Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2025-2026

Ms SITOU (Reid) (11:27): I first would like to congratulate the previous speaker for his election to the positions of deputy leader of the Liberal Party and shadow Treasurer. Given that he was the architect of the nuclear energy policy that those opposite took to the last election, a failure of a policy that would have cost $600 billion and increased energy costs, one might say that he failed upwards in this case!

Good luck to those opposite. They've chosen a shadow Treasurer who wanted to give the Australian public a $600 billion bill for a policy which was going to increase energy prices. But good luck to them.

Certainly the shadow Treasurer did not bring very much, in terms of policy offerings, to the previous campaign. Maybe the one thing the shadow Treasurer will now do is provide policy offerings. Those opposite are going through an identity crisis at the moment.

They're going to go through their Eat Pray Love moment of discovering themselves, what they stand for and what policies they want to bring forward, but let's hope they ditch their nuclear energy policy. Certainly on this side of the House, we have been singularly focused on the Australian people. We're not fighting amongst ourselves for the spoils of office.

Instead, we are singularly focused on helping the Australian people because we want to deliver for them. That's the whole point of us being in this place. When we came into government we inherited $1 trillion of Liberal Party debt and two Liberal deficits.

Now, under Labor, our debt is $188 billion lower and we've turned those two Liberal deficits into back-to-back surpluses. Inflation is now under control and within the Reserve Bank's target band. We've been able to do all of this while providing cost-of-living support to Australians, including cheaper medicines, tax cuts for all Australians, free TAFE so that we can get more people trained up into areas where we have desperate skill shortages, real wages growth and cheaper child care.

These are all measures that those opposite voted against, unfortunately. Let's contrast that with what happened in the last election campaign. The Liberal Party had their nuclear energy policy.

The other policy offering they had—and it was a very bare cupboard indeed—was to cut 41,000 Public Service jobs over five years. It felt like Groundhog Day. The one policy they ever pull out is to cut Public Service jobs.

We've been there; we've done that, and it didn't work. The Liberal Party cut Public Service jobs when they were in government. Veterans had to wait years and years to get their claims processed.

I note that those opposite always claim to be on the side of veterans. They are the first to stand up at Anzac Day services and talk about how they want to support veterans, but, when it came to actually processing their applications so that they could get the funding that they legitimately deserved, you failed them. You failed to properly staff our passport offices, so Australians couldn't even get their passports when they wanted them.

You failed to adequately staff our immigration department, so there were gaping holes allowing known human traffickers into this country, including into my electorate. A gentleman by the name Binjun Xie was allowed to sex traffic in my electorate because of the gaping holes you left.