Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. What action is the Albanese Labor government taking so that Australians can continue to pay cash for essential items? And how does this approach differ from alternatives?

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

I thank and acknowledge the member for Newcastle for her focus, which is shared by every member of this side of the House, on the cost-of-living pressures that people in her community are under and, as part of that, making sure people can continue to pay cash for essential items if they need to and if they want to.

Here, as well, I want to shout out the work of the Assistant Treasurer. He and I have been working together very closely to make sure that, as we modernise our payment system, we make sure that as we're phasing out cheques we do it with a long run up and that we also make sure there's an ongoing role for cash in our economy when it comes to essential items.

We know the direction of travel in the economy is that more and more people want to pay digitally, but there are still 1½ million Australians who do most of their payments, more than 80 per cent, via cash. What we want to do, as the Leader of the Opposition again fails to engage in a meaningful way on anything to do with the economy, is make sure that people can continue to pay cash for essential items, if they want to or they need to. We understand, even if those opposite don't, that cash can be a really important lifeline. Cash can be an important backup. Cash can give people a sense of security, a sense of peace of mind, knowing that they have cash there as a backup. And we want to maintain that as an option and as an ongoing feature of our economy.

We intend to do what a lot of other countries have done and what a lot of states and jurisdictions in the US have done, and that is to make sure that cash is acceptable, when people are buying things from supermarkets, pharmacies or petrol stations, and in other ways. You would think that those opposite would enthusiastically support our efforts to give people that peace of mind—but, sadly, no.

We know, from Senator Hume this morning, that those opposite don't support our efforts to maintain an ongoing role for cash in our economy. She made that clear. What that means, the logical conclusion of that, is that those opposite are a risk to cash in our economy in the same way that this opposition leader is a risk to household budgets more broadly. We know that they're a risk because we know their record when it comes to Medicare, when it comes to housing and when it comes to wages—and now, when it comes to a role for cash in the economy as an important backup. He is a risk, this opposition leader, to household budgets, because we know his record and we know that his reckless arrogance was set Australians back in tangible ways.

We're in the third year of the three-year parliamentary term. They know that they're against everything that this government proposes, but they still haven't come up with anything credible, coherent or costed by way of economic policy. (Time expired)