James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Hasn't the Prime Minister shown his true colours? In the 16 months leading up to the Voice referendum, Anthony Albanese was able to flit around the world on his Airbus, 'Albanese Airlines', the one-passenger airline, making sure that he was loved by people in the world while doing nothing to help Australians through the cost-of-living crisis. What is interesting for those who are listening is that Labor is very sensitive about the amount of time the Australian Prime Minister spends out of Australia. It's always lovely when the Australian Prime Minister gets his passport stamped when he comes back to Australia, because the Prime Minister doesn't want to deal with the cost-of-living crisis. Rents are up, mortgages are up, power is up, gas is up—

interjections are up from the Labor Party, because they don't like talking about the cost-of-living crisis, and they like delivering solutions to the cost-of-living crisis even less. Transport is up and beer is up. So it is correct to say that life is not easy under Albanese.

When the Prime Minister gets tough, he relies on pathetic political attacks on the Leader of the Opposition and on the opposition. When this government released over 145 hardened criminals, it was Peter Dutton who, with members of the shadow cabinet, worked constructively as a team to bring forward solutions to Labor's problem. But what was the response of the Labor Party and those cabinet ministers? Guess what they called Peter Dutton? They called him a 'protector of paedophiles'. This is someone who spent his career as a Queensland police officer locking up sex offenders. And Labor's response when faced between a high road and a low road is always to take the very, very low road—because you don't have solutions for the cost-of-living crisis impacting upon middle Australia.