Mrs PHILLIPS (Gilmore) (14:20): My question is to the Treasurer. How is the Albanese Labor government prioritising help for Australians with the cost of living? Are there alternative approaches that would leave people worse off?
Dr CHALMERS (Rankin—Treasurer) (14:20): Thanks to the member for Gilmore not just for her question but for maintaining her focus in her community on the cost of living. That's the focus that we all share on this side of the House. It's a key part of our economic strategy, which is all about relief, repair and reform. Because of that strategy, we're getting inflation down and wages up and keeping unemployment low. The progress that we've seen on inflation has been substantial, it has been sustained, and we saw that in the numbers I referred to earlier. But people are still under pressure. That's why this cost-of-living relief is so important. In our cost-of-living relief, you see the priorities of this government—tax cuts and better pay for working people, energy bill relief, cheaper medicines, cheaper early childhood education, free TAFE and help with rent, as I said a moment ago. When those opposite opposed all of that, they made their priorities clear as well. They are for lower wages and longer lunches, and they're against cost-of-living help. So Australians would be worse off by thousands of dollars if they had their way and they would be worse off still if those opposite were elected in to government.
It has been almost three years that they've been in opposition now. After three years, they still have no costed, no credible and no coherent economic policies. All they've got are secret costs and secret cuts. They've got a slogan that says that they want to go back—they want to take Australia backwards. The truth of that is, if he gets back, Australians go backwards. The only way that he can find $350 billion in cuts, the only way that they can find $600 billion to pay for this nuclear insanity, is to come after Medicare again, to come after hospitals again, to come after housing again, to come after wages and pensions again. And they won't stop there. So I think it says it all in this week. It says it all. In the same week that this health minister and this government invested $1.7 billion more in public hospitals in a single year, we learned that they want to spend $1.6 billion a year on taxpayer funded long lunches. So Australians this year will be asked to choose between two very different sets of priorities—that coalition, of cuts and conflict and culture wars, coming after Medicare and wages, making people worse off and taking Australia backwards, or this Labor government, making progress on inflation, helping with the cost of living, strengthening Medicare and building Australia's future.
