Andrew Willcox (Dawson, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Already regional Australians with a $500,000 mortgage are paying more than $12,000 a year as a result of recent rate hikes. Why do Australians always pay more under Labor?

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question, but I don't thank him for voting against energy price relief. I don't thank him for not acknowledging the fact that pharmaceutical prices went down for people in his electorate from $42 50 to $30. I don't thank him for his carping and complaining about our childcare plans, which will provide childcare relief on 1 July.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Leader of the Nationals is warned.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I don't thank him for refusing to support our fee-free TAFE plan, which will provide 180,000 fee-free TAFE places—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Manager of Opposition Business?

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A point of order on relevance: it was a very tight question about mortgages and recent rate hikes, not to give us a range of excuses, which is what the Prime Minister is doing right now.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister has had almost one minute of a preamble. The question was about mortgages and interest rates and costs. I'm asking him to be relevant to the question and ask him to return to the question.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thanks, Mr Speaker. I was listening carefully to the tag there, and it said what was occurring under Labor, and I'm informing the member of what is happening under Labor—cheaper medicine, cheaper child care, expanding paid parental leave, getting wages moving, more affordable housing, energy price relief, and fee-free TAFE. Every one of those positive plans, supported by those here, was opposed by those opposite, just as they're going to oppose the regional jobs created by our National Reconstruction Fund, just as they're opposing manufacturing jobs in our region and the opportunity that businesses will have to renew by investing in newer equipment and transforming themselves, getting access to cleaner and cheaper energy, or new industries developing, such as the ones that my friend the Minister for Resources indicated in her answer earlier on today.

I say to the member opposite that the Australian people sent a message on 21 May, and that message was this. They had conflict fatigue. They were sick of a government that just said what it was against and sought division. They wanted positive plans. And that's what we're delivering.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. How is the Albanese Labor government responding to the inflation challenge? And what approaches has the government rejected?

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

Today is a very appropriate day for us to acknowledge the really important work that the member for Newcastle does in our team and in this parliament.

The inflation challenge is the defining feature of our economy in 2023, just as it was in 2022, and that makes it the government's major focus. In responding to the inflation challenge, the independent Reserve Bank has its job to do. It does that job independently, and we don't interfere with its deliberations or second-guess its decisions.

But we, in the government, have a plan to address this inflation challenge. It has three parts: responsible cost of living relief, which we provided in October and will provide again in May; tackling the supply chain challenges that were left to us, and we've been talking about that today; and delivering a responsible budget with spending restraint so that we're not adding further fuel to inflation. That's why, in the budget, we are returning 99 per cent of the revenue upgrades to the bottom line over the next two years, when inflation will be at its most acute, and returning 92 per cent over four years. That compares to an average of 40 per cent under our predecessors.

Our budget has payments falling in real terms over the next two years and real spending growth averaging just 0.3 per cent a year over the forward estimates. That compares to real spending growth under our predecessors of 4.1 per cent on average, and 2.6 per cent before the pandemic. Our first budget found $22 billion in savings. The impact of policy decisions was less than $10 billion—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Casey is warned.

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

with 85 per cent of this for unavoidable and legacy spending. This compares to the $30 billion impact of key policy decisions by our predecessors, with no expenditure savings whatsoever in the March budget.

So the restraint we showed in the budget was a key reason the IMF and ratings agencies have been so positive about our efforts. The IMF said our spending restraint 'will help support monetary policy in holding back excess demand'. Standard & Poor's said: 'We expect the budget to improve because of steady revenue growth, high commodity prices, and expenditure restraint.' Fitch Ratings credited the budget with outlining a broadly neutral fiscal stance in the near term. And Morningstar said of the budget, quite recently, that most of the revenue windfall is being saved and that recently announced policy measures, such as cost-of-living relief, are being targeted and offset. We know the best way to address inflation is through cost-of-living relief—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Manager of Opposition Business will cease interjecting.

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

dealing with supply chain pressures, including in the workforce, and managing the budget responsibly. That's why the spending restraint we've shown is so important and why it is completely unrecognisable to those opposite.