Well, welcome back everyone, for what is going to be a great year. I must begin, though, by saying that I've just spoken again with the Premier of Queensland, David Crisafulli about what Queenslanders are going through with these floods.
We know at this time there are floods in Queensland. There are also bushfires, of course, and a heat wave across southern Australia. So it's indicative of what we have to deal with.
And this morning I went to the National Operations Office that we established there in Barton here with NEMA and with Jenny McAllister, the Minister, and Brendan Moon, got a full briefing on what was occurring there.
We already have choppers on the ground to help with people. We've mobilised the support that we have and the presence in Townsville. But we've activated as well income support, and we will do whatever is necessary to provide support for people.
But I do want to say, once again, at the worst of times, we're seeing the best of the Australian character. We're seeing not just emergency personnel, we're seeing volunteers helping their neighbours, helping people out, even going door to door knocking with the evacuations that have had to take place in Townsville.
So Jenny, if she hasn't gone, she's going back up there this week, so you won't see all of her in the Senate. I think that is the priority that we have going forward. But we will do, as always, what we do, and we'll work constructively as we always do with state and territory governments. And I know that David Crisafulli appreciates the support that's been there on the ground.
Well, we begin 2025 with a great sense of optimism. Inflation is down, wages are up, unemployment is low. Indeed, our average rate of unemployment is the lowest that it's been in many, many decades, going back more than fifty years. And that is something that we can be proud of.
I think the hard work that this group have done in making sure that we provided cost of living relief for people who are most in need in a way that helped to put that downward pressure on inflation, rather than what some of the economics orthodoxy would suggest we do, which is not worry about what the impact of the economy was as if the statistics weren't about people.
Well what we understand in this room is that we want an economy that works for people, not the other way around. And that has meant prioritising making sure that people aren't left behind. So we've done that at the same time as we're fulfilling the second half of our objectives of not holding people back either.
So something like free TAFE, where I was at Swinburne TAFE on Friday there in Melbourne in the electorate of Deakin. Was there talking with construction apprentices about the announcement that we made at the National Press Club of $10,000. Making sure that we're supporting now electricians as well as people in carpentry and in other areas of construction throughout to get their apprenticeship.
That combined with free TAFE is having an impact on living standards short term, but it's also setting up those young Australians and other Australians as well - retraining for a new career and setting them up for that.
Indeed. One of the people that I met there last Friday was someone who's still doing his law degree, but he's decided that he'd rather work in construction. So - certainly more job security going forward as well.
So we know that people are still under financial pressure. We know the job is not done. That's why we work each and every day.
And throughout this period, the Expenditure Review Committee and our Cabinet processes have continued to work through, led by Jim and Katy, have worked through the preparation for the budget this year. And we're continuing to make sure that we think about, okay, how can we provide that assistance in a way that lifts people up, whilst continues to see the figures that we saw last week?
2.4 per cent is certainly well within the range. Indeed now in the bottom half of the range of 2 to 3 per cent that the Reserve Bank have aimed at. If you look at the quarterly figures, 0.2 of headline, 0.5 of underlying for that quarter. Now that is in stark contrast to the last quarter in which the Coalition were in government was 2.1 in March 2022.
So we've more than halved inflation, we've kept unemployment low and kept people employed, kept the economy positive, unlike many of our trading partners who went into recession. And we have made sure as well that people have got that cost of living relief.
You couldn't find a more stark choice that Australians are going to face in some period of time. Which is Labor providing that cost of living support, building Australia's future for the long term - where are the future jobs, future industries going to come from?
And a Coalition saying under Peter Dutton, saying themselves that they want to go back. They want to go back and being worse off under Peter Dutton.
Now we know that they opposed all of our cost of living measures. They opposed energy bill relief, they opposed cheaper child care, they opposed free TAFE and think that people don't value it. They of course most starkly opposed our tax cuts for every single Australian taxpayer.
And we know as well that they oppose wages increasing.
They wanted low wages to be a key feature of their economic architecture.
But having waited three years for a cost of living measure, they've come up with one and it's a doozy, this one.
