Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. How is the Albanese Labor government delivering cost-of-living relief, and what approaches have been ruled out?

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

If you want a question on the cost of living or inflation or the economy, you've got to rustle one up yourself. Because, when the people of this country are under pressure and when the cost of living is the No. 1 pressure that people are feeling, those opposite couldn't care less, and we know that because they haven't asked any questions this week on the cost of living, inflation or the economy more broadly. It's after three o'clock on the Thursday of a sitting week, and there's total silence from those opposite on the No. 1 issue that this country and its people confront. Those opposite might not care about the cost of living, but this side of the parliament does. That's why we're rolling out cost-of-living relief, with a tax cut for every taxpayer, energy bill relief for every household, cheaper medicines, cheaper early childhood education, rent assistance and getting wages moving again after a decade of wage stagnation.

We're focused on the main game, and they're focused on playing political games. We want to lift people up, and this opposition leader wants to punch down. We want to help people doing it tough, and they just want to divide people and set Australians against Australians.

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

Order! The Treasurer is going to pause. I wish to hear from the Deputy Leader of the Opposition.

Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, you've ruled yesterday and today on imputations, personal invective and expressions that denigrate the other side. The language that the Treasurer just used about the Leader of the Opposition does exactly that. I ask you to bring him to order.

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

For the remainder of the Treasurer's answers, I don't want any more commentary about people. To assist the House, so we can move forward, I ask the Treasurer to withdraw that statement and keep going.

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

I withdraw. This side of the House is focused on finishing the fight against inflation. That side of the House is only interested in starting another culture war.

Now, there is no shortage of challenges in our economy. In the global economy and the domestic economy, inflation is No. 1 when it comes to the main challenges in our economy, and we are focused on the main game. In the past couple of years, we've seen inflation come off substantially. We've seen almost a million jobs created. We've seen real wages growing again. We've got a tax cut rolling out for every taxpayer at the same time as we have turned two big Liberal deficits into two big Labor surpluses. But we know, despite all the progress that we have made, that people are still under the pump and people are still under pressure.

That's why it beggars belief, when this is the main game right around Australia, that those opposite can't manage to ask even a single question about the cost-of-living pressures that people are confronting—not one idea about fighting inflation, not one policy for the cost of living, absolutely nothing about their $315 billion in secret cuts and what that means for Medicare and pensions and for our economy more broadly. This should be a disqualifying week for those opposite. When people are under pressure, they could not care less about the cost of living.