Treasurer Jim Chalmers claims back-to-back surpluses don’t come at cost of household budgets

Treasurer Jim Chalmers claims the Government’s second consecutive surplus has not come at the expense of cost-of-living relief for households, despite criticism that the money should not be banked.

The Treasurer and Finance Minister Katy Gallagher unveiled the final Budget outcome for 2023/24 on Monday, which showed the surplus for the year was $6.4 billion higher than previously thought, coming in at $15.8 billion.

Lower than anticipated government spending accounted for twice as much of the boost as changes in revenue.

But asked how he justified the state of the Budget to households struggling to pay their own bills, Dr Chalmers said it was not an either-or proposition.

“One of the reasons we are proud of the consecutive surpluses that we’ve delivered for the first time in almost two decades is we haven’t done that or cost of living relief. We’ve done that and cost of living relief,” he said.

“We understand the pressures that people are under. We’ve deliberately ensured that we have found room for that cost-of-living relief so that we can help people doing it tough.”

Addressing Cabinet earlier in the day, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said it was a remarkable feat the Government had “managed to turn Liberal deficits into Labor surpluses”.

“And that has assisted in putting that downward pressure on inflation, at the same time as we’ve delivered tax cuts for every single taxpayer... making a difference for people,” he said.

The Budget is still tipped to return to deficit in the current financial year, but Dr Chalmers said that was smaller than what was forecast when Labor came to office in 2022.

He said while it would be hard to turn it into a surplus, the forecast deficit has been downgraded from $47bn to $28bn.

“So even where we’ve got a currently forecast deficit for the third year, it is a much smaller deficit than what we inherited from the Liberals and Nationals,” he said.

“Clearly, a $28 billion deficit is hard to get rid of in one whack, but we will continue to make the right decisions for the right reasons and manage the Budget and the economy in the most responsible way.”

Senator Gallagher said the Government would continue to pursue savings.

“We continue to look for savings elsewhere, and we’ll do that through the mid-year process,” she said.