Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A fresh start for Australia: that is what the Albanese Labor government is comprehensively delivering by enshrining Jobs and Skills Australia as a permanent body this week. We are converting decades of lost rhetoric and grandstanding into real action and results by finalising the establishment of Jobs and Skills Australia. The Albanese Labor government is linked to the success of the Australian economy.

Let's be clear: we are entering a new era after a lost decade of inaction and shameful neglect in this area by previous Liberal governments. We were left with no choice but to wonder if they were too focused on harassing the most vulnerable Australians to address their substantive issues around the economy with robodebt. Remember that? It was their deliberate intention, as I said, to punch down. As they admitted in this very chamber, their whole strategy was to keep wages low. That was the main feature of their industrial relations architecture. I repeat: it was to keep wages low for all Australian workers so that they had minimal take-home pay. And now those opposite dare to debate our positive plan for Australians in this chamber with no shame.

This is in direct contrast to what the Albanese government wants to do. It's a deliberate contrast to what the Australian people voted for. They voted for change. They voted for a new government that was going to deliver on the issues that they raised with us during the election campaign, and we're delivering on those election commitments. We are finding ways to assist with the cost-of-living concerns. We are trying to address the housing crisis, but we know the Liberals, the Nationals and the Greens, along with Pauline Hanson, are doing everything they can to stifle and not support the legislation to establish the housing future fund.

We know that we're the ones that advocated for and delivered on the 15 per cent pay rise for those working in the aged-care sector. The Liberal and National parties neglected aged-care workers. They didn't want to listen to their concerns. They did nothing to assist them with getting remuneration for the job that they do each and every day. So we're turning the page on that dark chapter. We're addressing the concerns that older Australians and their families have had. And it's not going to stop there.

The Liberals and Nationals neglected health care, and we know what they think about Medicare; they would do anything to drive Medicare into the ground. But we're the government. We're the party that supports Medicare. It doesn't matter whether you want to talk about the cost of medicines. We're the ones delivering savings to people. We don't want them to have to make a decision about whether they can afford their pharmacy scripts to be filled. We're extending, so that they can have two months worth of medicines at the same price as 30 days. We know those opposite were given the same advice that we were given in the relation to this, in 2018. But what did they do? They did nothing, because they buckled to their big donors in the Pharmacy Guild. That's what they did. They are now just trying to play politics around that issue, but we want to deliver cheaper medicines.

We have delivered on cheaper child care. Australian families are gaining from us being elected, in reduced costs to have their children in child care; it will also allow women and men to return to the workforce.

When it comes to jobs and skills, we believe in skilling up our community. We believe in skills and training so that we can prepare our Australians for the jobs of the future. So we are investing in fee-free TAFE places, and we will restore TAFE to where it should have been, after 10 years of neglect. We're doing everything we can, and we understand that interests rates going up is a concern of people with a mortgage. We know there's stress around rents, but the only way you're going to change rents, the only way you're going to relieve mortgages is to actually have more houses being built, making sure that people on low incomes can have affordable housing and that there is social housing to support those people who need it most. So I say to Liberals and the Nationals and the Greens: get out of the way and pass this legislation.