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PATRICK GORMAN, ASSISTANT MINISTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER: It’s the final two sitting weeks of 2024. An opportunity to make sure that we do the work the Australian people expect of us. And as we get close to Christmas, we know that Santa’s elves are working hard, but we need the Senate to work even harder. To work even harder to deliver the things that will make a real difference on cost of living for the Australian people. A real difference when it comes to action to reduce HECS indexation so people can keep more of what they earn. Real action to make sure we pass the wage increases for early childhood educators, making sure that early childhood educators get a fair day’s pay for the work that they do and that we properly value early childhood educators’ work.

Making sure that we continue the work when it comes to our action for Free TAFE. Legislating it, locking it in for the long term. So that Australians can get the skills they need to make sure they can make the contribution to the economy that they want and earn their wages that they deserve to support themselves and their families.

We’ve got to make sure that we continue to do the work when it comes to action to keep the ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ Broadband Network in public hands. Recognising this is an essential piece of infrastructure that belongs in the hands of the Australian people.

And we will progress this two weeks, our work to make sure that we do have an age limit for social media. To keep children safe from online harms, to support parents, and to make sure that we make those social media giants, those tech giants, take responsibility to make sure that children and young Australians aren’t harmed by their otherwise dangerous products.

At the same time, we are seeing, when it comes to what we are doing this week in Parliament, we’ve seen the announcement from the Treasurer today and the Assistant Treasurer around making sure that people continue to use cash. Continue to use cash for their everyday essentials, making sure that we recognise this is important to Australians. We recognise that and we are locking the use of cash for the long term, for those everyday essentials.

And so while we’re protecting cash there for ordinary Australians, we also, this week, want to get big money out of Australian politics. What we’ve seen is for too long, a few individuals with large bank balances and particular agendas have been able to dominate the political conversation.

We want to make sure, with our landmark electoral reforms – the largest improvements to Australian democracy in some 40 years, the legislation that Minister Farrell has been working on – we will be introducing that to make sure that the power in Australian politics rests with the Australian people, not with a few vested interests with deep, deep pockets. This is all about making sure that we increase transparency, we deliver the sort of electoral system that’s benefited Australia so well in the past and make sure that we protect it for the future.

And finally, we’ve seen some new analysis over the weekend which showed just what a risk Peter Dutton is to people’s hip pockets. Peter Dutton, under his plans, the things he has opposed in this term of Parliament would leave Australian families, an average Australian household some $7,600 worse off under his plans. They would be worse off because he opposed wage increases. They would be worse off because he opposed cheaper medicines, and they would be worse off because he opposed energy bill relief that’s flowing through into people’s power bills right now.

I think the Australian people will be deeply concerned to know just how much of a cut they are facing under Peter Dutton’s plan. We remember that he opposed giving a tax cut to some 2.9 million Australians who would have got nothing under his tax policy. He opposed energy relief. He opposed our efforts to get wages moving again, and he even opposed cheaper medicines. I think the Australian people are starting to see the real extreme cost of Peter Dutton and his plans – and his lack of plans.