First question is from Opposition Leader Sussan Ley to Acting Prime Minister Richard Marles.

It’s a loose reference to today’s slight uptick in the national inflation rate.

Sussan Ley:

Because of Labor’s economic vandalism, households are paying 15% more for their food, 20% more for their insurance and nearly 40% more for their electricity in the last year alone. Australians are suffering through the largest decline in living standards in the developed world during Labor’s cost-of-living crisis. Why is it that, when Labor fails, Australians are always left to foot the bill?

Richard Marles:

What today’s figures demonstrate is that Australian households are still under pressure and we understand that the work is never done, which is why we will continue to pursue cost-of-living measures. But it is worth noting that even the headline inflation rate today is about half of the headline inflation rate that we inherited when we came to office. Indeed, the core inflation rate today means that, for three successive quarters, the core inflation rate has been within the Reserve Bank band. That is in no small part due to the way in which we have been managing, in a prudent way, the Commonwealth budget. Annual spending growth under our government over the last three years has averaged at about 1.2%. When those opposite were in government, the average increase in annual spending was around 4.1%. They doubled debt before the pandemic, and they left us with a trillion dollars of debt with absolutely nothing to show for it.