MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE

Ms BRISKEY (Maribyrnong) (15:47): The faux outrage from those opposite! The Leader of the Opposition is coming in here, once again propagating a cheap political tactic off the back of an utterly disingenuous argument. I mean, it's quite the claim to suggest that this government has somehow not been clear with Australians about what we do every da we are in this place, because every day we're in this place we are focused on them.

We are focused on the Australians out there in our communities who are struggling, who are finding it very hard under cost-of-living pressures at the moment. Let's actually get some facts straight and be clear with Australians about the work of this parliament when it comes to supporting them through this cost-of-living pressure. On a tax cut for every taxpayer, those opposite voted no.

On Help to Buy, those opposite voted no. On Same Job, Same Pay, they voted no. They did so twice.

They've committed to scrapping our five per cent deposit scheme, which is getting young people in my community into their first home. So when the Leader of the Opposition tells us he's worried and he's genuinely concerned about the state of Australians, I think he's saying something more about his concerns of his own political future, which are coming for them in terms of One Nation.

I'd like to remind the leader, if he's genuinely worried about struggling Australians, he had 13 years in this place to actually do something about it on the government benches. But what did he do? He backed, in the 2014 budget, a GP tax to make it harder and more expensive to go see your GP.

Do you know what we're doing? In my electorate, we have now doubled the number of fully bulk-billing GPs, so, when someone in my community goes out and sees their GP, they get to do so for free. Jumping back to where the Leader of the Opposition was when he was in government—he sat in the party room when they chose to freeze the Medicare rebate for six years.

Bulk-billing was in freefall before we came to government. Again, as my previous colleague mentioned: as energy minister, the Leader of the Opposition made a point of changing the rules so a 20 per cent rise in power prices would not be made public until after the 2022 election. Talk about making things clear and being transparent for the Australian people: that's a great example of that.

But, as I said, we on this side of the House understand Australians are struggling. We understand they are finding it hard with everything going up, interest rates making it difficult, the state of the global impacts of the conflicts in the Middle East and the impacts of all of that. We understand that.

We on this side of the House are not caught up in this idea of faux outrage and cheap political tactics. We are focused on actually delivering the real change that people in our community need. I think about housing.

We heard from those opposite around the impact of housing, and it astounds me every time they bring up housing as something that we should be concerned about from this side of the House. The biggest investment into housing in generations is because of this government, and what that has delivered for my community is, in fact, that the number of social and affordable homes built in my electorate of Maribyrnong is over 1,000 in just the last couple of years.

Do you know what? Those opposite had nine years in government, and 300-odd social affordable homes were built across the entire country. We have delivered three times as many in just my electorate alone.

So when you talk about this focus, 'Can't we be clear with Australians about how they are struggling at the moment? Won't there be a focus?'—I think that is a clear example of the contrast between us and those opposite. I also think about what we're doing for people in our community.

I got to hang out with some incredible early childhood educators today who have just seen their 15 per cent pay increase locked in by this government. That is making a real and substantial difference to the lives of those educators and the work that they are doing. So I implore those opposite: do away with the cheap politics and actually focus on doing your job.