Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

You wouldn't know it from the carry-on from the opposition in question time today, but what the government is doing is providing cost-of-living relief through tax reform to people who need it the most. That's actually what's happening here right now. We're providing that relief to low- and middle-income Australians, who we know are feeling the cost-of-living squeeze the most. That is what we are doing. That is what we are focused on. We are focused on those Australians who are feeling the squeeze, and we are providing them with cost-of-living relief through a tax cut.

Since coming into office, we have been focused on the cost-of-living challenge that Australians have been facing. We are focused on the aspirations of Australians to live a good life in this country in the context of a cost-of-living challenge. So, in answer to Senator Bragg, who makes accusations about this government and how we see the aspirations of Australian people, I will say this: we do see the aspirations of the Australian people. We see the aspirations of low- and middle-income Australians to have a fair go into this country, and we see their aspirations to have a $1,500-a-year tax cut if they're earning the average wage in Australia of around $78,000. Those are the aspirations that we are responding to with our package.

We are doing that after a decade of no reform from those opposite. We're doing it after a decade of complete division amongst those opposite. We're doing it after a decade in which those opposite focused on themselves, not on the people that they were elected to actually serve. Because we on this side are actually focused on what people need right now, because we're focused on the help that they need right now, because we're focused on what they need from their government and because we're focused on what they need from their economy, as we come into 2024, wages are actually moving again in this country and job creation is at record highs.

We know that inflation is heading in the right direction too, and this is really welcome progress given the cost-of-living challenges that people face. Inflation being at the lowest rate in two years is very welcome news for Australians. And now, under our tax reform plan, on top of those good measures—the fact that wages are moving, the fact that inflation is down—every single taxpayer in this country is getting a tax cut, and 84 per cent of taxpayers will be better off under our plan. Someone on the average wage is getting $1,500 back into the family budget as a result of our focus on them.

Now, we know that the 'no-alition' don't really know what to do about any of this. They started off, as we know, telling the Australian people they were going to roll back the tax cuts—tax cuts that we know go to every single Australian, tax cuts that men 84 per cent of Australians are better off, tax cut of $1,500 a year for the average-income worker. We know they want to roll back these tax cuts that benefit middle Australia. We know they want to say no to the 14 million Australians who are now depending on our tax cut, the 11.5 million who are better off under our plan. We know how much they want to stay no, because that's all they actually know how to do. They say no to electricity bill relief, no to more social housing, no to cheaper medicine, no to every measure we put forward to get wages moving in this country.

Instead of being able to say no, what we've seen today is the opposition rolling over instead. We've seen them attempt to lodge a political attack on the government for doing the right thing, for responding to the times and for making sure that the average Australian gets a tax cut that they need. They've launched a scare campaign to hide the fact that they're supporting the Prime Minister's plan—a plan that is better for Australians than the plan that it replaces.