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

Thank you, Senator Smith, for the opportunity to talk about Labor's fourth budget and about how Labor is building Australia's future. Under Labor, jobs are up, with over a million new jobs created on our watch. Under Labor, wages are up, and we have backed pay rises which have ensured that the national minimum wage has risen by almost $7½ thousand per year. Under Labor, inflation is down. Inflation is now a third of what it was at its peak, and we have gotten inflation down without sacrificing Australians' jobs and without sacrificing their wages. Under Labor, on our watch, interest rates are heading down. They are heading in the right direction. And all of this has happened while we have been providing direct cost-of-living relief—the cost-of-living relief that Australians need and that Australians deserve: tax cuts, which you opposite oppose; more Medicare bulk-billing; cheaper medicine; and energy bill relief. All of this has happened on the watch of, with the hard work of, our Treasurer, Mr Chalmers—a Treasurer who has delivered the biggest improvement to the budget bottom line in a single parliamentary term ever, a Treasurer who has delivered not one but two budget surpluses in three years, when those opposite could not deliver one budget surplus in almost 10 years in office. We know you got the mugs printed, but you did not deliver the budget surplus.

Now, we need to talk about the alternative Treasurer; we need to talk about Angus. I know that most of those on the other side don't want to hear it.

Most of you don't want to hear it, but I know that some of you do want to hear about Mr Taylor, Senator Bragg.