"People are losing faith": Nat Barr takes aim at Albanese government
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has defended his record on economic management as the Labor party's primary vote continues to slip in the polls against Peter Dutton ahead of next year's election.
This week's Newspoll shows that Labor's primary vote has slumped to 31 per cent, the lowest it has been since the 2022 election, while the Coalition remains steady at 38 per cent.
On Thursday, Sunrise host Nat Barr told the Prime Minister that while on her way to the studio she had spoken to a Labor-voting taxi driver who said he was "losing faith" in Albanese's leadership, as things were "too expensive".
“This is your biggest problem, people like this cabby are losing faith. How do you respond to that?” Barr asked Albanese.
Albanese defended his choices by pointing out that ABS figures released on Wednesday showed annual inflation rates at 2.7 per cent in August, down from 3.5 per cent in July, and the lowest it has been since August 2021.
“Cost-of-living pressures are real, but that’s why we have engaged with responsible economic management in order to bring inflation down whilst we have been delivering cost-of-living relief,” he said.
“Yesterday’s figures show the headline inflation is down from 3.5 to 2.7 (per cent), it is a good outcome.
“There’s more work to be done, but we’ve done that whilst we have delivered a tax cut for that cabby who would have got nothing under the previous scheme.”
Albanese added that energy bill relief, cheaper childcare, and fee-free TAFE places were also making a difference to cost-of-living pressures.
However, Barr hit back and said that the cost-of-living measures such as the energy rebate were “artificial” as the rebate would end.
“The RBA has said, this does not mean that inflation is under control. The power rebate is going to end and that’s keeping it at one level at the moment, that’s why they look at underlying inflation — they take out volatile stuff,” Barr said.
“So, what do you say about inflation still being at this level?” she asked.
“What I say is if you exclude volatile, the figures released yesterday, which are known as month-by-month, but they’re year-to-year … that figure is down from 3.7 down to 3 (per cent). That’s a remarkable drop,” Albanese responded.
“The Reserve Bank Australia’s target band is 2 to 3 (per cent). Every single one of the figures yesterday that were released, whether it was headline, excluding volatile, mean, all of them saw significant drops in inflation.
“Inflation is half what we inherited and one-third of where it peaked …That is in part because of the back-to-back budget surpluses that we have delivered that in part is, yes, energy bill relief, but also what we’ve done in cheaper childcare, fee-free TAFE, the deliberate policy design to help people whilst putting that downward pressure on inflation,” he said.
Image: Sunrise