Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

I can assure the Senate that every day that we come to work we are focused on easing cost-of-living pressures on Australian households and making the sensible and responsible policy responses where we can to show spending restraint in the budget so that we don't add to inflation, to deal with the supply chain issues and to deal with the visa backlog that we inherited. I don't even think you guys were awake when you were in your last year of government. Certainly, with all of the work we inherited, you must have been asleep at the table. Or maybe you let the former Prime Minister do all the jobs. Remember that? He did have all the jobs—'You guys just go to sleep. I'll not do any of the jobs that I've just taken off you.' We inherited the visa backlog, the skills shortages and the lack of investment in TAFE. These are the areas that we are focused on. We're addressing them one by one, cleaning up the mess of a government that had been there way too long.