Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister clearly promised Australian families before the last election that no family would be worse off and that he had 'lasting plans for cheaper mortgages and better pay'. With the typical Australian family now $25,000 worse off since Labor was elected, why won't the Prime Minister apologise for misleading Australians into thinking life would be easier under Labor?

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

I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question and I note that the RBA governor, Philip Lowe, has appeared at Senate estimates just this morning. Prior to the appearance, the Leader of the Opposition's deputy said this about Governor Lowe: 'He's a straight shooter and I'm sure he'll tell it as it is.' And indeed he has done that across a range of areas in which the government is delivering. This is what the governor had to say this morning.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

The Deputy Leader of the Opposition and the member for Deakin will cease interjecting.

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

He said, 'I don't think that the budget is adding to inflation. It's actually reducing inflation.' That's what the Governor of the Reserve Bank had to say after that glowing endorsement by the deputy leader just this morning.

He went on to say this: 'The government has got a lot of extra revenue, improved our public finances—that's fantastic. It could have elected to use this revenue to increase spending, but it didn't do that.' I wonder who the governor was thinking of, eh! He wouldn't have to think back too far. He would have just had to think back to the 2022 budget handed down by the coalition, which was handed down in the context of the highest quarterly inflation—2.1 per cent—this century. That's what they provided over.

He went on again to say this: 'The fact that it did not recycle that money back into the economy—that is, withdrawing stimulus that otherwise could have been injected—is helpful. If that money had been recycled back into the economy, we would be facing yet higher interest rates. So it's fair to say that we had very responsible action by the government.'

He went on as well to endorse the actions that we have taken on energy. 'The energy price caps in electricity and gas have roughly taken half a per cent off inflation over the next calendar year, and then the rebates will take another quarter per cent off. The combination of those measures is reducing inflation by three-quarters of a percent.' There it is: the Governor of the Reserve Bank, just after the fine endorsement by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, making it very clear that Labor's responsible budget is making a positive difference, including the measures that were opposed by those opposite.