Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question goes to the Treasurer. Under Labor there have been 12 interest rate increases, inflation remains too high, a five per cent productivity collapse, a household recession and the fastest fall in living standards on record. Yet the Treasurer has boasted about the unemployment rate. What does the Treasurer tell the Australian people now that the unemployment rate has spiked to its highest level in almost three years?

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

I say to the Australian people that unemployment is on average lower than any other government in the last 50 years. That is what I say to the Australian people. If you compare every single government of the last half-century, the government led by this guy has overseen the lowest average unemployment of any of those governments for half a century. This is precisely why the people in front of the member for Fairfax are more excited about his promotion than the people behind him, because he bowls up these absolute dollies. He's doing his best to make the former shadow treasurer look good.

I'm asked about the progress that Australians have made in our economy. I invite the shadow treasurer and the House to cast their minds back to the day that we were elected in 2022. Interest rates were already going up; he forgot to mention that. Inflation was much higher and galloping. It had a 6 in front of it; it now has a 2 in front of it. We saw a substantial fall in living standards in the last quarter of those opposite. Real wages had been going down not by accident but as a deliberate design feature of their economic policy. We don't pretend that every challenge in our economy has been solved, but we acknowledge that Australians together have made substantial and sustained progressed in our economy. Inflation has a 2 in front of it now; it had a 6 in front of it under those opposite. Real wages have been growing for 18 consecutive months under this government—again, not by accident but a deliberate design feature of our economic policy. Living standards have turned around and are starting to grow again, recovering some of the losses under those opposite. When we came to office there were only deficits in the budget. We turned two of them into surpluses. When we came to office there was $1 trillion of Liberal Party debt.

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

 I'm sorry to interrupt the Treasurer. We can't have that sort of interjection, Member for Fairfax. Fourteen times you have interjected. I know it was your question, but we're just going to cool it for the remainder of this answer to assist the House so I can hear what the Treasurer is saying.

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

 The progress we've made on the budget—not pretending that the work is done, but we have made progress, with a couple of surpluses, a much smaller deficit this year, less debt than what we inherited for this year, saving on interest costs and all of the other progress that Australians have made together—has meant we've been able to find room to help people with the cost of living, make their medicines cheaper, cut their taxes three times and all of the other ways we are helping Australians with the cost of living. The shadow treasurer was asked on 14 July on 2GB what the main feedback was from the election, and he said he had been getting lots of feedback. He said his feedback was that people liked their policies. Well, that's news to me! Their policy was for higher taxes and bigger deficits. We have taken a different approach, and we're making progress— (Time expired)