Dr ANANDA-RAJAH (Higgins) (16:31): I have learned one thing in life, which is that you judge people not on what they say but on what they actually do. For all the chirping, bleating and, frankly, crocodile tears from the coalition, the Liberals and the Nationals, we know that at every turn they have opposed our offerings to improve the lives of Australians and to help with cost-of-living relief. They have opposed energy bill relief, wage increases amongst our lowest paid workers and Commonwealth rent assistance. There is not a single aspect or component of our cost-of-living relief package that they haven't opposed. When we came to government, we inherited a really bad hand of economic cards, and this was after a decade of the Liberals and Nationals in action. We basically found an economy with its shock absorbers ripped out when it came to housing, energy and skills. We had economy-wide shortages of skills; nothing had been done about this. We also had the really bad label of being the lowest country in the OECD when it came to sovereign manufacturing capability. We just simply stopped making things in Australia. That was the economy we inherited. Then, to make matters worse, during the pandemic we had JobKeeper, which basically injected, turbocharged, nearly $90 billion in funding to businesses. We didn't quibble with that at the time, but, when you look back in the rearview mirror, the reality is $38 billion of that went to companies with increasing profits. What it did was actually pour fuel on this inflationary fire. So we have woken up from this pandemic with a very heavy inflationary hangover that was not helped by what we inherited from those opposite. For the duration of this government, we have tried to respond with support—not with austerity and not with making things worse but with actual, material support—to help the Australian people throughout the lifetime continuum, from the cradle to the grave. When I talk about the cradle, I'm referring, of course, to the early years. For the first time in the Commonwealth's history, we have an early years strategy, and that was backed in with cheaper child care. When we came to government, we found that childcare costs had actually increased 49 per cent over the decade that the Liberals were in power. That was most acutely felt in my own electorate. Higgins has the highest childcare fees of any Victorian electorate. After your mortgage and your car, child care is the next biggest expense. So we injected $5 billion. It came in our first budget, and it's helped to take off some of the pressure on families. This week, while it was opposed by those opposite, we passed a 15 per cent wage increase for early childhood educators, because we cannot support this vital industry without the workers. On a really positive note, we've also injected more money into toy libraries. Not only are these really important community assets; they also ease the pressure on families during a really tough period. They don't have to waste their money buying expensive toys. They simply need to go to their community toy library. We’ve backed those in. When it comes to the middle years, this week we increased public school funding—the highest in Commonwealth history. We have linked this to KPIs which are meaningful, such as improved phonics and numeracy benchmarks, improved mental health support for Australian kids and professional development for teachers. This is designed to lift standards right across our public school education sector, something that the Liberals never talked about. They never, ever talked about it when they were in government. To back that in and to protect the mental health of our children, this week we banned social media. We imposed age limits on social media. Admittedly, this was done with bipartisan support, and we thank those opposite. In terms of post-secondary-school education, perhaps this is where we will have the biggest impact. We have delivered a full suite of reforms to slash HECS debt to make it fairer and to really invest in free TAFE, which those opposite have opposed. That is completely inexplicable given the skill shortages this country was facing and continues to face.