Many Australians are doing it particularly tough right now.
The cost of fuel, groceries, child care, utilities, the cost of housing and mortgages –everything is going up.
Many people quite rightly feel they’ll be overwhelmed as household budgets get tighter and tighter.
Now despite the claptrap we just heard from the member opposite, those opposite left us with many ticking time bombs.
They pursued a deliberate strategy to suppress the wages of working people in this nation – and they were proud of it, they said it was part of their plan.
But that has led to the crisis we’re in.
Those opposite did little to diversify our economy, and so left us vulnerable to the shocks we saw when they mishandled the China relationship, they imposed bans on our exports, hurting Aussie producers and businesses.
The Albanese Government understands this.
And we’ve begun the work, after just over 100 days in government, to address these deep systemic problems, mostly the result of the ineptitude of those opposite.
We must ensure that wages keep pace with the cost of living.
And while the rewriting of history by some of those opposite is understandable, having lost the election and trying to explain it away, but the reality is, one of the big reasons why they were unsuccessful in the election is because the Australian people knew that they were cooked, and the did not have a plan to address some of the big issues we face as a nation.
In contrast, the Albanese Labor Government has a plan.
We’ve committed to making childcare more affordable for 97% of families.
That doesn’t just help our kids, but also gets parents back into the workplace, meaning more money for families, and a huge boost to productivity and our economy.
It’s why we lifted the minimum wage in line with inflation – so that Australians earning lower incomes aren’t losing pay.
Our Powering Australia Plan will cut power bills for households as we pivot towards renewables.
We’ve also committed to improving the affordability and uptake of electric vehicles – something that those opposite dismissed and derided as “ending the weekend”.
How ridiculous not to see where the trends are going in terms of affordability of EVs and how that’s going to help household budgets.
We’ve seen fuel prices rise significantly over the last decade.
My constituents in Darwin, like many other regional Australians, are being gouged at the bowser by fuel retailers.
97 per cent of our refined fuel is imported, but I’ll tell you what we have plenty of – sunshine and wind.
Renewables technology is evolving every day, and the costs keep coming down.
Why not invest in that? And use it to our advantage?
I am running in my electorate a concerted campaign against fuel retailers because even as the oil price dropped, they continued to take much too much in terms of profits.
And we’ll continue to point out to them how unethical it is, how greedy it is, and how it’s not in the interests of our national economy to keep gouging Australians when it comes to fuel.
Do those opposite want Australians to be more dependent on increasingly expensive foreign oil, rather than increasingly cheaper Australian renewables?
Do they want Australians to pay more for their commute to work, or dropping their kids off at school?
Or going away for the weekend? Which will not disappear just because their next car has a battery.
Continuing to rely on foreign oil would punish Australians and their household budgets.
We know this technology will take time to be implemented, but our Government is committed to looking forward – not just towards the next term of this Parliament, but over the coming decades.
We want to build an Australia with a lower cost of living and with higher living standards, especially for those who are on lower incomes or who are struggling to get by right now.
We know there is no easy quick answers to fix a lot of these systemic problems, but we’re committed to putting in the hard work required to address these challenges.
And Australians can count on the Albanese Government to do just that.
