Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

Gross debt this year will be $904 billion. That means—for those opposite—it's $152 billion lower. That means that we save, over the course of the next decade, $80 billion in interest payments. That means that it creates room in the budget to make smart decisions in the national interest. You would think that, after all the claims about economic capability on that side, symbolised by Mr Taylor and Mr Dutton, there would be a moment of self-reflection, and that the figure of a trillion dollars would have some impact, but no. What we have is the same campaign and the same nonsense, and it's all characterised by two things: negativity and complacency.

That's what characterises those opposite. Otherwise, how could you campaign about inflation—which, as Senator O'Neill said, rose to its dizzy heights when those opposite were in government—but vote against energy bill relief and measures to reduce the cost of child care? How could you feign concern about the cost of living but oppose Labor's reform of Mr Morrison's outdated stage 3 tax cuts, which now deliver under the Albanese government plan a tax cut for every single one of our PAYG taxpayers? That's 13.6 million Australians who will now get a tax cut. How could you do that unless your whole proposition was negativity and complacency? It's the only way you can claim that, when inflation peaks when you are in government, it's the result of an energy price shock from overseas, but now inflation is somehow home grown. It's silly, it's partisan and it's so see-through.

A failed decade of energy policy, in which you couldn't land a single energy policy, has driven costs up right through the energy system. You delivered utter chaos and incompetence that drove billions of dollars of investment in our energy system offshore, symbolised by nothing more than four gigawatts of electricity-generating capacity out of the system and only one gigawatt going back in as energy demands have grown. Now the answer from Mr Dutton is this nuclear hoax. It's all delivered and straightforward—except for a few little things! It's uncosted, Mr Dutton can't tell you where the nuclear power stations will be, and there's no modelling or understanding about the impact of billions and billions of dollars of extra cost in experimental nuclear power stations coming to a suburb near you. There's no explanation of how that will in any way deal with the energy challenges that Australia faces. They had the worst productivity growth for a decade, and there are no answers on that question except austerity politics and to slash, burn and cut wages. This is a ramshackle joke of an opposition, and they ought to be seen right through.