Peter Khalil (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Why is cost-of-living relief at the centre of the Albanese Labor government's economic plan, and how does it compare with other approaches?

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

I appreciate the question from the member for Wills. He cares deeply about the pressures that his constituents are under, and he represents them really ably in this place. This is another question time where those opposite have completely vacated the field on inflation and the economy. The shadow Treasurer sits there, and they won't even give him a turn on the dog whistle. Everyone else gets a turn on the dog whistle except for the shadow Treasurer.

We on this side of the House care about the cost of living, even if those opposite don't. We know that people are doing it tough, and that's why we are doing something about it: tax cuts for every taxpayer; energy bill relief for every household; help with medicines, rent and early childhood education; and a pay rise for people who need it. This goes to the biggest difference between that side of the House and this side of the House. We're trying to help people with the cost of living; they're trying to divide and diminish people. They care more about starting culture wars than finishing the fight against inflation.

This is the most divisive opposition leader that we have seen, and that should disqualify him from the prime ministership of a great country like ours. He has decades of form when it comes to divisive rhetoric which divides our community and makes Australians less safe, not more safe.

Everyone in here and out there should understand his strategy. Let's be very clear: these culture wars are all designed to distract from the fact that he has no economic credibility whatsoever. He thinks that, if he starts a culture war and divides our community, nobody will notice that we're in the third year of a three-year parliamentary term and he still has no credible or costed economic policies whatsoever. He hopes that nobody will notice that they haven't come clean on where the $315 billion in cuts are going to come from, what it means for Medicare, what it means for pensions or what it means for the economy more broadly. He hopes that, if he starts a culture war, nobody will notice that the shadow Treasurer just isn't up to it. That's not just a view held on this side of the House, let me tell you.

They are all about dividing the nation, not fighting inflation. They are long on conflict and they are short on credibility. They don't understand that you don't dial down the pressures that people are feeling by dialling up division in our local communities. You fight inflation with cost-of-living relief, with a couple of surpluses and with responsible economic management. That's our focus, even if it's not theirs.

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

Mr Speaker, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.