Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. What did Treasury's revised forecast for the economy mean for the budget and what are the Albanese Labor government's budget priorities?

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

Thank you to the member for Lalor for her question about the implications of the combination of circumstances we confront in the economy and what that means for the Commonwealth budget. It's true that in recent times the good prices that we have been getting for our commodities on global markets have helped prop up the budget, as has the fact that in the last year at least the former government found it very difficult—indeed, impossible—to get some of their commitments away. That means in the near term there have been some improvements in the budget. But the structural issues that those opposite presided over and made worse over almost a decade in government do constrain the new government's choices as we deal with this combination of challenges. What we've been saying for some time now is that there is an onus on us to provide genuine value for money, to invest in the future of our economy, to invest in responsible cost-of-living relief, at the same time as we trim back the legacy of rorts and waste which defined budget policy for the best part of a decade under those opposite.

I listened to the shadow Treasurer earlier on responding to the statement that I gave to the parliament. In that 14 minutes of absolute drivel from the shadow Treasurer, I noticed that the fake indignation we hear from those opposite would be far more convincing if they hadn't been in government for the best part of a decade and created all of the challenges that the new government is now left to deal with—whether it's in water, as the member for Sydney said, or really right across the board. All the ministers are now dealing with the legacy of almost a decade—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order. The Treasurer will cool his jets for a moment. Manager of Opposition Business, wait until I call you before you start talking. There is plenty of time.

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My point of order goes to relevance. The question asked was what are the government's economic priorities. We are a minute and a half in and he has spent most of his time criticising the record of the previous government.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question was specifically about the revised economic forecasts and what the impacts mean for the budget. The Treasurer is in order and I give him the call.

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

It may be embarrassing for those opposite to hear this: they want to talk about their record in government, but on the record we have inherited, the budget we have inherited, the truth is that the choices we make as a new government are constrained by the fact that we have inherited a trillion dollars of debt with almost nothing to show for it. The reason for that is the shadow Treasurer and all the colleagues arraigned before us on the shadow front bench, the dregs of the former Liberal government, have left us with these challenges—whether it's a budget chock full of rorts and waste, which the member for Hume knows more about than probably anyone else in the parliament, or the fact that we don't have enough to show for this trillion dollars in debt. Every dollar they borrowed now costs more to service in the budget. The fastest-growing area of spending in the budget is us paying the interest on the debt that they accumulated over almost a decade. Instead of all this fake indignation and railing about the circumstances that they gave to us, the best thing they could do is to do the right thing and come together as the rest of Australia is doing, as we try to fix the mess that we've inherited.