Doorstop, Parliament House

Tim Ayres, Assistant Minister for Trade and Assistant Minister for Manufacturing: I am really pleased and proud with the Budget that Jim Chalmers delivered on behalf of the Government last night. It's a carefully balanced Budget that does the trick, downward pressure on inflation. A careful set of measures there that are designed to put downward pressure on the cost of living and help ordinary households out, making sure they can pay the bills over the course of 2023-2024. This is a responsible Labor Budget, downward pressure on inflation, helping with the cost of living.

I'm also really pleased and proud in my portfolio areas that this Budget delivers big time for Australian manufacturing. The task that the government has to reindustrialize our outer suburbs and our regions to deal with the big challenges of Australia's future.

This is a big Budget for Australian manufacturing, billions of dollars there for hydrogen manufacturing to make sure that we stay competitive with the world and our big Budget package to make sure we rebuild Australian manufacturing for the future.

The other thing I should say is that today will be an important test for the Australian Greens political party, and for the Senate. There is a housing package in the Senate now and the Greens political party gets to make a choice; if they vote for the package, 30,000 new homes for low- and middle-income Australians social and affordable housing; if they vote against the package, 30,000 less homes for ordinary Australians right across the country.

This is a test of whether the Greens political party wants to make a positive contribution to dealing with the housing crisis, or just go on with the meaningless slogans and the political stance. So, this is an important day on housing policy for the country. The Senate has got a big job in front of it. But there is a big test for the Greens political party; more student politics, more meaningless slogans, or vote for the package, 30,000 new homes and a package that will deliver for Australia.