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

Thanks to the member for Werriwa for her question. Inflation is the defining challenge in our economy, and it was the defining influence on the budget that we handed down this week. The backdrop for that budget was obviously the slowing global economy, a war in Europe and structural spending pressures on the budget. That's why the three parts of the budget strategy were so important and so right for the times that we confront together. First of all, the cost-of-living relief was provided in a way that was responsible and not reckless, because it didn't add extra pressure on inflation. Secondly, we're investing in the drivers of growth and resilience in our economy and beginning to repair some of our broken supply chains. And then, thirdly, we're starting the hard work of repairing the budget so that we can rebuild our buffers against some of the global uncertainty that we confront.

The spending restraint and budget responsibility that we saw in Tuesday night's budget would have been absolutely unrecognisable to those opposite. And let me give you two examples of that. In our budget on Tuesday night, we had $22 billion worth of savings—not a bad start.

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