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

Thank you to the member for his question. As I made clear a moment ago, we know that, even though today's decision was expected, it doesn't make it any easier for people who are already under pressure. I think I've made that really clear. We do know and we have said repeatedly through the course of today and before now that Australians are still under pressure. Despite all of the progress that we've made together in our economy, we know that Australians are still under pressure. That's why our cost-of-living relief is so important, and that's why it's so strange that those opposite oppose that cost-of-living relief. It's why our budget repair is so important and why it's so strange that those opposite left us such a mess and now want to give us lectures about the budget position that we've spent 3½ years cleaning up.

As we know, some of these inflationary pressures are temporary; some of them are more persistent. All of them are adding to the pressures that people feel in real communities. We don't just acknowledge that; we're acting on that as a government, collectively. We're acting on that with cheaper medicines, tax cuts, more bulk-billing, student debt relief and the like. If those opposite really cared about the pressure on people around this country, they would have supported that cost-of-living help. Instead, they opposed that cost-of-living help. Worse than that, the same people asking these questions today took to the election a policy of higher income taxes on every single Australian worker.

The only thing that they've been able to agree on in the course of recent months is that they all desperately wanted interest rates to go up today. They all desperately wanted interest rates to go up today. It's the only thing that they can agree on right now. So they should spare us their confected outrage. They left us much higher inflation. They left us a much weaker budget. They took to the election a policy to make all of that worse, not better. This side of the House is focused on the cost-of-living challenge. That side of the House is focused on who sits where from one week to the next. We won't be distracted by opposition parties which are divided, divisive and in disarray.

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