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

If the shadow Treasurer doesn't think that the combination of global economic uncertainty, persistent inflation and higher interest rates are slowing the economy, it's no wonder that nobody takes him seriously. Those are facts borne out in the national accounts. They are self-evident. As any objective observer of our economy knows, higher interest rates are slowing our economy. I don't think that is a particularly controversial point; it's a point I have been making since at least June this year.

I'm asked whether I take responsibility for our part in the fight against inflation and I do. As the Prime Minister said a moment ago, in the year of our election, inflation was 7.8 per cent, and now it has a three in front of it. Inflation has halved on our watch, and, in that regard, I do take responsibility for the fact that we've turned two huge Liberal deficits into two big Labor surpluses. I do take responsibility for the way we've designed our cost-of-living help to take the edge off some of these price pressures in our economy. I take responsibility for banking almost all of the upward revision to revenue. I take responsibility for working with my great colleague in the other place Minister Gallagher to find almost $80 billion in savings. I take responsibility for the fact that Governor Bullock has said that our two surpluses are helping in the fight against inflation. I've made it very clear that we had a role to play in the fight against inflation, and that is one of the reasons why we are making welcome and encouraging progress.

Because we're getting inflation down and because we're getting wages up, real wages are growing again in our economy after they were falling substantially when we came to office. I would really welcome the shadow Treasurer asking us again and again and again about our cost-of-living help, about what we're doing to keep wages again, about how we've turned his deficits into our surpluses.

The worst thing that we could do in these circumstances, where people are doing it tough and growth in our economy is soft and subdued, is pull out $315 billion in spending, which is what those opposite are proposing to do. They're proposing to cut $315 billion in spending. That includes the pay rise for aged-care workers. It includes the indexation of the age pension, new medicines on the PBS, cheaper child care, veterans' compensation, natural disaster relief, strengthening Medicare, urgent care clinics, housing, defence spending, energy bill relief, rent assistance, women's safety, the parenting payment, border force, cheaper medicine, biosecurity, paid parental leave, fee-free TAFE, the prac payment and connectivity in regional and rural Australia. That's what's in their $315 billion in secret cuts. Is it any wonder that they won't come clean about them?

See this speech in context