Mary Doyle (Aston, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. What is the Albanese Labor government doing to ease cost-of-living pressures on Australians, and what approaches have been rejected?

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

Because of the member for Aston's efforts and because of this government, every single taxpayer in Aston will get a tax cut on Monday. The average tax cut in Aston will be $29 a week, and because of the changes we made in the budget 87 per cent of your constituents will get a bigger tax cut than they would have got before.

This is all about the government's efforts to ensure that Australians earn more and keep more of what they earn. We see decent wages as part of the solution to cost-of-living pressures, not part of the problem. New analysis today shows average weekly full-time earnings have gone up $119 a week under this Prime Minister and under this government; they now sit at around $98,000 a year. Since the election full-time earnings have grown on average 4.4 per cent—nearly double what we saw under the wasted decade of those opposite.

Every single taxpayer gets a tax cut on Monday, but the average full-time worker gets $41 a week from Monday. If the same worker had the same wages growth we saw under those opposite and the skewed tax cuts they put forward, that same worker would be $50 worse off each week were it not for our efforts to turn wages around and to give people a decent tax cut to help with the cost of living. Under Labor, people are earning more and will keep more as well.

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

The member for Deakin will cease interjecting.

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

But that's not where it ends. On Monday every taxpayer gets a tax cut. Every household gets energy bill relief. Millions of Australian workers on an award will get a pay rise from Monday as well. There will be cheaper medicines from Monday, and there will also be two more weeks of paid parental leave for new parents. This is how you deliver cost-of-living relief—not by pushing up prices with more expensive nuclear reactors, which is the approach of those opposite.

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

The member for Fisher will cease interjecting.

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

The monthly inflation data we got yesterday is a timely reminder of why it is so important that we provide this substantial but responsible cost-of-living relief.

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

The Leader of the Nationals will cease interjecting.

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

It's also why it's so important, as the Prime Minister said a moment ago, that we have turned two big Liberal deficits into two Labor surpluses. As the Governor of the Reserve Bank has said, that is helping in the fight against inflation.

You can't ease cost-of-living pressures with nuclear reactors or the sort of nasty negativity we hear from those opposite. You do it with tax cuts, you do it with energy bill relief and with decent wages and you do it with cheaper medicines as well, and those things are precisely what Australians can expect from Monday next week.