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

I'm very pleased to stand and take note of the answers provided today. And it does beggar belief, really, that those opposite—in defence of their actions on Medicare over many years; a decade of delay, of ignoring the GP crisis, of standing up every day and supporting someone who as health minister proposed a co-payment—want to go back to a policy that Labor supposedly was implementing when I was eight years old. It's two days after the budget, and the Liberals are going back to 1991 to try to defend their position, which is to not support the things we put forward. It's clear that they don't support these things. It's clear that they don't support a budget that's responsible, that's measured. It's clear that they don't support the measures in the budget to provide cost-of-living relief to everyday Australians.

Those on this side have been working really hard to get those measures into the budget, to get that relief out to Australian families, and we couldn't be prouder of the work that's been done to make sure that we're taking care of vulnerable Australians, that we're making more opportunities for more Australians and that we're building a strong future and a strong, resilient economy for our future. The budget strikes this balance between helping Australians through hard times right now and building for the longer term. We're delivering real cost-of-living relief and the biggest-ever investment in bulk-billing—the biggest-ever increase for bulk-billing incentives. It is something that needed to be done, and it's something that those opposite would never do, after 10 years of drilling Medicare down to the ground, starving GPs of resources. I am sure that if they were still in government we would have got to a point where Medicare was completely privatised. That is their legacy. But, in our budgets, we care about Medicare. We built it, we will protect it and we are strengthening it. That's what they're against. That's what we are for. We're lowering the cost of medicines on top of this, which is another thing it seems, from the questions today, that those opposite oppose. Funding the biggest pay rise for aged-care workers—that's what's in this budget. That's what is in this budget, but those on the opposite side say we shouldn't be doing it.

On top of all of this cost-of-living relief, something that's incredibly important is offering cost-of-living relief on electricity bills. That is something that was in the budget the other night. We're working with states and territories. And it was something we had in our October budget, because we're completely aware of how important this is for people. Those on the opposite side had the opportunity to support cost-of-living energy bill relief in the last year of their parliament, but they refused to support it.

We're creating opportunities that all Australians can share and we're making the services that we rely on stronger. Our plan will grow the economy, create new jobs, boost renewable energy and invest in skills and training. Remember that problem you also ignored—the skills crisis that you did nothing about for 10 years? It was already happening before the pandemic. It was made worse by COVID. And you had no plans other than paying interns $5 an hour to wash cars and getting Scotty Cam to come out of the woodwork and be on a TV ad. That was your plan to fix the skills crisis. We've put real money behind it in our budget, because we know that we need to get skilled workers into skilled jobs to make sure that Australians have those opportunities.

This is a responsible budget, it's a practical budget and it's one that works to clean up the mess of a wasted decade under the Liberals and Nationals. I'll give you one example of that neglect and decay. Townsville is the proud home of the Australian Institute of Marine Science. They're a fantastic organisation and they do important work in our oceans, making sure that we've got the very best marine science in the world. They do incredible work on the Great Barrier Reef. Under the previous government, we were at a point where the defunding and underfunding of this incredibly important institution was going to lead to job losses. Their equipment was out of date, they hadn't had a refurbishment of their premises for years and there were jobs on the line. In the budget the other night, we added $163 million to the budget of the Australian Institute of Marine Science. That is $163 million to get them back just to where they needed to be. That's what this budget does.