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

The nerve of these characters asking about the cost of living—after they opposed all of our efforts to help Australians with the cost of living. If you'd been there for Australians when we wanted to give them tax cuts, energy bill relief, cheaper early childhood education, cheaper medicines, better wages and help with rent, then that would warrant you coming up and asking about the cost of living. As the Prime Minister said in response to this question when you last asked it, if you look at the last year of food inflation, it's 3.0 per cent. If you look at the last year under those opposite, it was 5.9 per cent. I appreciate the shadow Treasurer, in his usually comically incompetent way, asking me to remind the House that food inflation over the last year is almost precisely half of food inflation under those opposite in their last year.

On this side of the House, our primary focus is the cost of living. That's why we're rolling out our cost-of-living help. If you look at the cost-of-living index that was released the other day, you would see lower growth in living costs across every household type compared to the time of the election. That is another reminder that, although inflation is still too high, although Australians are still under too much pressure, we have made some welcome and encouraging progress in the fight against inflation, and we saw that in the numbers last Wednesday.

Now, there are two things that make the shadow Treasurer really angry: first, when inflation goes down, as it did Wednesday; and, second, when the public finds out the cost of his policies.

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