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

Thanks to the member for Swan for her question but also for the really quite remarkable representation she provides to her community here in this place. As the Prime Minister has pointed out a couple of times today, when we came to office, Australians were going backwards due to a combination of higher and rising inflation and falling real wages. We inherited huge deficits and a trillion dollars of Liberal debt, and we've been working hard to clean up the mess.

Inflation has more than halved, and real wages are growing again. We've recorded two consecutive surpluses for the first time in almost two decades. The Governor of the Reserve Bank said that that's helping in the fight against inflation, and we've also shaved off $150 billion in Liberal debt. But we know that people are still under pressure, and we know that the pressure on the national budget is intensifying rather than easing, and these are the points made by the Deloitte report which was released overnight and which talked about the impact of a slowing Chinese economy, for example, or a weakening in our labour market and what that means for the budget.

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