Ms BYRNES (Cunningham) (14:14): My question is to the Prime Minister. How is the Albanese Labor government's budget delivering for all Australians, not just some?
Mr ALBANESE (Grayndler—Prime Minister) (14:14): I thank the member for Cunningham for her question and for her diligence. She knows that the Illawarra, for example, is a great manufacturing centre in Australia. What we want is for Australians to make more things here, and we know that that has happened in the great regions of the Illawarra, the Hunter Valley, Geelong, the Latrobe Valley, in Western Australia and right around the country. Whilst we've had our eye on the immediate need to address the cost-of-living pressures which families are under, we've always had our eye on the future. How do we build a secure future for our nation? How do we make more things here? How do we ensure that there are good, secure, high-wage jobs going forward as well?
At the centre of this budget is support for Australians, all Australians—a tax cut for every Australian taxpayer, not just some; energy bill relief for every Australian household, not just some; stronger Medicare for every single community, including the 29 additional urgent care clinics added to our 58 that have seen over 400,000 Australians, stopping them from clogging up the emergency departments of our public hospitals; and, of course, more homes in every part of the country. There is $32 billion to make a difference for housing supply.
In addition to that, we've made sure that it's a responsible budget and that we've seen something that is foreign to those opposite, which is a creation of not one but two budget surpluses. Last year, we turned a $78 billion deficit that we inherited into a $22 billion surplus, and this year we are projecting a $9.3 billion surplus, making sure that we have those responsible measures in place.
Our cost-of-living policies are also designed to take pressure off inflation by three-quarters of a percentage point in the current financial year and half a percentage point in the next financial year, which is why we've designed things like the tax cuts, the energy price relief plan, fee-free TAFE and cheaper child care—all of these measures designed in a calibrated way to make a positive impact on the economy at the same time as they're having a positive impact on household budgets.
