According to the Department of Finance’s monthly financial statement, which was released on Friday, the underlying budget deficit for May was $33.4 billion rather than the $60.5 billion that had been anticipated after 11 months of the 2021/22 fiscal year.
The March budget projected a $79.8 billion deficit for the entire year.
Dr. Chalmers stated on Sunday on the ABC’s Insiders program, “Obviously, we want those numbers to come in strongly.”
However, they fail to consider the volatility of our commodity prices. The budget may be affected by the iron ore price decline of 12% last week, in my opinion.
Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor boasted in a tweet that the coalition government’s strong economic management was to blame for the successful budget outcome.
It was interesting, he tweeted, that Labor tried to release these numbers covertly late on a Friday afternoon.
On a Friday afternoon, the monthly statement is typically made public.
Dr. Chalmers claimed that a number of factors, including the interest payments on the trillion dollars in debt Labor inherited, were working against the budget.
“The cost of servicing that debt increases as interest rates rise steadily.” Therefore, that adds to the budget pressure,’ he said.
When you take into account the necessary and justified spending that is in the budget, there is a fairly significant structural deficit, and rising borrowing costs is one of the additional pressures.
In October, Dr. Chalmers will present his first budget.
According to Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, the federal government should double the maximum pensioners can earn without cutting benefits to $600 per fortnight.
It would try to alleviate the persistent labor shortages that the economy is currently experiencing.
Dr Chalmers said both parties of the parliament were looking at this before the election since there was a need to establish a broader pool of available workers.
I’ve had good, fruitful discussions about whether or not we can do something here with National Seniors and others,’ he said.
Even though this idea seems to have a modest price tag, it still has a lot of costs associated with it.
It is a topic that will be discussed at the government’s Jobs Summit, which will bring together business and labor unions, in September.
When the legislature reconvenes in July, Dr. Chalmers will also deliver an economic update in a ministerial statement that will include the administration’s inflation predictions.
That will demonstrate that inflation will worsen before improving, he said.
“That’s the expectation right now across the board, so that’s a challenging situation we need to handle before inflation hopefully moderates throughout the course of next year,”
