David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

These are just three of the messages my office has been sent in the lead up to the budget:

I've used pliers to rip out a fractured tooth because I didn't have the money for the dentist.

I can only afford to pay the minimum on my HECS debt each year, and each year it increases with indexation. I'm never going to pay it off.

I can confirm my partner and I only eat once or twice a day because we cannot afford more than that.

The government had a choice to end a decade of that grinding poverty, yet they chose billionaires instead.

Millions of people voted for change. Australians voted to get rid of a Prime Minister who didn't care about the cost of a loaf of a bread, who didn't know the cost of a power bill. So how can the Albanese government even think of locking in the largest tax cuts in Australia's history and confirm that wages are going to go backwards and then flatline for years while rent, power and food prices are going through the roof? I'm sure it's not just my office but those of MPs across this place that are getting messages like that. We just had a cost-of-living and budget election; this budget addresses neither. Millions of Australians need and demand better, and we'd better stand with them.

When we talk about the 2022 floods in New South Wales, we already need to ask which ones. My state, New South Wales, is now suffering its third major flooding event, with more on the horizon. The food bowl of Moree is underwater. Farmers are out checking their wheat crops in boats as they wait for waters to subside. Gunnedah has the awful distinction of having had its fifth flood in 12 months. People in Western Sydney are looking with anxiety to see when next the Nepean will spill over its banks. The Shoalhaven is still recovering from the last floods and has been hit again. I want to recognise the important work of Mayor Amanda Findley there in supporting her community. We are in a climate crisis. Communities are on the front line of the climate crisis. They need us to act.