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

My question is to the Treasurer. What progress has the Albanese Labor government made in the fight against inflation and to ease cost-of-living pressures? What obstacles are standing in the way?

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

Thank you to the terrific member for Boothby for her very important question because it goes to the very substantial progress which is made clear by the new monthly inflation figures which were released a couple of hours ago. What those new numbers confirmed was that we have made very substantial, very welcome and very encouraging progress in this fight against inflation.

The fight against inflation has been this government's No. 1 priority. Easing the cost of living where we can do that in the most responsible way, making sure that we're helping people with their energy bills, cutting taxes, cheaper medicines, cheaper early childhood education, getting wages moving again—these are all of the ways that we're helping with the cost of living.

The new inflation numbers today show that inflation for the month was 2.1 per cent, remembering it was 6.1 per cent under those opposite. Monthly inflation is now a third of the 6.1 per cent we inherited. I know that the shadow Treasurer thinks 2.1 last month and 2.1 this month means that it's gone up, but it doesn't mean that. You've got to fact-check everything that the shadow Treasurer says. Somebody will explain this to you later!

What else showed today in the inflation data is that our policies are helping when it comes to household budgets. One of the reasons why there was actually a monthly fall in rent was our Commonwealth rent assistance, which we've talked about. One of the reasons why electricity prices fell 35.6 per cent in the year to October was our energy rebates. So you can see that our policies are making a meaningful difference to the fight against inflation, taking some of this pressure off even at the same time as we recognise that people are still under pretty substantial pressure.

As the Prime Minister said a moment ago, our efforts on supermarkets are part of this as well. The Food and Grocery Code of Conduct is all about making sure we get a fair go for farmers and families. What this shows is that, whether it is our cost-of-living relief or our approach to supermarkets, we are coming at these cost-of-living pressures from every responsible angle that we can.

Now we know from today's numbers that, if those opposite were in power, inflation would be higher and people would be getting less help. We know that from the figures released by the ABS today. We know that Australians are doing it tough. We also know that Australians would be worse off were it not for our efforts to provide cost-of-living help, and we also know from these numbers that Australians would be worse off under the coalition. We know that because they voted against the cost-of-living help, and we know that because we know their record on Medicare, wages, housing and in all of these important areas.

This side of the House is getting inflation down and wages up. We're strengthening Medicare and building more homes. Today's data shows that we're making important progress.