A vote for Jodie Belyea is a vote for a better future

A Labor member for Dunkly would join a government that is laser-focused on helping you with your cost of living.

Labor candidate for Dunkley,Jodie Belyea, is a Frankston mum with a mortgage who understands the cost of living. Picture: Aaron Francis/Herald Sun

If you vote Labor in Dunkley on Saturday, Jodie Belyea will be your local champion in government on Sunday.

Voting Labor means Jodie will join a government that is laser-focused on helping you with your cost of living. We’re working every day to drive stronger wages, lower taxes, better services and fairer prices

Because we want Australians to earn more, we want you to keep more of what you earn and we want you to get better value for what you spend.

Since Labor came to government, we’ve made childcare cheaper for families and we’ve delivered energy bill relief for households and small businesses.

We’re helping older Australians and people with chronic conditions save money through cheaper medicines.

We’re strengthening Medicare, tripling the bulk-billing incentive so more people can see a doctor for free.

We’re determined to hold the big supermarkets to account through the ACCC, so you don’t pay one dollar more than you should at the check-out.

We’re standing up for the fair go at work, with better security and decent conditions – including the right to disconnect. Because if you’re not being paid 24 hours a day, you shouldn’t have to be on call 24 hours a day.

We’re getting real wages moving, so you get fair reward for your hard work, and we are delivering a tax cut for all 13.6 million Australian taxpayers.

There are three things that all these measures have in common. First, they are about taking pressure off the cost of living. Second, they don’t add to inflation. And third, Peter Dutton and the Liberals are against them. The Opposition Leader’s pathological addiction to negativity knows no limits. He’s got nothing positive to offer our country or your community. He’s got no ideas to help people and no interest in doing so, all he wants to do is pick a fight.

Under Dutton, the Liberals always put politics ahead of people. They did it when they tried to stop families and pensioners getting help with their power bills, they did it again when they voted against cheaper medicines and attacked cheaper childcare.

And as we’ve seen in recent days, there is no issue or institution he isn’t prepared to politicise. That’s not strong, it’s wrong.

For the past month, while Labor has been working overtime to pass our new tax cuts for all 13.6 million Australian taxpayers, Dutton’s negativity has been in overdrive.

Labor’s tax cuts are aimed squarely at low and middle-income earners under pressure. From retail workers and cleaners at Bayside Centre, to teachers at Seaford Primary and Frankston High, to the workers who delivered the Hall Road upgrade in Carrum Downs.

Our tax cuts are better for young people, for working women, for part-time workers. Importantly, they benefit everyone. Every taxpayer in Australia and every taxpayer in Dunkley will get a tax cut.

Yet the Liberals declared they would fight these tax cuts before they even saw them. Dutton actually demanded a federal election to stop them going ahead and now the Liberals spend all their time talking about rolling them back.

That’s the clear choice: we want Australians to earn more and keep more of what they earn, Dutton wants people to work longer for less.

The Liberals’ first instinct was to oppose these tax cuts, the first thing they said was they’d reverse them and the first chance they get they will rip them away. Because they don’t care about the people who benefit, they just want a political brawl.

That’s where Belyea is such a breath of fresh air. She isn’t your typical career politician, she’s a mum with a mortgage and a son at Frankston High School. She’s running for parliament because she loves her community, she cares about helping people and she’s determined to build on the remarkable legacy of the late Peta Murphy.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton with Liberal candidate for the Dunkley by-election, Nathan Conroy. Picture: NCA NewsWire/David Crosling

Anyone who was lucky enough to know Peta, knows how passionate she was about Dunkley and how proud she was to serve the people who lived there.

Peta opened the local Medicare Urgent Care Clinic, which has eased the pressure on Frankston Hospital and already helped more than 12,000 locals get fast and free treatment.

And among the many other great things she did, Peta recruited Belyea as a member of the Labor Party. Now the people of Dunkley can make Belyea a member of our Labor government.

This by-election is a choice between a Frankston mum with a mortgage who understands the cost of living and a former Frankston mayor who put council rates through the roof.

It’s a choice between a Labor candidate backed by the late Murphy to carry on her work and a Liberal candidate interested only in echoing his party’s empty scare campaigns.

You can vote to make Belyea part of a Labor government working every day to make a positive difference and you can reject the politics of fear.

This is the very clear choice for people voting in Dunkley today. A strong Labor member on their side in Canberra, or another Liberal politician sitting on the sidelines saying no to every policy.

Only Labor will deliver the better future that the people of Dunkley deserve.

Anthony Albanese is the Prime Minister of Australia.