2-MINUTE STATEMENTS – Economy

This afternoon Australian families might get some pretty bad news—if interest rates go up. And, if they don’t go up this afternoon, they still face grave risks of that because Australia now has the highest inflation rates in the developed world. It’s a shocking record for our country with so many resources and opportunity that we can’t keep the basic cost of living down for people. The government take no responsibility for this, but their own documents show that they are wrong—that they have contributed to inflationary pressures. Just before Christmas, the Mid Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook came out. Buried on page 81 of that document is an extraordinary statement: Since the 2025 PEFO— that’s the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Outlook released in April— total expenses have been revised up by $23.5 billion in 2025-26 and by $55.0 billion over the four years from 2025-26 to 2028- 29. In the space of just seven months this government has presided over a blowout of $55 billion in its own budget, and almost half of that is actually occurring in this financial year. We’ve never seen anything like this—never before. These revisions always happen. There are always changes. Budgets are never kept to the detail. There are always some revisions, although usually negative, actually—usually more savings. The account’s usually conservative. But their previous record was a $10 billion cost blowout. This is a $55 billion cost blowout, and that is directly feeding into the inflationary pressures that the RBA has to deal with this afternoon, potentially by clobbering Australian families with an interest rate rise. It’s about time we had a government that took responsibility for this. Today I’ve called on the Treasurer to resign. He should resign because nothing has ever been done like this before. This is his budget. He has got his budget wrong to the tune of $55 billion in six months. If this happened in a private company, he’d be out the door as CFO. But, because it’s the Labor Party, there’s no accountability.