DUTTON’S NEW CLANGER ON THE ECONOMY

The Leader of the Opposition has proven he’s completely out of his depth on the economy with another clanger on live television this morning.

During a press conference, the Leader of the Opposition wrongly claimed the government’s energy policy “continues to drive up inflation”.

This comes only weeks after the Australian Bureau of Statistics released new data showing that the government’s energy policy was helping to ease inflation.

Electricity prices increased 4.2 per cent in the September quarter but without the government’s energy rebates which the Coalition voted against, the ABS estimates prices would have increased 18.6 per cent.

Peter Dutton thinks he can lie about the economy all he likes but this just proves that his nasty negativity is no substitute for economic credibility.

He voted for higher energy prices and higher inflation in the Parliament – now he wants to pretend otherwise.

Mr Dutton’s comments put him at odds with the Governor of the Reserve Bank who described the government’s efforts to ease inflation on the fiscal side as “positive” and “very helpful”.

His comments are in conflict with independent international ratings agency Fitch which recently reaffirmed Australia’s AAA credit rating and confirmed the government’s budget was helping to fight inflation.

And he's at odds with the IMF who backed our economic strategy saying; "fiscal policy is working with monetary policy to avoid inflationary pressures."

The Albanese Government has a responsible economic agenda:

• We are rolling out tens of billions of dollars in cost-of-living relief, carefully calibrated to help people with cost-of-living pressures without adding to inflation.
• More than 620,000 jobs have been created on our watch, which is more than any other first term government on record, and we’re only half way through our first term. 
• We’ve maintained historically low unemployment, labour force participation around record highs and wages are growing at around their fastest pace since 2009.
• We’ve delivered Australia’s first surplus in 15 years and overseen the biggest nominal budget turnaround in Australian history, from a $78 billion projected deficit under the Coalition to a $22.1 billion surplus under Labor. 
• We’ve delivered the kind of responsible economic management and spending restraint that would be unrecognisable to our predecessors – banking 87 per cent of upward revisions to revenue across two budgets and finding more than $40 billion in savings.

The Liberals and Nationals racked up a trillion dollars of debt with not enough to show for it and we are cleaning up the mess.