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

I think he meant 2025, rather than 2015. He might want to check that. No doubt he can fix the Hansard later. He's only a decade out.

I think it is, unfortunately, dishonest of the shadow Treasurer to ask a question about inflation without acknowledging the very welcome and very encouraging data we got just last Wednesday. That showed that the inflation that we inherited at 6.1 per cent is now at 2.8 per cent. He could have mentioned that. He could have mentioned, as well, that, if he wants to ask me a question about headline inflation, he shouldn't have spent the last six months saying that headline inflation doesn't matter and that only underlying inflation matters. He's got to make up his mind about which one of those he wants to use. And, if he's going to ask me about inflation, he should fess up to their shameful record on inflation, when inflation was more than twice what it is now on our watch. Inflation was much higher and rising under them, and it's much lower and falling under us.

He asked me about the IMF report, and I'm obviously not going to read to him the IMF report. I assume he has someone who turns the IMF reports into little cartoons so that he can understand them. But I will say this about the IMF report: the IMF has valuable insights to make. The IMF has valuable insights to share with the global economic community. We have our own forecasts, which we'll update in the usual way in the mid-year update. The Reserve Bank have their own forecasts, which they'll update this week, as it turns out. I know that those forecasts, like the ones that he asked me about, are always the subject, rightly, of a lot of focus and a lot of attention.

I'll say this, and it's a bit like what the Prime Minister said a moment ago: if you want to make comparisons between countries, make the full comparisons. Inflation peaked lower and later here than in most other countries. Rates started rising here later than in most other countries. They rose by less and had a lower peak here than in most other countries, when it comes to interest rates—and inflation similarly. And, if you want to compare us to other countries, acknowledge that a lot of countries have got higher unemployment than us as well. A lot of other countries have got weaker economies than we do. Two-thirds of the OECD had at least one negative quarter in the last year. So I say to the shadow Treasurer that, if he wants to make comparisons, he should make the whole comparison.

While he's talking about the IMF—

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