Federal Budget 2022: Live reader Q & A with Jim Chalmers after power bill promise bungle

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has conceded he incorrectly said Labor’s promise to cut power bills by $275 had been included in the budget, before being grilled by readers. Replay the Q&A here.

A bungled answer to a simple question on whether Labor would deliver on its election promise households and businesses will save $275 on power prices has forced Treasurer Jim Chalmers into an embarrassing backtrack.

Mr Chalmers initially said “yep, it’s in the budget” when asked if Australians should expect to get the power bill saving based on pre-election electricity prices by 2025.

But one hour later he fronted up to Question Time to claim he had “misheard” the journalist who had asked about the promise, and had not intended to offer any such guarantee.

“I thought (the journalist was) asking me a different question – I misheard it and I answered a different question,” Mr Chalmers said.

Asked by News Corp to clarify Labor’s position on the $275 on Wednesday afternoon, Mr Chalmers said the forecast was based on modelling that did not account for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers bungled his response to the election promise at his Budget Address at the National Press Club. Picture: Martin Ollman/Getty Images

“The $275 figure was part of the modeling that we released last year and it referred to the price in 2025,” he said.

“I think people understand really three things about that.

“First of all, renewable energy is cheaper energy ... secondly, we’ve got this war in Ukraine for ... causing havoc with the energy market, pushing up prices.

“And thirdly, we’ve had this situation over the best part of a decade where too much capacity has been pulled out of the market and not enough has been added and that’s made it a bit harder as well.”

Dr Chalmers later discussed this is in a live Q&A online with News Corp readers.

Watch the video recap above to see what he said.

It came after more affordable housing, cheaper childcare and medicines and expanding paid parental leave became central cost-of-living relief measures in the Albanese Government’s first budget.

In an exclusive message to News Corp readers, Treasurer Jim Chalmers made his pitch to help households deal with rising costs, while also warning of tough economic conditions ahead.

The budget is expected to hit $36.9 billion this financial year, while gross debt will soar to above $1.15 trillion in 2025-26.

Among the major new announcements in Tuesday’s budget was the unveiling of a New Housing Accord, which aims to build one million new, well-located homes over five years from 2024.

There were no changes to the contentious stage three tax cuts package, but Labor has announced a crackdown on Australians who don’t correctly fill out their income tax returns expected to save the government $3.7bn over four years.

The government has allocated $4.6bn to increase Child Care Subsidy rates for families earning less than $530,000, and $531.6m over four years from 2022-23 to expand the Paid Parental Leave scheme.

From January next year the maximum co-payment of $42.50 for medicine scrips will drop to $30.

There is also funding for a pending Fair Work Commission pay rise for 300,000 aged care workers.

Defence spending will rise to more than 2 per cent of GDP for the first time in two decades.

Australia has committed $213m over five years in assistance for Ukraine in its war with Russia.

A $137.7m Fraud Fusion Taskforce will be established to stop people rorting the NDIS.

The government has also allocated $1.7bn in the next six years to tackle violence against women and children.

A $1bn has been invested in creating extra university places and fee-free TAFE positions.