Angus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Under Labor, prices have gone up by nearly 10 per cent, employee real wages have collapsed by almost nine per cent, living standards have collapsed by eight per cent, a typical mortgage holder is around $35,000 worse off and mortgage arrears are at an all-time high according to rating agency Fitch. There is nothing on offer from the government that will reverse this damage. Prime Minister, why are Australian families paying the price for Labor's economic incompetence?

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

Even by the extremely low standards of the shadow Treasurer, to say on 1 July, the day—

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

Order. The Treasurer will pause.

Government members interjecting—

Order! Members on my right. Members are entitled to take a point of order. I'm going to hear from the Manager of Opposition Business.

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

A point of order, Mr Speaker: the Treasurer is a serial offender. You are rightly committed to lifting the standards in this place, and that is not consistent with it.

A government member interjecting—

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

Order! Whoever is interjecting on my right won't be here if they continue that behaviour. The Leader of the House on the point of order.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I appreciate your previous rulings about personal reflections, but to not be able to argue whether someone has brought high or low standards to a question or debate would be effectively to say you can't have debate. Of all the moments in question time to object, what the Manager of Opposition Business has just objected to is just really odd. You can't have normal debate if you can't say whether or not someone's asked something reasonable or whether the standards are reasonable or not.

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

The Manager of Opposition Business does raise a good point about undignified personal attacks, which we've been dealing with in question time. The Treasurer simply talking about low standards doesn't fill that category, but I'm going to be making sure that if we stray into that territory, which the Treasurer knows more than anyone else, we will deal with that. I thank the manager for raising the point. I'm going to get the Treasurer back to the question.

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

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I'm happy to explain to the shadow Treasurer the contents of his own question. His question was about the last couple of years and what we're doing to turn it around. I'm happy to tell the House and I'm happy to explain to the shadow Treasurer once again what we're doing to help people who are under the pump.

I'll remind the House, once again, that when this government came to office inflation had a six in front of it and now quarterly inflation has a three in front of it. When we came to office there were huge deficits as far as the eye could see, and we've turned two of those big Liberal deficits into Labor surpluses.

I remind the House that when we came to office, it was at the end of a decade of deliberate wage stagnation and wage suppression because low wages growth was a deliberate design feature of their economic policy. When we came to office, real wages were falling by 3.4 per cent. They're now growing again. And they're not growing again by accident; they're growing again because this is a government which recognises that one of the most effective ways to help people with the cost of living is to make it easier for them to earn more and keep more of what they earn. Absolutely central to that and absolutely central to the question that the shadow Treasurer asked are the tax cuts that come in from today. That's why it is unsurprisingly unusual that the shadow Treasurer has asked a question about living standards on a day when we are easing cost-of-living pressures in at least five different ways.

Now we all remember, and I think the Australian people remember too, that when the Prime Minister and I and this cabinet and this government went into bat for Middle Australia and for people on low and middle incomes and we changed the tax cuts—and we took a political risk in doing that—we changed those tax cuts because we wanted to see a tax cut for every Australian taxpayer at the same time as we wanted to see wages growing in our economy.

A combination of that means that Australians are better off than they would have been under those opposite. Those opposite ran up a trillion dollars in Liberal debt with almost nothing to show for it. They presided over wage stagnation and wage suppression. They skewed the tax cuts to people who were already on high incomes and we've spent a couple of years trying to clean up the mess that they left us. Where that matters very significantly is in the fact that real wages were falling when we came to office. They're growing again, and they're a big determinant of living standards in our economy at the same time as we provide this relief.

I know those opposite are unhappy today because if they had their way inflation would be even higher and people wouldn't be getting this cost-of-living help that they need and deserve. We're proud to be rolling out this cost-of-living relief, and it starts to roll out from today. (Time expired)