REMARKS TO LABOR'S CAUCUS - CANBERRA - TUESDAY, 14 AUGUST 2018

14 August 2018

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Good morning everybody.

I was going to say let's welcome back Susan, Justine, Josh and welcome Patrick but I think you already did, but welcome back anyway.

Now, the by-elections were over two weeks ago, so I think it's important  - it was a great win, we're happy with the result - but the Australian people now expect us to get back to work and we most certainly will in the remaining weeks of the life of this parliament.

What we will do, as we said from Saturday night of the by-elections, is that those by-elections were important but what is really important is not the debate between Malcolm Turnbull and myself, or indeed, between Labor and Liberal. It's about us putting the priority of Australian families and Australians’ health, putting that front and centre. 

What's important to us is dealing with the common complaint that we hear wherever we go in Australia, that everything is going up except people's wages. 

So we will work between now and whenever the Government calls the election, we will work on a positive program for Australia's future, that's what the Australian people expect.

For us, out of the by-elections, the message is very clear: the people of Australia want the politicians of Australia and they want Labor to focus on the people, not on ourselves, and we most certainly will. 

I did notice though, in the last couple of days of the by-election, that the current Prime Minister made an outing from his Point Piper compound in the final two days and he went around, both in Queensland and in Tasmania, and he went around hectoring. 

He went around putting his finger out and pointing the finger at the people of Australia. 

He was belittling people complaining about cuts to hospitals.

He was belittling people complaining about the treatment they've received from the banks.

He was belittling people complaining about the fact that everything's going up except their wages. 

He was belittling people complaining about the cuts to the ABC and the cuts to schools and the fact that pensioners have been losing their energy supplements.

That performance should have sent a shiver down the spine of every marginal seat government member. 

And we came to parliament yesterday and we just saw it again, when you turn the volume down on Mr Turnbull, just look at his body language, it's all about pointing.

He has learned nothing from these elections except that he believes the people got it wrong.

I was amazed yesterday, when he knew the precise number of primary votes extra that Justine had received. He knew the precise number of votes in the Braddon by-election but he hasn't learned anything from the Braddon by-election.

He thinks the voters got it wrong, the voters didn't get it wrong. 

What is wrong is that we have pensioners being put behind banks.

What we said in the by-election, and we will continue to say every day to the next election, is for Labor, it's about better hospitals not bigger banks. 

And today, the Government is back to doing their favourite pastime, fighting each other. 
The only thing that is guaranteed to come out of today is higher power prices and less renewable energy. 

We have cobbled together today a Frankenstein's monster of a policy, whilst Mr Turnbull goes around attacking Mr Abbott, Mr Turnbull is in fact giving in to a lot of Mr Abbott's values when it comes to climate change and energy. 

What we will see is promises to deliver new money for new coal-fired power stations. We will see less renewable energy in the system which means higher prices. 

What we have now is the dreadful situation in Australia where Mr Turnbull is so weak that although he may call something an ‘energy guarantee’, the fact of the matter is he is surrendering energy policy-making in this country to people who do not believe in climate change.

And what we need to do is, every day between now and the next election, stand up for more renewable energy which will lead to lower energy prices and more action on climate.

For five years, the current Liberal Government has said that they will bring down power prices and in fact power prices have gone up. 

Tony Abbott was lying five years ago. Malcolm Turnbull's lying now.

The only thing you get when you have a Liberal Government in Canberra is higher power prices. 
We're going to take it on. We're going to challenge this. We are going to make sure that Australians have lower cost of living pressures. 

And we're going to keep running our push, running our campaign to make sure that we put schools and hospitals and pensioners before big banks and multinationals.

Thanks very much.