Angus Taylor and Jim Chalmers trade petty barbs in Sky News Treasurers’ Debate

Here are the top moments from the Sky News Treasurers’ Debate, where arguments got feisty and insults got personal between Jim Chalmers and Angus Taylor. SEE THE VIDEOS

Treasurer Jim Chalmers and his opposition rival Angus Taylor went head-to-head in their first debate of the campaign.

The pair faced-off at the Sky News Treasurers’ Debate the day after Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton debated on the Sky News/Daily Telegraph People’s Forum.

The pressure was on for the Coalition after Mr Albanese won that debate but 21 per cent of voters remained undecided.

Here are the key moments:

Chalmers calls Coalition “DOGE-y sycophants”

Treasurer Jim Chalmers labelled the Coalition as “DOGE-y sycophants” borrowing their policies from Donald Trump.

Asked about the tariffs levelled by the Trump administration, Mr Chalmers said the PM was “standing up for Australia” while the Opposition had “hitched their wagon” to President Donald Trump.

“We’ve got an Opposition Leader and an Opposition which is absolutely full of these kind of DOGE-y sycophants who have hitched their wagon to American style slogans and policies, and especially cuts, which would make Australians worse off,” he said.

He said the Coalition has been copying policies “directly from the US”.

Chalmers and Taylor answer their biggest critics

Mr Greenwood said colleagues described Mr Chalmers as a good communicator with a glass jaw.

”I think everyone gets grumpy sometimes, but I don’t think I get grumpy about that necessarily. I think I’ve learned over time to focus on the objective observers of the job that I’m doing,” Mr Chalmers said.

“And I think ultimately the Australian people will judge that, rather than the kind of partisan commentators from time to time.”

For Mr Taylor, Mr Greenwood raises criticism that his detractors think he is lazy.

“There is lots of free advice in this game … but I tell you what I work every single day … hard work does matter,” Mr Taylor said.

Chalmers asked to apologise

Mr Chalmers said he took responsibility for his government’s decision-making but stopped short of apologising for a broken 2022 promise to bring power prices down by $275.

“I take responsibility for all of the decisions that we’ve taken in our budget … including the fact that energy prices, energy bills last year were $300 cheaper because of our subsidies that Angus didn’t support,” Mr Chalmers said.

Mr Taylor then accused Mr Chalmers of looking for excuses.

“Jim will look for an excuse for everything. It’s Vladimir Putin, it’s President Xi (Jinping), it’s Donald Trump.”

The opponents ask each other a question

The debate quickly turned petty as host Mr Greenwood told both leaders to ask the other a question.

Mr Taylor repeated a question already asked by Mr Greenwood, asking if he will apologise to voters for the broken promise of lower cost of energy and living.

Mr Chalmers is quick to take a dig: “Angus wrote down that question and then you (Greenwood) asked it, and he didn’t have the ability to think up a second question”.

Mr Taylor retorted: “I was giving you another go”.

For Mr Chalmers’ turn, he asked: “I want to ask Angus, will he repeat the same commitment of no cuts to health or education that his party took to the 2013 election?

“He literally just made that up”

Despite starting the debate with the promise of being respectful to each other, both politicians accused the other of lying.

Mr Chalmers accused his rival of making up key figures in his attack lines.

Mr Taylor said: “Under Labor, we have seen groceries up by 30 per cent, gas, electricity and insurance all up over 30 per cent.”

“He just made those numbers up … literally just made those numbers up,” Mr Chalmers interjected.

At another point of the debate, he added: “That’s a made up number too”.

Mr Angus also responded to several of Mr Chalmers’ claims with “that’s nonsense Jim”.

“Secret cuts”

Mr Chalmers told the audience the Coalition will make “secret cuts” to pay for their nuclear energy policy.

“The reason why Angus was evasive when you asked him to come clean on his cuts is because I think for the first time in our history, Angus is going to the election with three policies,” he told the audience.

“First of all, to increase income tax on every Australian taxpayer. Second of all, lower wages and thirdly, secret cuts to pay for nuclear reactors and you can’t find $600bn to pay for those nuclear reactors without coming after Medicare.”

The Coalition has repeatedly ruled out cuts to frontline services like Medicare.

Negative gearing scare campaign

Mr Taylor pulled out a scare campaign of his own and like Mediscare, it’s a tried and tested one: Labor is coming for negative gearing.

“(Adam Bandt) wants to do probably what Jim wants to do, because we know he’s asked Treasury to do modelling on this, he wants to get rid of negative gearing,” he said.

“He wants to impose capital gains tax, capital gains tax on the family home.”

The Greens are indeed coming for negative gearing but Labor has not expressed any support for these policies.

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles said in October: “We’re not doing negative gearing. That’s been made manifestly clear and none of that has changed.”

Taylor accused of hiding price rise

Angus Taylor has been accused of “hiding” a decision which increased energy prices until after the 2022 election, pressed to explain why Australians could believe him now that he is promising to cut bills by three per cent.

“Why in 2022 did you hide that price rise from the Australian people?” Sky News Political Editor Andrew Clennell asked.

“Given you did, why can we believe your policy promising this three per cent reduction in power price?”

Mr Taylor denied “hiding” the increase.

“What we saw in my time at energy is a cut in electricity prices between eight to 10 per cent depending whether a small business, large business, or a household.

“We also saw big reductions in gas prices.”

He said bringing gas prices down would flow on to lower power prices from other sources.

Originally published as Angus Taylor and Jim Chalmers trade petty barbs in Sky News Treasurers’ Debate