No new cost-of-living relief after big budget surplus

The Albanese government is celebrating its budget surplus, but it’s still unclear when household budgets will get some reprieve.

Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers is claiming a massive “$172bn turnaround” after the Albanese government delivered a second consecutive budget surplus, but question marks remain around when household budgets will get any relief.

The final federal budget outcome showed Labor returned a $15.8bn surplus for 2023-24, marking the first back-to-back surplus in 15 years.

Mr Chalmers told reporters on Monday the government had ushered in “the biggest nominal improvement in the budget in a parliamentary term ever”.

He did not outline any new cost-of-living relief measures or offer a timeline of when pressure might ease on households, but said the government did not “see a surplus as an end in itself”.

Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers says the government has not ‘chosen between cost of living relief or budget surpluses’ because ‘we’ve been able to do both’. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Finance Minister Katy Gallagher announced the budget surplus on Monday. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

“One of the reasons we are proud of the consecutive surpluses that we’ve delivered for the first time in almost two decades is we haven’t done that or cost-of-living relief,” he said.

“We’ve done that and cost-of-living relief, a tax cut for every taxpayer energy bill relief for every household, cheaper medicines, cheaper early childhood education.”

He said the government knew that “people are still under really substantial pressure”.

Though, not everyone views the surplus so positively against a backdrop of soaring housing and food costs.

Outspoken independent senator Jacqui Lambie said the federal government’s $15.8bn budget surplus would be better spent helping struggling Australians “put bread and milk on the table”.

She said people were more concerned about cost-of-living pressures than the government’s chunky fiscal win.

“Nobody gives a stuff about a surplus,” she told Nine’s Today show.

“Mate, I can assure you right now people are doing it hard out there. Nobody’s talking about a surplus.”

Jacqui Lambie says the federal government’s $15.8bn budget surplus would be better spent helping struggling Australians ‘put bread and milk on the table’. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

She said Australians would be asking why the government was not pushing “some of that surplus out to us so we can put bread and milk on the table for our kids and do that without raising the inflation”.

Senator Lambie said “people are really hurting out there”.

“Honestly, give them more. Find a way to do it,” she said.

The surplus follows last fiscal’s year’s $22.1bn.

It is a marked turnaround from the pre-election budget and fiscal outlook in 2022, when the Coalition was still in power, which forecast a $56.5bn deficit for this financial year.

The surplus also dampens the Coalition’s claims the government has a problem with runaway spending.

But shadow treasurer Angus Taylor said that was not the case.

Shadow treasurer Angus Taylor says the government is the ‘biggest spending, biggest taxing in Australian history’ despite the surplus. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

“Household budgets are in tatters under this Labor government. We’ve seen a 9 per cent reduction in real disposable income for Australian households,” he told Sky News.

“This is a disastrous situation for them, so they really aren’t very interested in the spin that we hear from this Treasurer day in, day out.

“But we should also be clear that this is the biggest spending, biggest taxing government in Australian history.”

Earlier, Mr Chalmers said Labor had “found almost $80bn in savings” since entering government.

“But really the key here … is the fact that when we’ve got upward revisions to revenue, because the labour market’s been a bit stronger, or our exports have been performing well,” he told the ABC.

“We’ve banked almost all of those upward revisions to revenue, and if we hadn’t shown that spending restraint, we wouldn’t be anywhere near these two consecutive surpluses for the first time in almost two decades.”

Gross debt has also improved by about $17.bn, from a forecasted $923bn to a final figure of $906.9bn.