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Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton in parliament on Tuesday.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Treasurer Jim Chalmers ispreparing to meet a group of Labor MPs who requested a discussion about their budget wish list as they seek to placate frustrated constituents whose wages continue to be outpaced by inflation.

Australian Council of Trade Unions chief Sally McManus and construction union boss Zach Smith both said in interviews that dealing with hip-pocket concerns was the government’s crucial test before an election to be held as early as next year.

Calling for a super profits tax on big business and increased spending to ease the housing shortage,Smith said struggling Australians were demanding ambitious economic policies. He said he would also support short-term measures such as cutting the fuel excise or subsidising energy bills.

“I think there’s a serious risk of the government losing the public argument next year,” he said.

“The Labor Party needs to be bold. Inequality is on the rise,the cost-of-living crisis is still raging. It leads to social disharmony and of course there’s a political cost for any incumbent.”

McManus urged Labor to enact new industrial laws that spur wages growth,speed up the transition to renewables,target energy bill relief and consider making childcare universal.

“Obviously,the government will want to be careful about balancing that with the risk of fuelling inflation,but I also think there’s a lot more that can be done to put pressure on companies to stop price gouging,” she said.

“People are all hurting and this is not just a small issue – it’s large sections of the population. It can’t be overlooked;it’s[the] number one,two and three issues.”

Speaking to his MPs in a private meeting on Tuesday,Albanese said the cost of living had been the government’s top agenda item,but it had more to do.

“Our test going forward through the course of next year will be continuing to deliver our promises and making a difference for households,especially around cost-of-living pressures,” Albanese said,according to a Labor spokesman.

Two Labor MPs,who asked to remain anonymous to speak frankly about the government’s performance,said they had expected Albanese and Chalmers to pivot quickly to new domestic policies,particularly economic ones,after the Voice referendum defeat.

“We were instead left to spruik the same lines on cheaper medicines and Medicare from earlier in the year,and that’s still what we’re out there selling,” one Sydney MP said.

But Labor backbencher Michelle Ananda-Rajah urged voters to stick with the government and its cost-of-living relief policies in energy and childcare,which she said would take some time to kick in and were more valuable than short-term measures.

Commonwealth Bank on Tuesday suggested Chalmers was on track to deliver his second successive federal budget surplus,saying strong tax collections were repairing the nation’s bottom line.

The latest Resolve Political Monitor findings from earlier this month showed only 8 per cent of voters expected the economy to improve over the next three months and 50 per cent believed it would get worse.

This sense of anxiety would only have been compounded by theReserve Bank’s statement last week that sticky inflation was now homegrown rather than being dominated by international factors.

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