They don't want workers to get a tax cut, but they do want bosses to get a free lunch - and that is the big distinction. And they want workers to pay for it.
They want every Australian to pay for up to $20,000 for the, there's about 4 million different businesses registered, sole traders, $20,000 a pop for people to engage in meals, entertainment, liaisons on golf courses, karaoke nights, weekends away. Who knows what it would be? What we know is that $20,000 would be paid for by people who will never get that opportunity. And we know as well that they didn't put forward any costing of it.
But then yesterday, yesterday we learned now that they do have cuts, they confirmed the $350 billion they keep speaking about as being waste, that they want cuts to be made there. And that's before you get to the $600 billion they need to build their government-owned and operated nuclear power plants into the 2040s. And that that depending upon who you listen to.
If you listen to David Littleproud, construction will begin the day after the election.
If you listen to others, it'll begin in a couple of years time to consult and deal with the law.
The few little simple facts that it's outlawed in Queensland and David Crisafulli doesn't want to change it. And indeed this is a friendless policy amongst any state and territory government or indeed any state and territory opposition as well.
But they won't tell you what the cuts will be. But they will tell you they're coming. But they'll tell you after the election. But they won't have an independent audit, they'll just decide themselves what the cuts will be.
Well, we need to hold them to account because we know that the last time they came into government the biggest cuts were to Medicare and the bloke who was in charge of that was Peter Dutton.
And there were attempts to put in a GP tax, A tax every time people visited an emergency department.
$50 billion ripped out of the hospital system.
Massive amounts ripped out of the school system and education sector as well. And that was after they promised that there wouldn't be any cuts. Imagine what it's going to be like when they're saying, 'oh, well, we told you there'd be cuts, and we told you that we'd tell you after the election'.
Well, that's not the Australian way. And we have an opportunity to really drive that home over the next fortnight and over the coming period as well.
Australian families, if they had got their way, would be $7200 worse off right now if Peter Dutton had got his way and blocked the cost of living relief that we've put forward.
And I want to give a shout out to Jason and the work that he's done on schools. We now have six of the eight states and territories signed up to proper schools funding.
No matter what school people go to, public or private, they should get, they should get that resource standard that was identified by David Gonski all those years ago, and that suffered a setback when the Abbott Government ripped money out of schools.
So we understand that the idea that people completing year 12 has gone backwards is completely unacceptable. And we've got a plan, not just for better funding, but for making sure that kids get the best start in life.
We were in a school there in Mary's seat, last Wednesday, I think it was. Boronia Heights Primary - what a school it was with phonics learning, with these amazing young Australians just being so excited.
It was their second day at school and the joy in learning that they were receiving - every child deserves that. And that's why the learning of literacy, numeracy, phonics teaching, all of this is a part of the agreement that Jason has negotiated with the states and territories.
We're still working on a couple of them and we'll get them there, I'm sure.
But it is so important and so important for the students. But also - they were pretty happy teachers at Boronia Heights Public School because they know that they were being valued as well, the work that they do.
Being given that opportunity to make sure, for example, that if a kid's falling behind, you don't want to wait till they're eight, you want to pick that up in year one and lift them up, because that's how we compete in the 21st century.
So early childhood learning, schools, TAFE, Universities Accord - all of this fits together with how we build Australia's future.
Along with child care, the reform we've done there.
The biggest reforms in aged care in this century, all about building Australia's future.
As well as support for manufacturing, the announcement that we made for green aluminium up there in Tomago a couple of weeks ago. Making sure we can make more things here through manufacturing.
All of these things fit in together.
And this two weeks we have to progress some of this. We'll have legislation on three days of child care subsidy, making free TAFE permanent, Production Tax Credits for critical minerals and rare earths, keeping the NBN in public hands. Pretty good idea. And the response to the Robodebt Royal Commission.
So we've got a busy couple of weeks and then some other legislation as well, preparing for the budget this year.
But I'm optimistic that Australians will respond to a positive agenda with fully costed policies. Ones that build on the foundations we've built this term, but builds on that for the better Australia that we need to create and one that we are busy working on each and every day.
So welcome back everyone. Look forward to the next fortnight and beyond as well.
