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

I say to the Australian people that unemployment is on average lower than any other government in the last 50 years. That is what I say to the Australian people. If you compare every single government of the last half-century, the government led by this guy has overseen the lowest average unemployment of any of those governments for half a century. This is precisely why the people in front of the member for Fairfax are more excited about his promotion than the people behind him, because he bowls up these absolute dollies. He's doing his best to make the former shadow treasurer look good.

I'm asked about the progress that Australians have made in our economy. I invite the shadow treasurer and the House to cast their minds back to the day that we were elected in 2022. Interest rates were already going up; he forgot to mention that. Inflation was much higher and galloping. It had a 6 in front of it; it now has a 2 in front of it. We saw a substantial fall in living standards in the last quarter of those opposite. Real wages had been going down not by accident but as a deliberate design feature of their economic policy. We don't pretend that every challenge in our economy has been solved, but we acknowledge that Australians together have made substantial and sustained progressed in our economy. Inflation has a 2 in front of it now; it had a 6 in front of it under those opposite. Real wages have been growing for 18 consecutive months under this government—again, not by accident but a deliberate design feature of our economic policy. Living standards have turned around and are starting to grow again, recovering some of the losses under those opposite. When we came to office there were only deficits in the budget. We turned two of them into surpluses. When we came to office there was $1 trillion of Liberal Party debt.

See this speech in context