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

Thanks to the honourable member for his question. First of all, for public demand in the December quarter, the key driver was defence spending. Those opposite have called for more of that, not less of that. That's the first point.

The second point is, when you look at the story of 2025, the big story was the private sector driving growth and the public sector taking a step back. Private demand grew faster and contributed over three times more to economic growth than public demand in annual terms. Within a year, annual private demand growth more than tripled, but annual public demand growth more than halved compared with 2024. Those are the facts of the matter. When it comes to the link between spending and inflation, I have said on a number of occasions that we take our responsibility seriously in the budget. That's why we found savings, delivered surpluses and got your debt down by $176 billion, because we manage the budget and we manage the economy in the most responsible way that we can.

Yesterday's national accounts were overwhelmingly good news for our economy: stronger growth than any major advanced economy, the strongest growth in almost three years, and stronger per capita growth, the strongest per capita growth in more than three years. But those opposite always want to talk the economy down. One of the reasons they always want to talk the economy down, as was revealed yesterday, is that the shadow Treasurer has held shares—

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