Louise Miller-Frost (Boothby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is for the Treasurer. How is the Albanese Labor government's responsible economic management repairing the budget and making room for cost-of-living relief? What are the alternatives?

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

Thank you to the member for Boothby for her really important question and for all of her work. Once again, we're getting questions on budget repair and the cost of living from this side of the House but not from that side of the House, and that's because we're focused on the economy and they're not. And it's because, since the last time the parliament met, we've released the Final Budget Outcome for the year just finished, and that showed the first back-to-back surpluses in almost two decades. This is a very important demonstration of our responsible economic management, and responsible economic management is a defining feature of the Albanese Labor government.

We've been here for two years and we've delivered two surpluses. In the first year, it was a $22 billion surplus, which was a $100 billion turnaround from what we inherited from those opposite. In our second year, it was a $15.8 billion surplus, which was a $72 billion turnaround from what we inherited from those opposite. That $172 billion turnaround in just two years is the biggest ever nominal improvement in a parliamentary term. The second surplus is bigger than anticipated at budget time because spending is lower, not because revenue was higher than expected.

It's important to say that we do not see a surplus as an end in itself. We see the surplus as a way to fight inflation, to make room for our cost-of-living help, to buffer this country against global economic uncertainty and to pay down Liberal debt so that we pay less interest on that debt, and, by paying down $150 billion of their debt, we're saving around $80 billion in interest over the next decade.

Those opposite promised a surplus in their first year and every year thereafter, and they delivered exactly none. They printed the mugs, but they never printed a surplus. We've gone back in black back to back. We've gone back in black back to back by deliberately banking revenue and methodically finding the savings. We've turned their two huge Liberal deficits into two substantial Labor surpluses. We've done this while providing cost-of-living relief, not instead of providing cost-of-living relief, to people who need it because we know people are doing it tough. That's what responsible economic management looks like. It would be unrecognisable to those opposite, and that's why they don't ask me any questions about it.