Angus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. UBS research says the increasing rate of food inflation is a surprise, with grocery inflation likely to remain elevated. The Treasurer says that inflation is moderating. What is the Prime Minister's message to Australian families who are paying more at the checkout? Why are Australians paying more for the food they put on the table?

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the shadow Treasurer for his question. I regret that the Treasurer is once again left out of the process. The fact is that the Leader of the Opposition's budget reply exposed the coalition's catastrophising about inflation and interest rates for what it was: another concocted scare campaign. Not only has the opposition backed most of the budget measures; they failed to come up with a single save. Of course, they didn't have costings for the policies that they announced.

I'll tell you how you take pressure off inflation: you take pressure off inflation by turning what was a coalition predicted $78 billion deficit into a projected $4.2 billion surplus. That's how you take pressure off inflation, by making difficult decisions, by banking most of the revenue gains which had been there, and by making sure that you hand down a responsible budget. That's what we did. When we announced alternative policies, such as our childcare plan, we actually got them costed beforehand. We didn't have a circumstance whereby, for the one thing that was announced by the opposition leader, there were no costings whatsoever. There were, of course, no savings whatsoever, a bit like their 2022 budget. No savings whatsoever.