Nita Green (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

What this government takes incredibly seriously is the cost-of-living crisis that Australians are facing. We certainly know that there are incredible pressures on people around the kitchen table, and that is why we're taking action at the cabinet table. But I want to make it clear that what I think Australians take most seriously is Australian taxpayers being left with a trillion dollars of debt and no economic dividend to show for it—because that's what the former government left behind for Australian taxpayers. It wasn't just for our government to deal with and to manage; Australian taxpayers were left with a trillion dollars of debt and nothing to show for it by the Liberal Party.

Australians were left with a budget mess. They were left with a decade of no energy policy to actually deal with power prices or to increase renewable energy. They were left with a government that was more interested in pork-barrelling than it was in investing in our economy, fixing the carer economy, providing opportunities for women to get involved in the economy and making sure that people could have real wage rises. We never saw that in the 10 years under the former government. That's why we sitting on this side of the chamber take these issues incredibly seriously.

It's hard to take seriously the objections of those opposite when they now pretend to care about real wages and about power prices. It's hard to take the Liberal and National parties seriously when they say they care about budget management, when they left Australian taxpayers with a trillion dollars of debt. But they were happy to go and spend that money like Liberal-National money, using colour coded spreadsheets. That is what we are hearing from those opposite today.

What does make me smile, Senator Smith, and what makes me happy is that we finally have a government that's getting on with the hard work of addressing these issues. Since the Labor government started, we've managed to successfully argue for a wage rise for minimum-wage workers, something that people had been waiting for for many, many years. We've delivered legislation to drive investment in cleaner and cheaper energy to put downward pressure on power prices—finally, after 10 years, to have a policy in place! They had 22 policies, and they couldn't land a single one because they're so divided on climate change. They don't think it's real. That's why they never landed a policy. We finally have a policy that we're implementing and delivering to put downward pressure on power prices.

Last year we actually recalled parliament—we got everyone back to Canberra—to put through a bill for energy price relief because we could see this coming down the line and we wanted to put a cap on gas prices. We brought that legislation to the parliament. It should have been a unifying moment for the parliament, but instead those opposite voted against the energy price relief bill. They voted against giving Australian families relief on their power bills.

This government is delivering cheaper child care. That's about to start—in 100 days. I know that it's really hard for those opposite to understand that child care is an economic issue—that cheaper child care is something that will deliver an economic benefit to our country. To have women who are not choosing between a day's work and putting their child in child care and to have that bill reduce over a certain amount of time is incredibly important. That's why we prioritised cheaper child care.

We're delivering cheaper medicines. We're delivering fee-free TAFE for more students. We're expanding paid parental leave to make it easier for families. We're delivering the national housing plan to have cheaper houses, with more funding for affordable homes, but also to make sure that we have housing for people leaving domestic violence situations.

Our government is getting on with the job of reducing the cost-of-living pressures that Australian find themselves under, and it's no thanks to 10 years of complete disunity, disarray and denialism from those over on that side of the chamber. I'm incredibly proud of the work that we're doing and of our Prime Minister for the work that he is doing. We've got a long way to go and we're not afraid of the hard work, but it's no thanks to those on that side of the chamber.