Treasurer says rate relief would be welcome for mortgage holders, government focused on cost of living

ABC NEWS (Australia)

As homeowners hope for an August rate cut, Treasurer Jim Chalmers discusses whether it would encourage more investors into the market and potentially price out homebuyers.

Transcript

00:00I'm not going to pre-empt decisions that the Reserve Bank takes independently.

00:06I think rate relief is welcome.

00:08Certainly when interest rates were cut twice already this year,

00:12that provided some very, very welcome rate relief

00:15for millions of Australians with a mortgage.

00:17So that's how we see it.

00:19But I don't want to make predictions or pre-empt the decisions

00:22that the Reserve Bank will take.

00:23What yesterday's numbers showed when it comes to those inflation numbers

00:27is really quite remarkable progress.

00:29The progress that Australians have made together

00:31over the course of the last three years on inflation has been outstanding

00:35because we've been able to get inflation down

00:38at the same time as we keep unemployment low.

00:40We've got real wages growing again, but it's never mission accomplished

00:44because the global environment's uncertain.

00:47We've got some persistent structural issues in our economy.

00:50Growth in our economy is soft and people are under pressure.

00:52And that's why the primary goal, the main priority of the first two weeks

00:57of the Parliament setting has been to roll out more cost of living help.

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