Meryl Swanson (Paterson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. What are the implications of today's national accounts, and how does the Albanese Labor government's economic plan respond to the challenges facing our government and economy?

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

I thank the member for Paterson, who I know will also want me to recognise the Beyond the Broncos mentoring program friends who have joined us in the gallery today. It's nice to see you here.

Today the national accounts for June were released. What they showed was that our economy is growing relatively solidly but that some of the challenges in the economy are growing solidly as well. We have an economy which grew 0.9 per cent in the June quarter and has grown 3.6 per cent over the year. This, as I said, is solid growth, but it doesn't tell the full story of our economy and it doesn't reflect some of the substantial volatility we've seen in our economy over the last couple of months since this data was recorded.

The big drivers of growth in the quarter were consumption and net exports. Again, there's a pretty solid story on both of those fronts. But there were some challenges when it came to investment in dwelling and engineering construction. There was also a lot of evidence of the skills shortages, labour shortages and supply-chain pressures in our economy, which are holding the economy back. There was also more evidence, at a time when we have record profits, that real wages are falling, as they have been for some time. That is a fact from the data that this parliament cannot ignore.

What we want to see, and what our economic plan is all about, is largely three things. First of all, we want to provide responsible cost-of-living relief where we can and where it also provides an economic dividend. Child care eases the cost of living but provides an economic dividend. Easing the cost of medicine makes life easier for people who are getting lots of scripts but delivers a health benefit as well. Fee-free TAFE is obviously part of the story, as are tax cuts for electric vehicles and getting wages moving again. That's how you provide responsible cost-of-living relief.

Secondly, we need to deal with the issues in our supply chains which are pushing up inflation and forcing the independent Reserve Bank to raise rates. That's why we're investing in these skills and labour shortages, that's why we're investing in TAFE and that's why we're investing in cleaner and cheaper energy right across the board—a future made in Australia.

Thirdly, we need to begin to deal with the legacy of rorts and waste and wasteful spending that we've seen in the budget for too long—the defining feature of the budget under those opposite for far too long. Whether it's responsible cost-of-living relief, dealing with issues in supply chains or making sure that Australians get genuine value for money in their budget, these are the key concerns of this government, key components of an economic plan and key parts of the Jobs and Skills Summit last week, and they'll be the key components of the budget that I hand down from this dispatch box next month as well.