Sam Lim (Tangney, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. How is the Albanese Labor government working for middle Australia, and what are the advantages of this approach over others?

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

Thank you to the member for Tangney for treading where the shadow Treasurer dares not: asking a question of the Treasurer in budget week. Maybe I could ask Mr Shanahan upstairs or someone who's been around for awhile, but it strikes me as a bit strange that the shadow Treasurer in budget week at three o'clock on Thursday still hasn't asked a question of the Treasurer about the budget.

The other reason I appreciate the question from the member for Tangney is that every single one of the 87,000 taxpayers in the member for Tangney's electorate will get a tax cut. Every one of the 70,000 households in the member's electorate will get energy bill relief. That's because a central, defining feature of the budget on Tuesday night was helping people doing it tough, whether it's the tax cut for every Australian taxpayer, whether it's energy bill relief for every Australian household, whether it's rent assistance for almost a million renters, whether it's cheaper medicines for people by freezing the PBS for five years for people on concessions and one year for everyone else, or a whole range of other measures designed to ease the cost of living and the pressures that people are under.

The cost-of-living relief in the budget was substantial and it was responsible. Our responsible approach to make life a little bit easier for people who are under the pump differs greatly from the approach taken by those opposite. No matter what the Leader of the Opposition says tonight, his record when it comes to Middle Australia speaks for itself. When we changed the tax cuts to make them fairer for Middle Australia and to make sure that every taxpayer got a tax cut that was no longer skewed to the highest income earners, he called for an election over it. He said there should be an election over it, and his deputy leader said of course they were going to unwind it. When we put into this place last time energy bill rebates for people doing it tough, they voted against it. At every turn when we've tried to boost wages in this economy after a decade of wage stagnation, they have opposed our efforts. In the parliament we've got a simple change to make the concessions at the top end of superannuation, for people with more than $3 million, a little bit less concessional, and they don't support that either. They don't support our changes to get more tax sooner from offshore gas companies.

The shadow Treasurer is calling out in his typically courageous way—far from the dispatch box—about real wages. Real wages are growing now and they were falling under those opposite.

So I say to the opposition leader: spare us the faux outrage and the fake class warfare tonight. His record speaks for itself. If he had his way, inflation would be higher, wages would be lower and Middle Australia wouldn't get a look in. That is another reminder that his nuclear negativity is no substitute for helping Middle Australia or for the economic credibility— (Time expired)