Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Can I say that, in the 15 years I've been in this place, I have not seen alleged debate reduced to a base as low as I've just seen. I'm absolutely disgusted that there was even a debate with the Acting Deputy President over whether that comment would be withdrawn or not. To all those people that may not have their firstborn children alive—whose children didn't get to come home from hospital, like mine didn't—can I say: please ignore the previous speaker.

With this urgency motion, Senator Hanson seeks to criticise the Albanese government's record on addressing cost-of-living pressures. But, in doing so, she has conveniently forgotten and ignored the origins of those pressures.

If you want to know the origin of the cost-of-living crisis, you simply have to look at the record of the previous government. Annual inflation was 4.9 per cent in October, but we inherited an annual inflation rate of 6.1 per cent from the previous government. The highest quarterly inflation rate in recent history, 2.1 per cent, was in the March quarter of 2022, when the Liberal-National coalition was in power. To get an understanding of why prices are high and why so many households are struggling, you just have to look at the legacy of those opposite. Under the previous government, we saw almost a decade of inaction on addressing the cost pressures facing Australian households; record low wage growth; wasteful spending, which fed inflation; and a failure to address dwindling housing supply. Those opposite made this mess, and of course it has fallen to Labor to clean it up.

We understand that people are hurting. We understand that people are doing it tough, and we have a $23 billion cost-of-living relief package that was carefully targeted and calibrated to address the cost-of-living pressures without putting upward pressure on inflation. With this package, we're delivering energy bill relief, we're making childcare cheaper, we're making medicines cheaper, we're tripling the bulk-billing incentives to make it easier to see a bulk-billing doctor, we're delivering the largest-ever increase in rent assistance, we're easing the pressure on single parents by raising the age cut-off for parenting payment, we're expanding paid parental leave, we're building more social and affordable housing and we're getting wages moving again. We're also putting downward pressure on inflation, through responsible economic management, and this has been confirmed by several independent commentators, such as Fitch Ratings, the IMF, the OECD and the Reserve Bank governor.

If the opposition truly cared about the pressure on Australian households, rather than coming in here and making disgusting comments, they would support our cost-of-living measure. But what do the opposition do? The opposition say no. We've all heard that line 'The computer says no.' Well, guess what? The opposition say no. They say no to everything. The energy bill relief measure they opposed prevented electricity bills from rising by a further 10 per cent. Australian households and businesses might like to reflect on that when they hear the opposition complain about high electricity prices. The coalition's approach would see these bills 10 per cent higher than they are now.

While we see wages starting to get moving again thanks to our policies, we hear those opposite complain that they're not moving fast enough. This is from an opposition that, when they were in government, admitted that they deliberately kept wages low. I was in this room when the statement was made. They deliberately kept wages low. So don't be fooled by those opposite coming in here getting all uptight. As I said, it wasn't a debate; it was a yelling match, of not much interest to me, except for the line that I heard that I was offended by. But, seriously, on the opposition side you've got the memories of little goldfish.