Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. In a cost-of-living crisis, why can Labor's budget find more than half a trillion dollars for stage 3 tax cuts for billionaires and for nuclear submarines but not for getting dental into Medicare, doubling rent assistance or raising income support above the poverty line?

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

Thank you to the honourable member for his question. I think it is tremendously important, when it comes to the submarines and the AUKUS deal more broadly, that every cent of it over the forward estimates has been offset. That is a tribute to the work of the defence minister, the cabinet and others working with the bureaucracy to make sure that we can make this game-changing investment in our national security and our national economy without adding any extra dollars to the deficits in the coming four years. I think that is really important. Obviously, when it comes to the broader priorities of the government, we are making big investments in health care. We are making big investments in skills. We have continued, including today, to make sure that when inflation is as high as it is right now there is the indexation of payments and all of the rest of that as well.

When it comes to the AUKUS deal, I'm not pretending that this isn't a big investment; it is. But it's an important investment as well, and it's a fraction of what we spend in some of the other areas that we care deeply about, where we've made big investments over the life of the 10 months of this government and will into the future as well. You will see in the May budget that not only have we offset the costs of the AUKUS deal but there will be new investments in some of the sorts of areas that the honourable member identified.

Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What about the tax cuts? You didn't mention them!

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

The Deputy Leader of the Opposition will cease interjecting.