CANBERRA — Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese say they’re “struggling to understand” why inflation and interest rates keep rising, despite what they describe as “record-breaking government spending to fix it.”
“We’ve pumped money into everything — NDIS, handouts, public sector growth — and yet prices keep going up,” Chalmers said. “It just doesn’t add up.”
The government has instead pointed to the war in Iran as the main cause, despite the Reserve Bank basing its latest rate decisions on inflation data from before the conflict began.
Critics say the real issue is overspending, with billions flowing into what they call a “propped-up NDIS economy,” questionable infrastructure — including roads that seem to conveniently benefit Albanese’s Central Coast retreat — and ongoing union influence.
Meanwhile, Social Services Minister Aneka Wells defended recent overseas meetings, including in the Maldives, saying they were “critical to understanding cost-of-living pressures.”
“If only we had some kind of historical evidence that centrally planned, high-spending economic models can spiral out of control,” Chalmers said, gesturing vaguely toward places like the Soviet Union and more recent examples like Venezuela and Cuba. “Unfortunately, this appears to be completely new territory.”
Despite growing pressure, the government insists its strategy is working, announcing a new taxpayer-funded taskforce to investigate why everything is getting more expensive.
