Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

There is no shortage of economic data that's published regularly, particularly focusing on the high inflationary environment that we inherited when we came to government in May 2022. That has had an impact on business confidence and how people are feeling. They're feeling under pressure. I don't think we've ever pretended otherwise. That's why our entire effort since coming to government has been on how to ensure that inflation comes down and that we're able to make sensible investments to ease the cost of living where we can. It's why we did the energy bill rebates that you opposed. It's why we put the caps on the gas industry, which you opposed as well. Now we're seeing some relief in that area, with prices coming back a little bit.

But we're not pretending that people aren't feeling under pressure; they are, and that's why our budgets have been focused on investments where we can afford to make them, where they're sensible, where they don't add to inflation and, in fact, where they take pressure off inflation. The energy bill rebates and the rental relief did exactly that. Where we can provide investments into child care and where we can do more in housing—we've got a massive agenda in housing to provide more social and affordable housing options for people, working with the states and territories. It's why we did our tripling of the bulk-billing rate. It's why we've opened the urgent care centres so people can get access to free or affordable health care. That's all of why our budgets have been targeted on making sure we can ease the cost of living, repair the budget, lower the debt, deliver a surplus and build up the drivers we need for future economic growth.