Treasurers’ debate live updates: Jim Chalmers and Angus Taylor face off in Australian election debate
Chalmers accuses Taylor of using ‘made-up numbers’ to attack Labor’s economic credentials
Jim Chalmers was asked if he would apologise for promising a $275 reduction in energy prices under Labor that did not eventuate. He responded:
The $275 figure that you referring to from the modelling in 2021 predated two important developments. The first one was Angus intervened to hide a big price rise before the last election. We didn’t know about that when we talked about that modelling. And the second thing is, there’s been a major land war in eastern Europe, which has caused a global spike in energy, inflation.
Now, despite that, Australia now has – according the OECD – the lowest inflation in the developed world, and that’s because we’re doing two things …
He was cut off by Angus Taylor, who said Labor “promised 97 times that electricity prices would come down by $275” and was making excuses.
Taylor claimed people were $1,300 a year worse off than was promised, but Chalmers responded, “That is a made-up number.”
Key events
Chalmers and Taylor have back-and-forth on health and education
Jim Chalmers has now asked Angus Taylor if he would repeat the same commitment to no cuts to health or education that his party took to the 2013 election.
The shadow treasurer responded:
We will bring a bill into the parliament to guarantee spending on essential services, including health and education.
Chalmers cut in:
Angus and Peter Dutton have both said the best indicator of future [performance] is what’s happened in the past. Now, in their first budget, after promising no cuts to health and education, they cut $80bn.
Taylor then responded:
I’ve been very clear about [our] health and education guarantee, in fact, right to the point where [on] health, we have already committed over $9bn to ensure that we deal with your mess where bulk billing has gone down sharply in your time in government.
Taylor asks another question on $275 power bill reduction promise
Angus Taylor has now been given the chance to ask Jim Chalmers a question, and turned back to the $275 promise.
Chalmers began by quipping:
Angus wrote down that question, and then you asked it, and he didn’t have the ability to think up a second question.
The treasurer continued, again bringing up the cost of the Coalition’s nuclear policy:
If you really cared about living standards, you wouldn’t have opposed our cost-of-living measures, and you wouldn’t be taking to this election higher income taxes, lower wages and secret cuts to pay for the nuclear reactors, that you still haven’t mentioned.
Chalmers accuses Taylor of using ‘made-up numbers’ to attack Labor’s economic credentials
Jim Chalmers was asked if he would apologise for promising a $275 reduction in energy prices under Labor that did not eventuate. He responded:
The $275 figure that you referring to from the modelling in 2021 predated two important developments. The first one was Angus intervened to hide a big price rise before the last election. We didn’t know about that when we talked about that modelling. And the second thing is, there’s been a major land war in eastern Europe, which has caused a global spike in energy, inflation.
Now, despite that, Australia now has – according the OECD – the lowest inflation in the developed world, and that’s because we’re doing two things …
He was cut off by Angus Taylor, who said Labor “promised 97 times that electricity prices would come down by $275” and was making excuses.
Taylor claimed people were $1,300 a year worse off than was promised, but Chalmers responded, “That is a made-up number.”
Chalmers says Taylor had ‘multiple’ opportunities to ‘come clean’ on cuts to fund nuclear, but didn’t
Angus Taylor said “you’ve got to make sure you’re not spending money that doesn’t need to be spent”, and listed off a bunch of numbers.
Jim Chalmers interjected, saying he “just made those numbers up”:
He won’t even talk about the $600bn he needs to find to fund these nuclear reactors. They can’t find those $600bn without cuts, including in areas like health and education, like they’ve done before, and that’s why he’s had multiple opportunities to come clean tonight, and he won’t do it.
Chalmers and Taylor on cost-of-living measures
Back at the treasurers’ debate, Jim Chalmers has been outlining the centrepieces of Labor’s budget – cost-of-living relief, energy bill rebate, strengthening Medicare, cheaper medicine, student debt relief and the tax cut – and said:
When Angus Taylor, in a minute, tells you that he cares about the cost of living, remember that he wants lower wages, higher income taxes, and there is no ongoing cost-of-living relief if Peter Dutton wins the election … Labor is doing more for you to help with the cost of living in an enduring way and in an immediate way.
Taylor responded that “you’ve got to beat inflation sustainably”, and said strong economic management meant “slashing red tape – not essential services”.
He also pointed to the Coalition’s fuel excise, saying “immediate cost of living relief that really works is the focus”.
Benita Kolovos
Jewish Community Forum wraps up in Melbourne
All eyes are now on the treasurers’ debate, but we’ve just wrapped up at the Jewish community forum at Temple Beth Israel in St Kilda.
