Jodie Belyea (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. How is the Albanese Labor government's responsible economic management helping to shield the Australian economy from global uncertainty? How is this approach different from others?

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

Thank you to the member for Dunkley for her characteristically thoughtful question. We are gravely concerned about the escalation of the conflict in the Middle East. We're primarily concerned about the human cost and consequences of that horrible conflict on the other side of the world, but there are also economic consequences.

We're seeing that, I think, most noticeably when it comes to the price of oil on global markets. Thinking back on the last year or so, the global oil price has come down about 11 per cent over the course of the last 12 months, but, in the last 10 days, it's gone back up seven per cent. That gives honourable members a sense of the extreme volatility in that market which reflects the global uncertainty and volatility more broadly in the global economy. And so, if you think about the consequences for us, we have been making really good progress in the fight against inflation, and we expect that progress to continue. But it is also the case that some of these global events are putting pressure on prices when Australians are already doing it quite tough.

This is an important part of the global economic uncertainty, but it is not the only part. We're also seeing weakness in the Chinese economy. It's one of the reasons why we welcome so enthusiastically the steps that the authorities have announced to support growth and support activity in the Chinese economy. Our forecasts for China over the next three years, if they happen, will be the slowest three years of economic growth in China since it opened up around 40 years ago. That's why it's so important that the Prime Minister has just wrapped up his meeting with Premier Li of China. We believe that, in that economic relationship, which is full of complexity and opportunity, we best represent the workers and businesses and investors of this country when we engage with our Chinese counterparts, as the Prime Minister has been doing, along with a number of colleagues, including myself a couple of weeks ago. In the US, we're seeing data which is causing wild fluctuations in share markets in the US and around the world as well.

There is always a premium on responsible economic management, especially when the global conditions are as uncertain and volatile as they are right now. Our responsible economic management has meant that we have halved inflation and got real wages growing again. We got a tax cut for every taxpayer. We created a million jobs in an otherwise soft economy. We've turned two big Liberal deficits into two big Labor surpluses, and we've avoided $150 billion of Liberal debt. That has meant that we can buffer ourselves against global economic uncertainty. We are confident that we can navigate this global uncertainty together, but we are not complacent because we know that the world is an uncertain place in security terms and economic terms, and that's why responsible economic management is a defining feature of our government.