Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Homegrown inflation is non-tradeable inflation, and it's lower now than when those opposite were in office. That's the first point. The second point is: headline inflation was 6.1 per cent when we came to office. It's still higher than we'd like, but it's much lower than what we inherited from those opposite.

If he wants to talk about international comparisons, I know that he—and he's encouraged the Leader of the Opposition to make this mistake too—wants to use Canada as an example. He did it yesterday. He's done it today via the Leader of the Opposition. He really should know that the cash rate is higher in Canada than it is in Australia. Inflation is going up in Canada in most recent data. Unemployment in Canada is 6.1 per cent, and here it's around four per cent. It's hard to know where to begin with the sorts of things that the shadow Treasurer puts to the parliament in the hope that we won't know the actual numbers.

I think the most substantial part of his question is about the role of the budget in fighting inflation, and, as the Governor of the Reserve Bank has said, the two surpluses that we've delivered in the two years that we've been in office are helping in the fight against inflation. As the Prime Minister rightly pointed out, you would have absolutely no idea what a surplus looks like, because you never delivered one. You printed the mugs. You said there would be a surplus in the first year and every year thereafter. You posed in those awkward photos with the 'back in black' mugs. You did everything except for actually delivering a surplus. The Governor of the Reserve Bank has said our surpluses are helping.

Of course the budgets that are handed down by parties of either political persuasion are not the only determinant of prices in our economy, but they can play a helpful role. Turning big Liberal deficits into Labor surpluses is playing a helpful role. Designing our cost-of-living relief—

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