Zaneta Mascarenhas (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. What is the Albanese Labor government doing to ease cost of living and modernise the Australian economy? How does that compare to other approaches?

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

I thank the member for Swan. It was only last week that the employment minister and I joined with the member for Swan to celebrate the news that Australia has just ticked over two consecutive years of real wages growth in our economy—the eighth consecutive quarter of real wages growth in our economy. That comes after real wages had been falling for five consecutive quarters when we came to office. In fact, real wages were falling sharply. They are now growing again. That's a deliberate design feature of our economic policy. So, that's the news we got last week.

The week before that, we learned that unemployment had gone down once again and is, under this government, the lowest average unemployment rate of any government in half a century—1.2 million jobs, four in every five of them in the private sector. So, what we are doing—with our tax cuts, with our approach to the labour market—is ensuring that more Australians are working, earning more and keeping more of what they earn, at the same time as we roll out cost-of-living relief in our economy. Two more tax cuts are on the way. We've got more bulk-billed GP visits, because we know that means less pressure on families. We've got cheaper medicines. And, as the education minister said a moment ago, we're providing student debt relief.

At the same time as we're rolling out that cost-of-living relief, creating jobs, getting wages moving again and creating opportunities in our economy, we're also modernising Australia's economy over the medium and long term. We're approving more homes. We're slashing tariffs. We're winding back red tape where we can. We're revitalising national competition policy. We're strengthening and streamlining the foreign investment regime. And we're reforming EPBC, which will deliver faster approvals for projects that are in Australia's interests and faster knockbacks of projects that are not. Also, on Friday I'll meet with the state and territory treasurers to advance our very substantial agenda to make our economy more productive and competitive across the federation.

We know, as a government, that we have much more work to do. But we have made good progress, cleaning up the mess we inherited from those opposite as well as modernising our economy. We've made good progress since the Economic Reform Roundtable as well. We acknowledge that in the lead-up to the budget we will do even more.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

As I hear them chirping away over there, I finish on this point. Whether it's cost-of-living relief or economic reform, what is really clear is that this government finishes the year united, focused on Australians and delivering for Australians. Those opposite finish the year focused on themselves, recklessly divisive and hopelessly divided.