Opposition Leader, Sussan Ley:

Earlier this year, the Treasurer went on a victory lap, declaring inflation is down substantially and in a sustained way. Yet today, inflation has shot up above all expectations, jumping to 3.2%. This means no relief for households, no relief when seeing the doctor, no rate cuts in sight and families paying an additional $1,800 on their mortgage. With Australians suffering through the largest decline in living standards in the developed world, why is it, when Labor fails, Australians always foot the bill?

Treasurer, Jim Chalmers:

If the Opposition Leader really cared about cost-of-living pressures, she wouldn’t have just gone to an election promising to increase taxes on every single taxpaying Australian worker. If they cared about cost-of-living pressures, they wouldn’t oppose our efforts to provide responsible cost-of-living relief. 

Inflation is higher than we’d like, but it is around half what we inherited from those opposite. And so, if those opposite want to make this point about inflation at 3%, what do they say about inflation that they had running north of 6% and rising when we came to office? Inflation is half what we inherited from those opposite … they were spending more, they had bigger deficits, and they had more debt. The point that I would make about the numbers today more specifically is that the headline number increased largely as a result of the end of state energy rebates, but it is still much lower than its peak.