Shadow Treasurer Jim Chalmers displaying a cost of living chart for the media on Wednesday.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
Last month’s federal budget showed a deficit of $80 billion this financial year to be followed by a $78 billion shortfall in 2022-23.Gross debt,currently $883 billion,is on track to reach $1.2 trillion by 2025-26.
Based on the Coalition’s own forecasts,the budget will remain in deficit for the rest of the decade and beyond with spending pressures growing in areas such as the National Disability Insurance Scheme,aged care,health and defence.
Labor’s economic blueprint focuses on their key election themes of increasing the size of the economy so that budget debt can be paid down faster,and making spending decisions based on quality.
It also includes a labour market white paper with a focus on wages growth and insecure work,a review of the Reserve Bank and the interaction between monetary and fiscal policy,plus a “framework” to attract the $3.5 billion superannuation sector into infrastructure projects of national significance.
Chalmers and Gallagher said Labor would have an internal “audit” of government programs with no set target on how much “waste” will be targeted for cutting. The audit is not expected to be like the one put in place by Tony Abbott when he won office in 2013 that targeted spending programs and fed into the contentious 2014 budget.
Chalmers said the budget had to focus on ways of improving the overall economy.
“We take the challenges of improving the budget,growing the economy without adding to inflationary pressures and getting real wages moving again,we take these seriously,” he said.