Familiar battle lines have been drawn as MPs locked horns for the first question time of the 48th parliament.
Anthony Albanese and Sussan Ley faced off for the first time in the parliamentary showcase, with the size of Labor’s second-term majority on full display as MPs got down to business on the first working day.
Ms Ley used her opening appearance in question time as leader to push the government on looming superannuation tax changes.
But with the coalition commanding 43 of the 150 House of Representatives seats, the scale of the election wipeout was clear on the benches.
Promising to deliver on election commitments, the prime minister batted away suggestions of plans for taxes on unrealised capital gains.
“The time to run a scare campaign is before an election,” he told parliament.
“Tax was an issue at the last election … we had not one tax cut but two tax cuts.”
With Labor holding 94 seats in the parliament, the government now sits on both sides of the aisle in the lower house, for the first time in the party’s history.
It was the newest members of parliament who took centre stage for the government during question time, with Labor questions all being asked by first-term MPs.
Among them were Ali France, who defeated former opposition leader Peter Dutton, and Sarah Witty who beat ex-Greens leader Adam Bandt in his seat of Melbourne.
Independent MP Nicolette Boele, who narrowly won the blue-ribbon seat of Bradfield from the Liberals by 26 votes, also pressed the government on climate action during the first session.
Although question time and first speeches from MPs made up much of the lower house agenda, the government wasted no time in kicking off its agenda with Education Minister Jason Clare using the first hour of sitting to introduce priority legislation.
A proposal to slash university debt by 20 per cent for three million Australians was delivered in the house first-thing, after Labor campaigned heavily on the promise.
People with an average HECS debt of $27,600 will have $5520 wiped from their loans.
Mr Clare also introduced legislation that would strengthen safety in the childcare system after promising to expedite the bill in response to shocking sexual abuse allegations against a Victorian childcare worker.
“We have to do everything that we can to ensure the safety of our children when they walk or when they’re carried through the doors of an early education and care service,” he told parliament.
Labor’s newest MPs used the first full sitting day to lay out their own priorities for the term ahead.
Banks MP Zhi Soon paid tribute to the multicultural community in southwest Sydney that helped raise him.
“One moment I was eating a Devon sandwich, the next a curry laksa, a kibbeh, a banh xeo, or a pani puri,” he told the chamber.
“I’m a proud Asian-Australian, I’m a proud Malaysian-Australian, I’m a proud Chinese-Australian, but most of all, I am a proud Australian.”
Former school teacher and Deakin MP Matt Gregg used his address to lay bare the consequences of social media on education and young Australians.
“Some of the toughest teachers I’ve ever worked with have felt they need to leave the profession – harassed with misogynistic and other antisocial behaviours like never before,” he said.
“Young people themselves feel it in their own sense of self-worth – they know something is wrong.
“We must continue to meet the challenges posed by social media and the landscape it’s created, not with panic, but with serious, thoughtful action.”
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