Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I find the language 'people are deaf and blind to what's happening to cost-of-living' both inappropriate and unfortunate. With those opposite, we are faced with people who are both heartless and unapologetic for the fact that they have opposed every substantial initiative to help people with cost-of-living challenges—initiative after initiative. On 1 July 2024 Labor brought tax cuts in. When women and men across this country, mothers and fathers, turned around and received an opportunity, like millions of people, to get tax decreases, what did Sussan Ley say? She said that she wanted to scrap those decreases in taxes. This is the heartless, unapologetic approach from those opposite to the cost-of-living crisis, whilst we've actually made a number of changes in support in a whole series of areas. Around 13.6 million taxpayers will get a tax cut, with an average cut of $1,888 a year, or $36 a week. Sussan Ley says that she wants to scrap it, to get rid of it. They're unapologetic. They are heartless.

We know there are challenges now. That's why we've made so many more initiatives, like electricity bill relief. The average family would be $230 worse off in 2023-24 without Labor's Energy Price Relief Plan. Of course, the coalition voted against it. The list goes on. There's fee-free TAFE to give us an opportunity to not only build capacity within the economy but also, most importantly, to give our young and those that want to be retrained an opportunity to turn around and be trained and to build a more productive economy. We've seen over 200,000 fee-free TAFE places in 2023 and an additional 300,000 for 2024. The coalition called that 'wasteful spending'. They're harsh, heartless and unapologetic.

Then you look at the more affordable homes and the Housing Australia Future Fund, the HAFF, which will build 300,000 social and affordable homes. The coalition voted against it—heartless and unapologetic. We're creating jobs and getting wages moving again, with the largest increase to the minimum wage in decades. The minimum wage grew by 8.6 per cent, or $1.85 an hour, based on a 38-hour week. This is a rise of $3,655 yearly, and the coalition opposed it—heartless and unapologetic—because that's the approach they take. They say one thing and they do the direct opposite. If what they're saying and what they're putting about the pressures that are on community—and there are pressures on community—is correct, they should be standing with us rather than standing against the community and being so heartless and unapologetic.

It's about time that those opposite started getting off their backsides and actually listening to what people want and need and started supporting those initiatives that are giving people more support. We know it's tough out there. We know that we have to make sure that there's more support given out there in the community.

As the RBA governor, Michele Bullock, quite rightly said on Thursday in Armidale:

… governments have a job to do and I have a job to do. My job and the Reserve Bank's job is to get inflation down. The governments have a different job. Their job is also to get inflation down, and they acknowledge that—

'They acknowledge that,' she said. But, she went on:

… it's also to provide services and infrastructure for the Australian people. So, they need to do that at the same time as they need to focus on keeping inflation down.

Well, guess what? We're doing both. The heartless and unapologetic approach from those opposite is to oppose initiative after initiative that helps Middle Australia. Under those opposite, the middle class in Australia shrank. Wages went down; real wages declined. Now, for three successive quarters, real wages have increased in this country. We've been making it quite clear that our objective is to make sure that Australians have more in their pockets, to make sure that they have more opportunity whether it be in fee-free TAFE, whether it be getting a decent wage or whether it be making sure that there are increases in a number of the arrangements that we've entered into, such as the important areas of Medicare—