PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS
Mr ROB MITCHELL (McEwen) (10:24): It is important that we put this stuff on the record. It's important that we note from the last election that the coalition of the Liberals and the Nationals, and their new bedfellows, One Nation, wanted to go to an election promoting higher taxes for working Australians. They wanted to go against pay rises for minimum wage workers.
They actually wanted to make things tougher. And now, as we stand here this week, we hear the latest from the potential deputy prime minister of a Liberal-National-One Nation government, the member for New England, about how they've got to remove superannuation. This is from the party who came into this place under Treasurer Hockey and said: 'The Age of Entitlement is over.' There would be no aged pension for young people.
So all these young people sitting up there in the gallery would be subject to having no aged pension when they're older because this lot wanted to get rid of it. We brought in compulsory superannuation for one reason: to make sure that when people got older they would have the opportunity to have dignity in their retirement and make sure they had money there to be able to sustain themselves as Australians live longer.
They live longer because we've got a better Medicare system, a system that actually supports people. It doesn't matter about your wealth or your postcode, as long as you've got your Medicare card, you can get the support you need. We've been bringing in tax cuts every year to make sure we help people who need help the most, because a lot of people, no matter how hard you work in some jobs, are not going to get paid a lot of money.
That's just a simple fact. If we all got paid $1 million a week, which is about where they think people should be, inflation would be through the roof. When we came into government, inflation was over six per cent and rising, and we had interest rates rising—and we've been trying to pull them back.
We've been working very hard to make sure that we're focusing on limiting the issues that people face through what's happening globally. And there is absolutely no shadow of a doubt that the global situation we face now is a lot harder than it was two years ago and four years ago. Deputy Speaker Buchholz, you're only a young fella but I'm sure you can remember we had the nineties recession and the Asian crisis.
These things happen. We used to get one economic shock every 10 years. Since COVID, we have had three economic shocks in four years.
No wonder people are feeling hard done by. No wonder they're getting angry with the system. But this is a global situation that we are faced with, and it's a global situation we're dealing with—with the best possible way forward.
It is when times are tough that you know you can rely on a Labor government to actually help families out, whether it's through superannuation, tax cuts or an instant asset write-off. Now, with taxation, you can have your tax done and deduct $1,000 without needing receipts. They sit there and scoff at that and say, 'Oh, that's not important.' I'll tell you what.
To a lot of people who are working to just put food on the table and pay the bills, it's very helpful. It's very helpful to be able to go in and say, 'Here's my tax,' get it done, get your refund and go on and live your life comfortably. It's so important, when we talk about looking after Australians, that we look after those who really need the support the most.
We've been dealing with issues in relation to superannuation. How many times have we heard it, over and over, that big businesses—backed by that lot over there—shut their doors and walk away, and the workforce who are out there every day putting their labour on the line, building that business up and getting out the products that are needed come home to say, 'Oh, the boss hasn't been paying me super.' These people are not only out of work and struggling in a situation where we've got low unemployment but they then find out they haven't had their super paid for six months or two years.
That impacts them not only now but into the future. We had that Liberal government for nine years, and there seems to be a black hole of memory in those opposite. That nine years in government returned some of the worst economic performances ever seen.
We all remember them standing up here going, 'Yes, we're going to deliver a budget surplus each and every year we're in government.' And how did they go? Zero for nine—not one. They were going to pay off the debt.
What did they do? They doubled the debt, nearly tripled it before COVID, and then had an influx of spending on COVID. We've been returning money, back in, to pay out that debt.
We've delivered budget surpluses and we've delivered cost-of-living relief for every single Australian. We know people are doing it tough. We know that globally we're facing some of the worst conditions we've ever seen, but we're not shying away from it.
Every day, we are trying to do things that help people get through. Because it is so important that we help people that need the help the most, we're not sitting there at the big end of town flying around on billionaires' jets; we're actually out there helping the people that drive this country.