Carina Garland (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. How does the Albanese Labor government's budget help people now and strengthen our economy for the future? How does that compare to other approaches?

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

A big thank you to the member for Chisholm for the question but also for the very substantial contribution that she makes to our team and made to the budget that we handed down on Tuesday night as well. And in the absence of any questions from the opposition about what was actually in the budget on Tuesday night, I'm especially grateful to the member for Chisholm, because this is a responsible budget which is all about resilience and reform. It delivers immediate help, to get people through this global oil shock, and some urgent reform to build an economy that works for more people.

In the budget, we're doing five main things. We're responding to the global oil shock: more than halving the fuel excise; reducing the heavy vehicle road user charge; and securing more fuel internationally, through the new facility. We're taking pressure off Australians, with permanent tax cuts, and a thousand-dollar instant deduction; we've got the legislated tax cuts already. We're building more homes. There are higher wages. We're increasing the Medicare levy low-income threshold. We're making our economy more productive: getting compliance costs down by more than $10 billion a year, and lifting the investment of firms, particularly young firms, in R&D. We've got the tax reform for workers and businesses and future generations. It is all about making it easier for more Australians, and particularly younger Australians, to find a toehold in the housing market and in the economy more broadly. Also, we've got sensible and responsible and substantial savings in the budget: $64 billion worth of savings; a budget which is $44.9 billion stronger than in the mid-year update—paying down the debt that we inherited from those opposite.

Now, if you look right across our budget, the budget that we handed down on Tuesday night, it's a very substantial plan. It's about getting through a difficult period in the global economy, at the same time as we reform our economy for the future.

We've seen enough to know about the sorts of things that the Leader of the Opposition will talk about tonight. And so we already know this: ours is a plan to strengthen the economy; his is a ploy to stave off One Nation. That is the difference between the substantial budget that we handed down on Tuesday night, worked through in a considered and methodical way, and the latest effort from those opposite—this unseemly brawl amongst the three-ring circus of the right-wing parties in this country. We have delivered a serious, substantial plan to strengthen the economy; his will be a ploy to stave off One Nation.

I saw that the shadow finance minister was out this morning, and this is what the shadow finance minister said about the budget reply tonight: 'I'm sure you will find out that everything is costed and offset in the usual way.' That's the commitment that the shadow finance minister has made this morning. Let's see if the Leader of the Opposition follows through.