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

My question goes to the Treasurer. The RBA governor explained yesterday's decision to raise interest rates, saying this:

… we work with aggregate demand …

and, 'We're seeing aggregate demand, public and private, push up against the limits of growth.' Note her referencing of 'public'. Yet the Treasurer told the House yesterday government spending was 'not a factor' in the decision they took, and he peddled the same story today. Is the Treasurer suggesting the governor was wrong?

Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Housing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You're so in the weeds, mate!

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

Order! The Minister for Housing is warned.

The Manager of Opposition Business, I have just warned the housing minister! You'll go down that pathway too. We'll wait for the House to settle.

The Manager for Opposition Business is now warned! If I'm telling you you're going to be warned, that's a definite time to stop talking. I don't know what you're pointing to, but just sit there. The Treasurer now has the call.

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

The point that the Reserve Bank governor was making, which I suspect the shadow Treasurer knows and is being dishonest about—she said that, when you look across the economy at aggregate demand and total demand, the thing that stands out is that private demand recovered more quickly than they were anticipating, which goes to the half a dozen or so quotes that I've been reading out throughout the course of question time today and yesterday as well.

Of course, when you look across the economy at total demand or aggregate demand, whatever you want to call it, the thing that stands out—

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

So you're saying you said something else than what you actually said!

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

You're really struggling now, mate.

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

I want to deal with this. The Treasurer is going to take a pause for a moment and resume his seat. We're simply not going to have a question time where everyone thinks it's a free-for-all and they can say whatever they like whenever they like. That is not how this chamber will work. We talk about respect a lot, and that sort of behaviour is just—we're moving beyond that. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition will leave the chamber under 94(a).

The member for Fairfax then left the chamber.

I'm simply not going to have that behaviour. It's the same when people are asking and answering questions. Show restraint; show respect. The Treasurer will return to the question and be directly relevant.

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

I'm addressing directly the quote that the shadow Treasurer put to me. I could read through once again the half a dozen different ways that the Reserve Bank governor made the point yesterday, but this is perhaps the best way to put this argument to rest for the shadow Treasurer's benefit. The governor was asked this question yesterday in the press conference: 'Ted O'Brien put forward today that government spending was partly to blame for rising inflation. What do you think of that? And has the RBA raised any concerns directly with the Treasurer about the government's level of spending over the past inflation cycle?' She answered with a point that they based their forecasts on total demand, which is not contested. Then she said this: 'What's happened over the last six months or so is that private demand has turned out to be much stronger than we had been forecasting.' That was in response to a question very specifically about the comments that the shadow Treasurer had been making over the course of the last couple of days. It really couldn't be clearer that what we've seen in the economy—this is not a political opinion; it's not even an economic opinion, and the facts tell the story in the national accounts and in the inflation figures—is a private sector recovery faster than what was anticipated in the forecasts. That shouldn't be a contested thing.

What is also not contested is that this government understands that we've got an inflation challenge in our economy. That's why, more than acknowledging that, we're acting on that. We're rolling out the cost-of-living help that the opposition leader said this morning she doesn't support. At the same time, we're getting the budget in much better nick. That's the government's economic strategy to deal with this inflation challenge that we have.

I can hear the opposition leader contesting that she said this morning, 'We think the answer is to help with the cost-of-living for people who are struggling, and that's not the answer.' That's what the opposition leader said this morning. We've got a different approach. We know what's causing this inflation challenge. We know that we've got a role in helping to address it, and that's our focus, even if it's not yours.