Benson Saulo ended his closing statement with a vow to stand with the Jewish community in Macnamara:
I’m really proud to be able to stand here and to put my hand up and say that I will stand with the Jewish community here. I will stand with Israel and I will stand as a strong representative for Macnamara in parliament … you know that you have a friend in me. You have a strong advocate in me, and I continue to fight for and address the issues that we are seeing right across our communities and around cost of living, around privacy and antisemitism.
Josh Burns said with a Labor win likely, it’s important to have an advocate for the community “inside the room”.
We are heading towards being re-elected in this country, and I think that the Coalition are slipping right now as they have not outlined a vision for our country. And I think that the interests of the Jewish community needs to be served by people inside the room, someone who is existential for and someone who cannot turn away from this community. Now, I love this community. I grew up here. I went to Mount Scopus. I played basketball for Maccabi. Now I am, every time I’m in the newspaper, it says, “Josh Burns, who is Jewish”.
To this, the same man from earlier interjects, describing Burns’s comments as “useless bullshit”. He was promptly ejected.
After a vote of thanks from Daniel Aghion from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, just as the event was wrapping up, another man yelled out:
Josh, you are a friend of Israel but your Labor mates are not.
There’s been some heated moments, but both Burns and Saulo have been highly complimentary of each other and most of the crowd has been respectful, after repeated warnings from moderators and the local rabbi.
Chalmers says Taylor ‘evasive’ on cuts because he is going to election with three policies
Jim Chalmers was asked if he would reverse the $20bn to forgive student debt to save money – but he ruled this out:
It’s a very important investment, and we’re proud of it, and we will do it if we win the election in a few weeks.
He turned the spotlight back on Angus Taylor and said the reason he was “so evasive when you asked him to come clean on his cuts” is because he is going to the election with just three policies:
First of all, to increase income taxes on every Australian taxpayer. Second of all, lower wages. And, thirdly, secret cuts to pay for nuclear reactors. And you can’t find $600bn to pay for those nuclear reactors without coming after Medicare, just like Peter Dutton did when he was the health minister.
Angus Taylor is asked: how do you manage an economic downturn when a government has got to cut?
He responds that you need to “give the private sector the confidence to grow”.
The host says that he is “talking about a possible downturn, [and] there’s no growth in the downturn”.
Taylor replies:
Well, you know, if you get business investing, you can avoid a downturn … We’ve said grow the economy faster than spending. We’ve also said there’s $100bn of spending that Labor has committed to, Jim’s committed to, that we think is unnecessary at this time.
Shadow treasurer argues Chalmers overseeing ‘a lost decade’
Angus Taylor is back up, and has argued that “GDP per capita has gone backwards for 21 months in a row under your so-called stewardship, Jim [Chalmers]”.
There was a bit of back-and-forth as he spoke, with the shadow treasurer saying:
There is no plan. This is incredibly important. Your plan that you put out in your own budget doesn’t have our standard of living going back to where it was when you came into government until 2030 or beyond … This is a lost decade that you’re overseeing, Jim, a lost decade.
Chalmers says budget in ‘much better state’ than three years ago
Jim Chalmers said he expects the Australian economy to continue to grow, when asked about the state of the budget.
He argued it was in a “much better state” than it was three years ago, and continued:
The average unemployment rate under this Albanese government is the lowest of any government in 50 [years] … It means that we go into this uncertainty around the world from a position of strength, and what we’ve been able to do, which is unusual in the world, is get inflation much lower than what we inherited from Angus.
Taylor defends Coalition history of dealing with Trump
Responding, Angus Taylor said he’d seen “the first piece of nonsense from Jim tonight”, and defended the Coalition’s history of dealing with Trump and the US.
When we were last in government, of course, we did take on the Trump administration, and we avoided tariffs. As a result, Jim went over to the US not long ago, got the photo opportunity, but he didn’t come back here with what we needed, which is free access to the US market.
Chalmers labels Coalition ‘Doge-y sycophants’ over response to US tariffs
The treasurers were played part of this exchange from US senators over the tariffs placed on Australia:
Jim Chalmers responded first, saying he had met with Senator Mark Warner in the past and appreciates his support.
A lot of the sentiments that he expressed in that clip are points that the prime minister has made himself.
The treasurer pointed to the need to make the economy “more resilient [and] our markets more diverse”.
Here, I think we’ve got the first contrast of the debate tonight … because we’ve got a prime minister standing up for and speaking up for Australia, and we’ve got an opposition leader and an opposition which is absolutely full of these kind of Doge-y sycophants who have hitched their wagon to American-style slogans and policies, and especially cuts which would make Australians are worse off.
And now they wonder why nobody believes them when they desperately try to pretend to unhitch their wagon from some of the policies and cuts that we’ve seen in the US.
