Sarah Ferguson presents Australia's premier daily current affairs program, delivering agenda-setting public affairs journalism and interviews that hold the powerful to account. Plus political analysis from Laura Tingle.
SARAH FERGUSON: Is today's speech a rehearsal of the arguments that we are going to hear daily now between now and the election for why the government should be re-elected?
SARAH FERGUSON: What you're referencing there, as you did in your speech, are really the perils of incumbency in this environment, in a cost-of-living crisis. You said today there is still more to do and plenty to lose if we don't do more? What more can you do between now and the election? SARAH FERGUSON: Let’s talk about the things you could do. One of the things keep headline inflation down is your energy bill relief. Will you extend those measures to prevent that figure jumping up again next year?
JIM CHALMERS: We're contemplating a whole range of cost-of-living options, but we haven't come to a concluded view on any of those. And so that's our focus is rolling that out. I'll give you the same answer I've given you on other occasions Sarah, from budget to budget, we contemplate and consider different options. We haven't come to a concluded view on that one.JIM CHALMERS: Cost-of-living relief is under consideration more broadly. I'm not prepared to come at any kind of specific options because we haven't come to any decisions about that which might be in the March budget or otherwise.
And so, there will always be conversations in the political press and occasionally in the economic commentary which tries to ascribe different kinds of motivations to government decisions and I want to be clear to you and your viewers that what we're trying to do here is provide help to people and we are.
That's coming down in welcome and encouraging ways. It actually came down quite substantially in the last data and I think that is a fact which is too frequently ignored. It is the first time we're in the inflation targeting band since 2021 and that's another indication that we're making progress in the fight against inflation. It is not mission accomplished because we know people are still doing it tough and that's why the responsible way that we're providing this cost-of-living relief and getting wages moving again is so important.
And so people in their household budgets have got a lot of ground to make up and that's why our efforts, the way we're managing the budget and the economy, providing that cost-of-living relief, getting real wages moving again for four consecutive quarters, all of that is absolutely vital to catching up the ground that people have lost since they started going backwards under our predecessors.
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