Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, 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 in the fight against inflation, and are there any approaches that would leave people worse off?

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

Thanks to the member for Newcastle for her wonderful work and for her question. Australians together made very welcome and encouraging progress in the fight against inflation, and we saw that in the numbers last week, which were better than expected and better than forecast. Headline inflation is 2.4 per cent, in the bottom half of the Reserve Bank's range. Underlying inflation came down as well. It's now in the low threes on both fronts. That is the lowest we've seen for some years. There's more to do. We know that because people are still under pressure. But the progress that we have delivered has been substantial, and it has been sustained.

As the Prime Minister rightly pointed out, when we came to office, inflation was much higher and rising, real wages were falling, and there was a mountain of Liberal debt. Under this Prime Minister, inflation is down. Wages are up. Unemployment is low. We've delivered two budget surpluses. We've got the debt down, and we've rolled out cost-of-living relief at the same time. That's what it means to manage the economy in a responsible and methodical way.

I'm asked about alternatives, but it's been almost three years now, and those opposite are yet to come up with any costed, coherent or credible policies on the economy. All we've got from them is lower wages for workers and longer lunches for bosses, with the taxpayers to foot the bill. He wants workers to pay for bosses' lunches, and he will smash the budget in the process. This is the only kind of policy that could have been agreed at the tail end of a very long lunch. You can imagine them sitting around with the blue teeth and the soy sauce on the Thai coming up with the big ideas. Either they didn't know how much it cost when they announced the policy, or they didn't want Australians to know. They have refused to come clean on the cost of their long lunch policy or what they will cut to pay for that policy.

There's a pattern here. On Sunday, the Leader of the Opposition was asked about whether there would be cuts in the budget. He said there would be, but he wouldn't tell the Australian people until after the election. This is the very real risk posed by this Leader of the Opposition. If he had his way on tax cuts and wages and energy bills, Australians would already be thousands of dollars worse off, and they'll be worse off still if he wins. That's what makes this decision that Australians will make this year a very important decision and a very stark choice between an opposition focused on cuts and conflict and culture wars who would make people worse off and take Australia backwards, or a prime minister and a Labor government helping with the cost of living, making progress on inflation, managing the economy responsibly and building Australia's future.