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

Thanks to the member for Fraser for the contribution that he makes to our economic policies on this side of the House. In an uncertain global environment, the hallmark of this Albanese Labor government has been responsible economic management, and that could never be more important than it is right now.

From time to time, those opposite ask us to make international comparisons. The reason that's not happening today is that inflation went up in Canada overnight and it's going down in Australia. It's going up in the US, Canada and Europe, but it's coming down in Australia, and that's why he hasn't asked about inflation. But I look forward to three o'clock, when he jumps up and asks his first question of me today.

Another really important international comparison is when it comes to the budget position. The IMF has made it clear. When those opposite were in office, we had the 14th strongest budget analysed by the IMF. Now we're in the top three. We've gone from 14th in 2021, under them, to onto the podium in 2024, on our watch. That's because we've knocked out a couple of budget surpluses—turned their big deficits into big surpluses—a $172 billion turnaround. We have $150 billion less debt and $80 billion less in interest repayments.

Here he's where the international comparison is so stunning. We've got debt to GDP down from the mid-40s, peaking, to the mid-30s. How does that compare with other countries? In the mid-30s in Australia, yet in the United Kingdom, 103; Canada, 106; France, 111; the United States, 123; Italy, 139; and Japan, 251 per cent of GDP. That's their debt compared to the mid-30s here in Australia.

I'm asked about alternatives. I tried to give the shadow Treasurer some help today. I gave him more than 20 minutes to tell the parliament and to tell the Australian people what he would do differently when it comes to the economy, and, instead, we learned exactly why his colleagues are in the Saturday Paper saying that he's got no direction, he's 'vacated the field' and he just throws rocks. Instead of getting coherent and credible, costed economic policies, we just got this kind of bizarre cut-and-paste of his least coherent interview transcripts. The reason this matters so much to this parliament and to this country is that we know that those opposite are a risk to our economy and our budget, because we know their record.

When they were in office, inflation was much higher and real wages were falling. They went after Medicare. They delivered deficit after deficit and a trillion dollars in Liberal debt in a budget chock full of waste and rorts. We have spent the best part of our term in office cleaning up the mess that they left us. We've made good progress, but there's more work to do. The worst thing we could do is go back to the comical incompetence of the shadow Treasurer.

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