00:00 Australians are still under pressure, which is why Labor's cost of living tax cut for
00:06 Middle Australia is so important.
00:09 These numbers show we are making more welcome and encouraging progress in the fight against
00:15 inflation, but it's not mission accomplished yet because we know people are still under
00:21 the pump.
00:23 One of the most encouraging elements of these new figures today is the fact that government
00:29 policies are so clearly helping to put downward pressure on inflation.
00:34 So this is more welcome and more encouraging progress, but not mission accomplished because
00:39 people are still under pressure.
00:41 And that's why we want to give a bigger tax cut for Middle Australia from the 1st of July.
00:48 Every Australian taxpayer will get a tax cut, but for 84% of Australians, a bigger tax cut
00:55 to help deal with the cost of living pressures which are still there, despite this really
01:00 welcome and encouraging data that we are receiving today.
01:05 Now as you know, the Consumer Price Index further moderated to 4.1% in the year to the
01:11 December quarter 2023, and that was down from 5.4% in the September quarter.
01:17 The monthly CPI, which bounces around a bit more and can be a bit more volatile, moderated
01:23 further to 3.4% in the 12 months to December 2023, which is down from 4.3% in November.
01:32 Inflation is now at its lowest level in two years.
01:36 Monthly inflation has a three in front of it for the first time since December 2021.
01:42 As I said, the monthly numbers do bounce around a bit, but we're now seeing in the monthly
01:47 figures almost half the 6.1% recorded in May 2022 at the time of the election.
01:55 So inflation has come off really substantially since its peaks in 2022, but we need it to
02:02 moderate further and even faster because we know that people are still under pressure.
02:09 It is worth noting that today's figures are better than the market expected.
02:17 Annual inflation moderated 1.3 percentage points in the December quarter.
02:21 That's the fastest pace of moderation since annual inflation peaked at 7.8% in the December
02:27 quarter of 2022.
02:29 Inflation increased 0.6% in the quarter, less than a third of the quarterly peak reported
02:35 in the March quarter 2022 before the election.
02:39 So these are all of the ways that we know that we're making welcome and encouraging
02:44 progress in this fight against inflation.
02:47 But the reason the tax cuts are so important is because people still need relief from these
02:54 cost of living pressures.
02:55 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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