Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, under Labor, Australia is the only advanced economy where living standards have gone backwards. Today's national accounts show the government's share of the economy growing twice as fast as the private sector, which economists and business leaders say is fuelling inflation. After four years of Australians going backwards under Labor, when will the Prime Minister finally accept the buck stops with him?

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

I thank the honourable member for his question. He asks me about living standards and public spending in the economy. There are two very important developments in today's national accounts that I want to bring his attention to and I want to bring the House's attention to. Given it's Wednesday and that appears to be 'economy day' and they're asking us about the economy at last, you would think that, having taken a three-day run-up to ask a question about the economy, they would have some understanding of what's happening with living standards. I refer those opposite—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

listen up!—to the living standards measure in today's national accounts. Today's national accounts show that the living standards measure—real disposable incomes per capita—rose 0.6 per cent in the quarter. This means that living standards have gone up two per cent through the year. Remember, in the quarter we came to office, living standards were falling 1.5 per cent. This quarter, they've gone up 0.6 per cent, and they've gone up two per cent through the year. They asked the Prime Minister before for some international comparisons on living standards. I want to make this clear. Growth in annual per capita incomes is more than twice the average of major advanced economies, according to the OECD.

I'm also asked about public spending and private spending. If those opposite knew anything about the economy, they would know that private demand grew faster and contributed over three times more to economic growth than public demand in annual terms. Within a year, annual private demand growth more than tripled, but annual public demand growth more than halved compared with 2024.

The thing that is especially relevant to their criticisms of public spending is, if you look at the public demand growth in the quarter that was released today, a key driver of that spending growth is defence spending, which they've called for more of. The key driver of public demand that they're criticising, they've called for more of, and that just absolutely torpedoes their economic credibility that began with the member for Hume and continues today with the member for Goldstein. Living standards went up in today's data. They really should know that.