MOTIONS

Ms CLUTTERHAM (Sturt) (18:56): I welcome the opportunity to outline the 'Australia first' agenda of the Albanese Labor government with respect to easing pressure on households and small businesses, strengthening the budget and making responsible decisions that will protect Australia's future. Work to ease pressure on families is always ongoing and always involves tax cuts.

Since coming to government, we have repeatedly implemented these tax cuts. The $1,000 instant write-off and putting in place the long-term architecture to support the working Australians tax offset are examples. Complaints that the tax cuts are too small or ineffective are out of touch.

Every tax cut on income earned by working Australia speaks to a policy of keeping more of what you earn, and the wage growth in this country—in particular, the deliberate wage increases for nurses and early childhood educators, to name a few—speaks to a policy of earning more. You regularly hear that refrain of 'earning more and keeping more of what you earn' in this place because that refrain underpins this government's policy agenda.

Labor's tax cuts are sustainable, do not risk cuts to services through lower revenue and, particularly with the working Australians tax offset, are scalable when the settings, particularly the inflationary settings, are right. The impact on the budget's bottom line of the coalition's tax back guarantee, which indexes tax thresholds to inflation, has not been explained.

Similarly, a coalition plan to tackle inflation in the face of complex, unpredictable and constantly changing global events has also not been articulated. What has been explained is how this government backs small businesses. Loss carry-back provisions which may result in a cash refund, a reduced tax liability or a reduction of a tax debt are a practical policy that meaningfully assists small businesses.

Small businesses will also benefit from the $20,000 instant asset write-off, which is applicable on a per-asset basis. So small businesses can instantly write off multiple assets. Up to 90 per cent of small businesses will also benefit from the four capital gains tax exemptions.

Strengthening the budget relies on finding efficiencies and finding savings. In the most recent federal budget, circa $64 billion of savings were found, meaning more can be done to ease pressure on families, which we have seen with fuel price relief, hospital funding, cheaper medicines and, yes, tax cuts. Also, Australia remains one of only nine countries with a AAA sovereign credit rating from all three major ratings agencies, with lower gross debt than every major advanced economy.

That is a powerful endorsement of this government's fiscal and economic agenda not because it's the highest available rating but because it carries with it the lowest possible expectation of default risk. The sovereign AAA rating is a measure not just of whether a country is good for the money but of how it is faring politically, economically and financially, and of how resilient it is to adverse events outside of its control.

S&P's opinion was that Australia's fiscal performance is sound, with modest public debt by international standards and with an ambitious and reformist agenda to shore up and improve Australia's fiscal position over the next decade. Finding savings, finding efficiencies and reprioritising targeted spending means that gross debt is down from what we inherited. Indeed, debt last year was almost $200 billion lower than the trajectory we inherited.

This government makes decisions every day that protect Australia's future, and none is more currently prominent and important than the government's deliberate strategic decision to focus on our national security through building relationships with our partners in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond. We were able to draw on these relationships such that there have been no fuel restrictions in this country because of the Iran conflict.

Our region is also stable and secure because we're investing in the economic prosperity of our neighbours. We don't have health care, education, tax cuts and AAA credit ratings if our region is unstable and affected by conflict. This government will continue to make decisions to shore up our regional security, because to do so means protecting Australia's future.