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

If the shadow Treasurer really cared about living standards, he'd support our efforts to ease the cost of living. If he really cared about living standards, he wouldn't have left behind real wages falling very substantially. We've now turned that around and real wages are growing again. If he cares about per capita circumstances and if he cares about living standards in our economy, he should be supporting our efforts to clean up the mess that those opposite left behind.

When we came to office, inflation had a six in front of it. It now has a two in front of it. When we came to office, real wages were falling 3.4 per cent. They're growing again. These all go to the very core of the shadow Treasurer's question about living standards.

If he wants to use the per capita measure then he should acknowledge that the per capita measure has gone backwards around one in every three quarters since the data began. It actually went backwards four times under former prime minister Morrison. They also recorded—

See this speech in context