Coalition prepared to scrutinse the Government's spending

ABC NEWS (Australia)

While the budget is set to deliver another surplus, Treasurer Jim Chalmers says it won't come at the expense of keeping inflation down and providing assistance for those doing it tough.

Transcript

00:00 What we want to see in this budget is restoring a standard of living, taming inflation, fiscal

00:08 restraint, bringing back that fiscal discipline, those guardrails around the budget that we've

00:14 seen as a hallmark of coalition budgets in the past, and then of course restoring opportunity

00:19 and prosperity to all Australians.

00:21 But that doesn't seem to be what we're seeing.

00:23 In fact, I would agree with Anthony Albanese when he says that this is a true Labor budget

00:29 through and through.

00:30 It is high tax, high spend, and Australians will be worse off for it.

00:34 Jim Chalmers is returning a surplus, not because of his hard work, but because of the hard

00:39 work of ordinary Australians.

00:41 This is a surplus that's been gained on the back of high commodity prices, and more importantly,

00:46 because of bracket creep, because people are paying more taxes because of the inflation

00:51 that Jim Chalmers has failed to tame in his past two budgets.

00:55 His past two budgets have failed to do what they should set out to do.

00:59 This one looks like it's going to be no different.

01:00 I think the only way he's going to be able to pay for these surpluses, quite frankly,

01:05 they're not structural surpluses.

01:06 These are windfall gains.

01:08 And that's demonstrated by the fact that he can't return structural surpluses into the

01:12 future because he hasn't made the hard decisions necessary to do so for the long-term prosperity

01:18 of the country.

01:19 Quite frankly, when he talks about a lower inflation target by the end of the year, you've

01:24 got to scratch your head and wonder at what cost, what gives in order for that to happen?

01:29 Why is his target so different to that of the RBA?

01:33 Is it because interest rates will take longer to come down now, which means that consumption

01:39 will be lowered?

01:40 Is it because unemployment is going to go up?

01:42 These are the things that we're going to be looking for in the budget tonight.

01:45 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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