Anthony Albanese has hit back at Peter Dutton in a post-budget speech, saying the Liberals want to “drag Australia back” to the past.
The Opposition leader delivered his budget reply on Thursday night, announcing several policies across housing, migration, energy, health, and community safety that he described as .
Dutton said Labor had made life “so much tougher” for Australians, and would further drive up inflation and worsen the cost of living crisis.
“The budget handed down on Tuesday is one of the most irresponsible I’ve seen,” he said.
Albanese used his address to the Victorian Labor State Conference in Melbourne on Saturday to hit back, saying the only thing Dutton’s budget reply proved was that he had “nothing positive to offer” Australia.
“The Liberal Party are scared of the present but terrified of the future,” the prime minister said.
“They are stuck in the past — and set on dragging the rest of Australia back there to keep them company.
“Dragging the country back to denial and delay on climate change.
“Back to an economy where low wages were a deliberate design feature.
“Back to wage theft, insecure work and the law of the jungle in industrial relations.”
Dutton placed housing at the forefront of his budget reply, saying more than 100,000 homes over the next five years would be freed up through cuts to Australia’s migration program.
If elected, the Coalition would cut Australia’s permanent migration intake of 185,000 by 25 per cent — or around 45,000 people — for the first two years, before raising it to 150,000 and then 160,000 in the fourth year.
It would also introduce a two-year ban on foreigners buying existing homes and cut the number of foreign students.
Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young criticised Dutton’s proposal as “xenophobia” and called on the government to have a “spine”.
“I urge the Labor Party and the prime minister, don’t get sucked in by the racist trope from Peter Dutton,” she said on Friday.
“Don’t think that being in the race to the bottom over immigration is going to win you anything.”
Dutton criticised Labor’s “renewables only” energy policy, saying nuclear power was the right way forward.
But he confirmed the Coalition would back included in the government’s budget.
He said a government he led would allow older Australians and veterans to earn triple the current income rate — up to $900 a fortnight — without having their pensions reduced.
When it came to industrial relations, the Coalition would revert to a “simple definition” of a casual worker.
It would also restrict the sales of knives to minors and dangerous individuals and toughen bail laws for family violence, following and murders.
The Opposition has “no costed policies, no plans to help with cost of living”, Albanese said.
“His (Dutton’s) one initiative was lifted from Tony Abbott’s crime policy from 2010.”
“No new agenda – just the same old vendetta.
“Australians can’t afford that, our country can’t risk it.”
Additional reporting by Australian Associated Press
Source Agencies
