OPPOSITION leader Anthony Albanese listed childcare, manufacturing, energy policy, public housing and the creation of a US-like Australian Centre for Disease Control as major Labor initiatives in his budget reply speech last night.
Saying Treasurer Josh Frydenberg's budget on Tuesday "fails the test" when it comes to fairness, Mr Albanese said the budget had nothing to say about "insecure work . . . family budgets pushed to breaking point" and "a care economy workforce in childcare, aged care and disability care that is overworked and underpaid".
"How can the Government push the national debt to a trillion dollars and yet leave these fundamental problems unresolved?" Mr Albanese said.
He said Labor would increase the maximum child care subsidy to 90 per cent, establish a new Rewiring the Nation Corporation to modernise the power grid and invest in public housing.
He said the pandemic had "exposed Australia's vulnerability" and a Centre for Disease Control would bring us into line with other advanced economies.
