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

A big thank you to the member for Banks, an absolutely outstanding and valued member of our team on this side of the House. He knows that this is a responsible budget which is all about resilience and reform at the same time—not resilience or reform but resilience and reform. It's all about getting Australians through this global oil shock and building an economy that works for more people. This budget helps Australians today and lifts living standards into the future by responding to the global oil shock; by taking pressure off Australians with cost of living and housing; by making our economy more productive over time; by delivering tax reform for workers, businesses, homebuyers and future generations; and by making sensible and responsible savings to make sure that the deficits are smaller every year of the forward estimates.

In this budget, when it comes to fuel, in addition to all of the good work done by the PM, the minister for energy and others, we've got a fuel security package which is investing in more fuel for more motorists and more industries to keep our country moving. We're also more than halving the fuel excise and reducing the Heavy Vehicle Road User Charge, as well as the fuel and fertiliser security facility. On housing, we're reforming the tax system to support more first home buyers, and we're investing in extra $2 billion to build up to 65,000 more homes in our plan which now goes to $47 billion, as the Prime Minister said.

We're rolling out tax cuts for every working Australian, in addition to the three tax cuts already on the way plus the instant tax deduction. This is a government cutting income taxes for working Australians five times, five different ways in just four years. We've got a comprehensive package to boost productivity, to save business more than $10 billion a year in compliance costs and to boost long-run GDP. We've got big investments in innovation and investment to make sure that we support all kinds of businesses, the dynamic part of our economy, which will create wealth and opportunity into the future.

And we're doing all of this while finding an historically high amount of savings in the budget—$63.8 billion of savings—with a net improvement to the budget of $25.1 billion for the first time in the history of this country. We are in two consecutive budget updates, banking every extra dollar of revenue when it comes to revenue upgrades. This is an ambitious budget. It provides immediate support to Australians. It delivers urgent economic reforms. And, very importantly, it also doesn't forget our obligations to future generations.

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