No apology from Jim Chalmers for broken power bill promise

Jim Chalmers has refused to apologise for not delivering a promised bill cut of $275, while defending attacks from Angus Taylor that Labor had been the biggest-spending government since Gough Whitlam.

Jim Chalmers and Angus Taylor at the Sky News Treasurers' Debate on Wednesday night. Picture: Christian Gilles / NewsWire

You can now listen to The Australian's articles. Give us your feedback.

You can now listen to The Australian's articles.

Jim Chalmers has refused to apologise for not delivering a promised price cut of $275 on power bills, while defending attacks from opposition Treasury spokesman Angus Taylor that Labor had been the biggest-spending government since Gough Whitlam and had failed to win an exemption from Donald Trump’s tariff war.

In the first economic debate of the May 3 election campaign, hosted by Sky News, the two rivals scrapped and interrupted each other with accusations that neither could be trusted on the cost of living, managing debt and deficits, improving productivity or keeping immigration sustainable.

While saying he took “responsibility” for all of the decisions that Labor had taken in its budget, the Treasurer refused to apologise for failing to deliver Labor’s promised $275 energy bill saving and spruiked how low prices were compared with other countries.

“Energy bills last year were $300 cheaper because of our energy rebates that Angus didn’t support,” Dr Chalmers said.

After Labor junked the modelling it commissioned to underpin its promise to cut power bills and the Prime Minister refused to guarantee that power prices would fall once Labor’s extended energy relief rebates expired at the end of 2025, Mr Taylor leapt at the chance to call Dr Chalmers out on the reasons energy prices had kept skyrocketing.

“He will look for an excuse for everything,” Mr Taylor said. “Labor promised 97 times that electricity prices will come down by $275 and the excuses are across the board. It’s Vladimir Putin, it’s President Xi, it’s Donald Trump. The one thing you won’t do is accept the people who have promised a $275 reduction in my electorate.”

Dr Chalmers dismissed claims that Australia should have received a reprieve from Mr Trump’s 10 per cent “reciprocal” tariffs announced last week and said the Coalition could not have achieved that, calling them “DOGE-y sycophants” in reference to the Elon Musk-led US Department of Government Efficiency.

“We’ve got a Prime Minister standing up for and speaking up for Australia, and 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,” Dr Chalmers said.

“And now they wonder why nobody believes them when they desperately try to pretend to unhitch their wagon from some of the policies and cuts that we’ve seen in the US.”

Mr Taylor boasted of the last Morrison government, in which he was a minister, being able to attain tariff exemptions from Mr Trump during the President’s first term of office.

He said a Dutton government would be “prepared to take on an American administration”.

“We did when we were last in government, and we will again,” Mr Taylor said.

“Jim went over the US not long ago, got photo opportunities, but you didn’t come back here with what we needed.”

Central to the opposition’s ­attacks on the Albanese government is the accusation that it has been the biggest-spending government since the Whitlam government in the 1970s and that GDP per capita had gone backwards for 21 months.

Government payments per head of population under the Albanese government have been the largest since the Whitlam era and higher than during Covid. Real net disposable income per person has also fallen 8 per cent since March 2022.

“Who do you trust to manage the economy?” Mr Taylor said during the debate.

“The only person who has delivered lower real incomes and lower real wages in this parliament is you.

“Labor promised the world. They promised lower electricity prices. They promised lower mortgage costs. “They promised a lower cost of living and easier lives. The reality has been different. Prices are up, debt is up, deficits are up.”

Dr Chalmers defended the government’s economic record saying incomes were “falling sharply under you” and that they were growing again.

“The reason it’s growing is because of the tax cuts because we’ve got inflation down,” the Treasurer said.

The ALP, teals and Greens have launched scare campaigns attacking the Coalition’s energy plan, warning voters that its nuclear power investment will cost too much and take too long to bring online. Dr Chalmers continued the attack. “You can’t find $600bn to pay for those nuclear reactors without coming after Medicare, just like Peter Dutton did when he was the health minister,” he said.

Both rivals shirked any major commitments to tax and economic reform, shying away from any move to lower the corporate tax rate. Mr Taylor repeated accusations that immigration had been “out of control under this ­government”. If elected, the Coalition would slash Australia’s net overseas migration levels by 100,000 “straight away”, he said.

Mr Taylor sought to capitalise on his background to make the case that he would be the better treasurer. “Unlike Jim, I spent 25 years of my life working in business and economics,” he said. “I learned … you don’t need a bigger team to have a better time”.