cuts, because, whenever we've tried to help Australians with the cost of living, they have tried to prevent it.

So, as we get closer and closer to this election, when the Prime Minister calls it, Australians will have a very clear choice: this Labor government and this Prime Minister, cutting taxes for every taxpayer and helping Australians with the cost of living; or that opposition leader, who has a secret agenda for cuts which will make Australians worse off. As the Prime Minister said before—and I couldn't agree more—this opposition leader wants to cut everything except taxes for workers in our economy. So how dare those opposite come up here and ask about living standards and ask about inflation, when they left us inflation multiples of what it is now and rising fast? We've got inflation down, very substantially, together as Australians.

In addition to the brain snap vote against tax cuts in the parliament this morning, the other reason that this question from the shadow Treasurer is characteristically ham-fisted is that we got new inflation data today, actually, at about 11.30, and what that shows is inflation is down again. Headline inflation is down again. Underlying inflation is down again. It is a fraction of what we inherited from those opposite, so spare us the lectures about inflation and living standards. If you really cared about the cost of living, you would have voted for our tax cuts. Instead, you voted for higher taxes on every Australian worker. Well done!

Tania Lawrence (Hasluck, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. How will further investment in the Medicare urgent care clinics make it easier for Australians to see a doctor, and are there any risks?

Mark Butler (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thanks to the member for Hasluck for that question. She remembers that at the last election we promised 50 Medicare urgent care clinics. They would be open seven days a week with extended hours and would be available for walk-in urgent appointments. Well, we didn't open 50; we opened 87 clinics. Already they've seen more than 1.2 million patients, a third of them seen on weekends and a third of them under the age of 15, but every single one of them fully bulk-billed. All they needed to take was their Medicare card. They're not only getting terrific-quality urgent care where and when they need it in their own communities, free of charge; they're also taking real pressure off our hospital emergency departments.

That's why last night we funded 50 more urgent care clinics, including in Ellenbrook in the fast-growing north-eastern suburbs of Perth. Once they're open, four in five Australians will live within a 20-minute drive of an urgent care clinic. More than two million patients will be seen every single year.

The opposition leadership have opposed this from day 1. They've called it wasteful and opposed it. But, like with so many of the ideas from the Leader of the Opposition, the backbench is starting to take a different view. The young, energetic member for Casey back there loves urgent care. He has a petition calling for a Medicare urgent care clinic in the Yarra Ranges:

Imagine this: You wake up feeling unwell on a Saturday morning. It's not an emergency, but you need to see a doctor.

…   …   …

That's why we need a Medicare Urgent Care Clinic for the Yarra Ranges.

And he will be so pleased that one of the 50 from last night will be in the Yarra Ranges. He might not be so pleased that that this bloke, the Leader of the Opposition, is opposed to it. We will support it. I say this to the member for Casey: we've got your back, sunshine, even if this bloke has left you high and dry.

But I also say to the member for Casey: you shouldn't be surprised. This guy has never liked free Medicare services. He's always wanted American-style user-pays health care. That's why he tried to make everyone pay every time they went to the GP. That's why he tried to make everyone pay every time they went to a hospital emergency department. And he'll do it again because—he warned us last week—past performance is the best indicator of this guy's future action. We know he will cut the urgent care clinics and patients will end up paying, including patients in the Yarra Ranges.

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

Order! The member for Fisher is now warned. He's had a good go, but he is not going to continue to interject, hopefully.

Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. In yesterday's budget there was no new funding for the Growing Regions Program or the Regional Precincts and Partnerships Program, the two grant programs that fund critical infrastructure in regional Australia. There was $1 billion of funding announced for roads in Victoria, but this was for Melbourne's suburbs. Why is there so little new funding for infrastructure in regional Australia?

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Indi for her question. The regions are a big focus of the budget. Even in the member's own electorate, when you put together the three tax cuts that we are providing, the average tax cut is about $43 a week. The 30 clinics in Indi will be financially better off, switching to bulk-billing as a result of our reforms. We expect something like an extra 148,000 bulk-billed visits in the honourable member's electorate by 2030 as a consequence of the investments in health that the Minister for Health and Ageing secured in the budget and that we announced last night and previously.

As I said, in the budget there are a number of important elements for the regions. I know that the member for Indi mentioned two funds in particular. I acknowledge that. We have invested $1 billion, my colleague reminds me, in those two funds, one of them $600 million and one of them $400 million. That is because we do believe in providing grant funding to the regions, and we're doing that in the most robust and responsible way that we can.

But those aren't the only investments that we're making in regional Australia, if you think about the investments the communications minister is making in the NBN or if you think about the investments we're making in health care, in regional education. There are a whole range of investments in my own portfolio, making sure that banks stay open in the bush, making sure in the minister's portfolio that we have access to decent aviation services.

The regions were a big focus in the budget. I know that the member for Indi won't mind me saying publicly what we talk about privately. She is a very effective advocate for her local community, always seeking more funding and more advantages and more opportunities for her local community, but those two funds already have a billion dollars in them. We're finding other ways to invest in the regions because, as the Australian economy recovers, we want the regional economies to be a bigger and bigger part of Australian story and that drives our investment in infrastructure in particular in the regions.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. How is the budget easing the pressure on Australians now, whilst strengthening the economy for the future? What approaches have been ruled out?

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Blair is a terrific local member and it's a real honour to serve with him here in the House of Representatives. As he knows, our budget last night was all about helping people with the cost of living, strengthening Medicare and building Australia's future. In the communities that the member for Blair represents, the communities represented right around the room today, we know how important that is. What the budget does is it tries to build on the progress that we're making together as Australians in our economy. We have got inflation down. Real wages are up. Unemployment is low. Debt is down. Interest rates have started to be cut and growth is rebounding solidly in our economy as well, with a bigger and bigger role for the private sector, which is especially welcome.

Now, as I said before, in terms of a stronger economy that the member asked me about, we did get some very good news today on inflation. Monthly inflation fell to 2.4 per cent—in the lower half of the Reserve Bank's target range. Annual trimmed mean inflation fell to 2.7 per cent, well within the band as well, and this reflects the very welcome, very encouraging progress that we're making together as Australians on inflation. The budget last night forecast that inflation will come down quicker and sooner than was anticipated, even at the end of last year. What that reflects and what that recognises is that, with all of the investment we're making in helping with the cost of living and strengthening Medicare and investing in every stage of education, investing in housing, making our economy more resilient in the face of all of this global economic uncertainty, we have found a way to do that consistent with inflation coming down further and faster in our economy. And what all of that means is that the soft landing in our economy that we've been planning for and preparing for now looks increasingly likely.

The Australian economy is genuinely turning a corner and we saw that in the budget last night. Now, we acknowledge that, even as the national aggregate numbers turn in our favour, we know that that doesn't always immediately translate into how people are feeling and faring in the economy and communities like those represented by the member and every member here, and that's why the cost-of-living help is so essential in the budget. We know that cost-of-living pressures are front of mind for most Australians, and dealing with the cost of living is absolutely front and centre in our budget that we handed down last night. That's why it beggars belief that, when we're trying to cut taxes for every Australian worker not one more time but two more times, those opposite came into the House today and voted against it. What that now proves beyond any doubt is that, if those opposite win the next election, Australians will be worse off. They'll be paying higher taxes, and that's because this opposition leader wants to cut everything except taxes for workers.