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

I thank the member for Werriwa. I also want to acknowledge the great work that the assistant minister is doing when it comes to financial security. We heard about some of that a moment ago.

The cost of living is the major pressure on people in our communities, and it's the No. 1 focus of this Labor government. We're coming at this cost-of-living challenge from every conceivable, every responsible angle, whether it is tax cuts, energy bill relief, cheaper medicines, cheaper early childhood education, rent assistance, wage increases and the changes we're making to student debt.

We know that the official data doesn't always capture precisely how people are faring, but we have seen inflation come off really considerably in our economy. When we came to office it was much higher and rising, now it's lower and falling. It had a six in front of it under those opposite and it now has a two in front of it. Because of that, headline inflation is now back in the target band for the first time since 2021. As the secretary of the Treasury said yesterday, as I said yesterday, as the Governor of the Reserve Bank said today, the Reserve Bank targets headline inflation, but underlying inflation is important as well. Both headline and underlying inflation—

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