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

We know this by their reaction right now and we know this from their reaction last week. We also know that, if we had followed their advice, we'd be in recession right now, and we're not. This side of the House is fighting inflation without ignoring the risks to growth and fighting inflation while recognising the pressures that people are under. We're getting the balance right—budget repair, cleaning up the mess that we inherited from those opposite, turning big Liberal deficits into big Labor surpluses, rolling out cost-of-living help, helping in the fight against inflation and investing in housing, skills and energy and in a future made in Australia.

While two-thirds of the OECD have had at least one negative quarter in recent times, we are managing the economy responsibly. We're rolling out that cost-of-living help, and we're avoiding recession. Here, there's a very important contrast. The Australian people know that we're helping them with the cost of living, we're fighting inflation, we're cleaning up the budget, and we're investing in the future. But we are in the third year of a three-year parliamentary term, and those opposite still have no credible or costed economic policies to speak of. They won't come clean on what their $315 billion in cuts will do to push our economy into recession and what they mean for Medicare, for pensions and payments or for the other services that Australians rely on. (Time expired)

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