Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, sadly for Australian families when it comes to economic management Labor doesn't have a clue. The government has delivered two budgets and families are worse off as a result of your decisions. Labor is driving up prices and killing the economy. When will the Prime Minister admit he has got it wrong?

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Members on my right! The member for Swan is warned. It's not the time to interject while questions are being presented. I give the call to the Prime Minister.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you for that word salad from the Leader of the Opposition! The fact is that what we have done is produce a responsible budget. We did that now more than three weeks ago. And that budget, of course, took pressure off cost of living through the measures that we had—our $3 billion plan for energy, our plan for cheaper medicines, our cheaper childcare plan that comes in one month from today. All of the policies that we put forward in our budget, of course, were fully costed. I'm asked about government and policy processes and how they impact people. A couple of days after the Treasurer handed down the budget—I note he might have got one question about the budget in the three weeks since from those opposite.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for O'Connor!

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Three weeks ago, the opposition leader gave his budget reply. A centrepiece of his budget reply was a policy about JobSeeker, but he failed to release any costings on the night, on 11 May. On 15 May, he said this: 'Well, probably about half of what Labor is proposing to their own measure was his costing'—probably about half! Then, on 16 May, the Australian reported:

In recent days, the Coalition has briefed-out two competing costings for its policy—$700m and "in the order of" $2.3bn.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The Treasurer will cease interjecting.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Close! Close! The next day, the Australian reported:

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has conceded he doesn't know the cost of his marquee budget-reply proposal

And, then, earlier that day, he went on Sky to clean it up and he said this:

No, I mean the difference in the costings is around the parameters and the assumptions, and the Parliamentary Budget Office will finalise that work … that'll be released in due course

Twenty-one days later, no-one is still the wiser. Imagine if a Labor Leader of the Opposition had released a centrepiece of a budget reply three weeks later and said: 'Well, it will all appear in due course, and it might be hundreds of millions. It might be billions. We don't know what it is. We don't know what it'll cost. We don't know what the impact will be'! Fair dinkum, you're just not up to it. (Time expired)