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

I'm addressing directly the quote that the shadow Treasurer put to me. I could read through once again the half a dozen different ways that the Reserve Bank governor made the point yesterday, but this is perhaps the best way to put this argument to rest for the shadow Treasurer's benefit. The governor was asked this question yesterday in the press conference: 'Ted O'Brien put forward today that government spending was partly to blame for rising inflation. What do you think of that? And has the RBA raised any concerns directly with the Treasurer about the government's level of spending over the past inflation cycle?' She answered with a point that they based their forecasts on total demand, which is not contested. Then she said this: 'What's happened over the last six months or so is that private demand has turned out to be much stronger than we had been forecasting.' That was in response to a question very specifically about the comments that the shadow Treasurer had been making over the course of the last couple of days. It really couldn't be clearer that what we've seen in the economy—this is not a political opinion; it's not even an economic opinion, and the facts tell the story in the national accounts and in the inflation figures—is a private sector recovery faster than what was anticipated in the forecasts. That shouldn't be a contested thing.

What is also not contested is that this government understands that we've got an inflation challenge in our economy. That's why, more than acknowledging that, we're acting on that. We're rolling out the cost-of-living help that the opposition leader said this morning she doesn't support. At the same time, we're getting the budget in much better nick. That's the government's economic strategy to deal with this inflation challenge that we have.

I can hear the opposition leader contesting that she said this morning, 'We think the answer is to help with the cost-of-living for people who are struggling, and that's not the answer.' That's what the opposition leader said this morning. We've got a different approach. We know what's causing this inflation challenge. We know that we've got a role in helping to address it, and that's our focus, even if it's not yours.

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