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

This budget takes pressure off families while not adding to pressure on inflation. We have done our job in finely and carefully calibrating this budget so that we don't add to inflation but so we are able to provide sensible cost-of-living relief for those that need support the most, while at the same time making historic investments in bulk-billing in Medicare, tripling the Medicare bulk-billing incentive to make it easier for parents of children, for concession card holders and for pensioners to ensure that when they need to see a doctor they get that consultation bulk-billed. That's what you get under an Labor government: not dodgy budgeting and failing to account but fiscal discipline, investments where they need to be made, cleaning up the mess of nine years of your administration and putting the budget on a more sustainable, more resilient footing so that we can make room for the things that we know Australians depend on and expect from their government. That is the approach we took in this budget. I am very proud of this budget—very proud indeed—because we have had to balance a range of competing pressures to land a document that is right for the current economic challenges and circumstances we face. (Time expired)