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

The member for Bennelong plays a very influential role in our economic policy and our team. I appreciate it, and our team appreciates it as well. The economic plan that we advanced in the government's fifth budget is focused on three key challenges: the near-term pressures on inflation, the longstanding challenge we've got with productivity and also this global economic uncertainty that we are dealing with. The global economy was already volatile before the dramatic escalation of hostilities in the Middle East, and inflation was already higher than we would have liked. But the conflict will exacerbate both of those challenges and could weigh on global growth. We're monitoring developments very closely in oil and gas markets and fertiliser markets and in transport and insurance as well.

Tomorrow, we'll get a good sense of how our economy finished the year when the December national accounts are released. We know from partial data already to expect the recovery in GDP growth to continue. We expect the data will confirm the story of 2025 was a handover from public- to private-led growth, and we expect that to continue even with the strong defence spending we saw in today's public demand figures.

All of this will inform our plan, which is all about making sure that more Australians can earn more and keep more of what they earn, and retire with more as well. Our tax cuts are important there, as are our changes to superannuation. Our reforms to super will make the super system fairer from top to bottom. It means more super for people with the lowest balances and more sustainable tax concessions for people with the biggest balances. It means 1.3 million Australians will get a super boost—mostly women and mostly young people.

This is opposed by the same old Liberal Party who will vote for less super for people on low incomes and bigger tax breaks for people with tens of millions of dollars in superannuation. The shadow Treasurer wants to go even further—he wants to completely dismantle compulsory superannuation in this country. That's what he told Andrew Bolt on the Bolt Report. They hate superannuation over there, and he hates super the most. Workers would pay the price for their extreme ideology. This is what happens when you bring together the worst minister in the Morrison government and the most extreme shadow Treasurer in memory—working people would be worse off while they work and also when they retire. This side of the House is delivering tax cuts, more super and fairer tax breaks to help deal with intergenerational issues in the tax system. Those over there are the same old Liberals who haven't changed a bit and haven't learned a thing.

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