Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Trade and Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

Again, on 1 July the Net Zero Economy Agency commenced to help workers, regional communities and investors transition to, engage with and invest in the net zero economy. From 1 July 11 Medicare urgent care clinics will be opening across the country. Also from 1 July all community pharmacies will be paid more for dispensing PBS medicines, giving the average metropolitan pharmacy more than $41,000 extra income per year. I can go on because there are so many more things that this government has done from the start of the new financial year. New rules have taken effect, which means that manufacturers of more than 2,900 brands of common medicines are required to hold a minimum of four to six months worth of stock onshore in Australia. Anybody who has had trouble getting access to some of those common medicines, particularly as they relate to diabetes, will know how important that change is. Again, from 1 July there have been changes to the petroleum resources rent tax to deliver a fairer return to communities from our natural resources. These are very important changes to those rules. There will be safeguard mechanism reforms to help Australian industries move to net zero. Again, from 1 July there's the Small Business Energy Incentive so that small and medium-sized businesses with a turnover of less than $50 million will be able to claim an extra 20 per cent deduction on spending that supports electrification and more efficient use of energy. Obviously, this is a very important step in the progress towards decarbonising our economy.

Again from 1 July, the temporary skilled migration income threshold has been increased from $53,900 to $70,000 to attract skilled migrants who can complement the skills of the Australian workforce. Anybody who visits particularly tourism places anywhere in the country knows just how important that will be to ensure that, for instance, chefs can come to Australia. There's now a higher threshold. The former government left us in a terrible situation with an inability to get a skilled workforce to try and recover from those terrible years under that government during COVID. We're doing something about it to encourage skilled migrants to come to Australia and earn more.

Under the Australia-United Kingdom Free Trade Agreement, UK passport holders will be able to apply for a working holiday-maker visa between the ages of 18 and 35, so that's a five-year increase from the current maximum to 30 years. Hopefully that will encourage young people from the United Kingdom who want to experience the wonderful lifestyle that Australia has, and it's a new opportunity for those of an older age and therefore a little bit more mature and perhaps with some extra skills that they can apply to the Australian economy. We welcome those people. You may recall the former government talked about getting the agreement, but, of course, it did nothing to actually implement it, so it was left to the incoming government, in particular the trade minister—