Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'd like to thank Senator McGrath for putting forward today's MPI, because it allows us to outline the ways that Labor, in our first 100 days, have acted to help Australians with their cost of living and what we plan to do. This stands in bleak contrast with the actions of the former Liberal government, which ignored Australians as their costs went up, drove down wages and even delayed the release of a report on electricity price rises for their own political gain. Let's just think about that. The Liberal government had a report on electricity prices saying that electricity prices would rise, and they deliberately did not release it—for their own political benefit.

Australians are paying the price of a decade of missed opportunities and messed-up priorities under the coalition. Our government took office at a time of rising inflation, falling real wages, a skills-shortage crisis, rising interest rates and a trillion dollars in Liberal Party debt. These are the consequences of years of economic mismanagement by our predecessors. Australians actually do understand that we didn't create these challenges, but they did elect us to take responsibility for cleaning them up—and that's what we're doing. So, one of the first acts of the Albanese government was to successfully argue for the minimum wage to keep pace with inflation. This helped 2.8 million Australians. We followed that with a submission to the Fair Work Commission that unequivocally supports a wage increase for aged-care workers. What did those on the other side do about aged-care workers in the nine years they were there? Zilch—not a thing.

Our budget in October will include our plans for cheaper child care and cheaper medicines, making a real difference to household budgets for millions of families. Labor will cut the maximum copayment under the PBS from the current maximum of $42.50 to $30. This represents a saving of $12.50, or 29 per cent. The changes to the PBS will take effect from 1 January 2023 and will save Australians more than $190 million a year in out-of-pocket costs.

Let me tell you about Labor's childcare plan. The plan means that 96 per cent of families with a child or children in care will be better off. That's 1.26 million families. Labor will lift the maximum rate of childcare subsidy to 90 per cent for families for the first child in care, increase childcare subsidy rates for every family that has one child in care and earns less than $530,000 in household income, keep higher childcare subsidy rates for the second and additional children in care and extend the increased subsidy to outside school hours care.

We on this side are working hard to deliver our commitment to lift the speed limit on the economy that those on the other side implemented. We are working hard to get wages moving again, with investments in cheaper and cleaner energy, advanced manufacturing skills and fee-free TAFE. In fact, the government is committed to providing 465,000 fee-free TAFE places and 45,000 new TAFE places in industries facing skills shortages. I'm pleased to say that this includes early childhood education. These fee free places will obviously be a massive saving for those looking to reskill or improve their qualifications and help them to increase their take-home pay.

Our guiding principles as a government are about ensuring no-one is left behind. More than 4.7 million Australians will receive a much-needed boost to their social security payments from this month to help ease cost-of-living pressures. The Albanese Labor government has announced the largest indexation increase to payments in more than 30 years for allowances and 12 years for pensions. The age pension, disability support pension and carer payment are all set to rise by $38.90 a fortnight for singles and $58.80 a fortnight for couples. The maximum rate of pension will increase to $1,026.50 a fortnight for singles and $773.80 for each member of a pension couple or $1,547.60 per couple, including pension supplement and energy supplement.

JobSeeker payment, parenting payment, Abstudy and rent assistance will also increase. The rate of jobseeker payment for singles without children will increase by $25.70 a fortnight to $677.20, including energy supplement, while parenting payment single will increase by $35.20. (Time expired)