Anthony Albanese pushes the blame onto the Coalition, the Greens

In an exclusive interview with The Daily Telegraph, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has ripped into both the Greens and the Coalition blaming them for housing and migration issues.

Anthony Albanese has ripped into the Greens and the Coalition for why Australia is lagging on housing targets and vowed to do more for cost-of-living in the run up to the election as the nation received mixed results on inflation.

The latest consumer price index figures revealed headline inflation has risen while mean inflation is down from 3.5 per cent to 3.2 per cent.

The more positive measure of cost-of-living removes volatile price items like oil and electricity and factors in federal and state policies that bring down costs.

But headline inflation — which includes these more volatile measures — rose from 2.1 per cent to 2.3 per cent.

The figures have restored hope for mortgagees that an interest-rate cut could still be in sight but economists remain cautious that inflation is “only coming down very slowly”.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese embarked on a week-long blitz of Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia. Picture: Supplied by the PMO's Office

With an election around the corner, Mr Albanese vowed he will not wait for the polls to be called to help Australians with the cost of living.

The Labor leader also boldly guaranteed that Australians will be “better off under us” — maintaining he was optimistic about the nation’s ambitious housing targets.

“There will be more to come, we won’t wait for an election to be called,” he said.

“(When we came in) inflation was rising … people didn’t think it would go for as long as it did but you respond to things as they are.”

In an exclusive interview with The Daily Telegraph during a week-long blitz of Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia, Mr Albanese laid blame on the Greens for stalling key housing reforms like the Build to Rent and Shared Equity and the Coalition for not supporting their measures to cut migration.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visited Lake Nash station, on the Queensland-Northern Territory border. Picture: PMO via NewsWire

As he prepared to announce new housing in Western Australia, Mr Albanese accused the Coalition of manipulating the migration system.

“The fact that Covid visas were still in place when we came to office was something we had to address,” he said.

“The manipulation of the migration system has been underestimated, we have had to take action and we are.”

In a swipe at the Greens, he added: “Every one of our housing measures has been opposed … but we are getting on with things.”

Writing in The Daily Telegraph today, EQ Economics chief economist Warren Hogan said Australians must be careful not to fall for the more optimistic spin on inflation figures.

“Remove the effect of subsidies and volatile items, and inflation is more like 3.5 per cent,” he said.

“Better than 5 per cent inflation, but after a 15 to 20 per cent lift in the cost of living in recent years, Australia needs inflation back down to the RBA 2 per cent to 3 per cent target band, and for it to stay there.”

Originally published as Anthony Albanese pushes the blame onto the Coalition, the Greens