New Treasurer claims ScoMo left economy in "a mess"
New Labor Treasurer Jim Chalmers has claimed Scott Morrison left Australia's economy in "a mess", and warned Aussies of a "serious economic challenges" ahead.
At a press conference on Wednesday, Chalmers told the media that inflation and interest rates were higher since the end of March, petrol prices were up 12 per cent since the end of April, and wholesale electricity and gas prices were also significantly higher under the Morrison government.
“We do have labour shortages and we do still have Covid absenteeism, and the international environment has become more challenging as well,” he told reporters.
“There is no point tiptoeing around these serious economic challenges. There is no point mincing words about the sorts of conditions that we have inherited."
“We have inherited high and rising inflation and rising interest rates, we’ve inherited falling real wages and we’ve inherited $1 trillion in debt.”
He went on to say that the economy forecast was weaker in March than the Morrison government claimed at election time, while saying, “Consumption, dwelling investment, new business investment, exports and nominal GDP were all weaker in the March quarter than was anticipated by our predecessors.”
“These national accounts are a glimpse of the mess that the former government left behind for us to clean up."
“Obviously, we want the economy to recover strongly. Obviously, we want household consumption and other key elements of the national accounts to be as strong as possible.
“But even when, on the surface, they might look stronger than they have been during the worst of Covid, they are still short of what the government was hoping for.”
In relation to growing energy costs, Chalmers said there was a "perfect storm" of challenges facing the energy market.
“These are the costs and consequences of almost a decade now of a government with 22 different energy policies failing to land the necessary certainty to improve the resilience of our energy markets,” he said.
“This is the chickens coming home to roost when it comes to almost a decade now on climate change and energy policy failure from our predecessors."
The Albanese government has been passionate about their climate change policy, with a strong goal of reaching net zero by 2050.
Despite the government's passion for energy reform, financial experts have warned that growing oil and gas prices could plunge Australia into a recession before Christmas if radical change isn't made sooner rather than later.
Chalmers also said that workers on a minimum wage should not be further disadvantaged through the ongoing cost of living crisis.
“Minimum wage workers were in many cases the heroes of the pandemic. They shouldn’t be going backwards in this cost of living crisis,” he said.
Although Labor are dedicated to reducing the cost of living, The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) said global events – including the rolling conflict in Ukraine – would continue to impact the Australian economy in the months ahead.
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