Federal treasurer Dr Jim Chalmers speaks in parliament after the November 2024 rate decision

Federal treasurer Jim Chalmers said the government is "confident but not complacent" in the fight against inflation

Transcript

00:00Now, Mr Speaker, the outcome today is not a surprise, but I direct the House

00:05to the new forecast released by the Independent Reserve Bank today, because what those forecasts

00:10show is whether it's headline inflation or trimmed mean inflation, they have lowered

00:17their forecasts for inflation over the next little while, Mr Speaker. So if you take inflation

00:23overall, Mr Speaker, headline inflation, they have downgraded it from, for the end of this year,

00:29from 3% to 2.6, for the middle of next year from 2.8 to 2.5, the middle of the band,

00:36and they've downgraded inflation even out in 2026, Mr Speaker. And for those opposite who

00:42asked me about trimmed mean inflation, they should also recognise that trimmed mean inflation,

00:47they have lowered their forecast for trimmed mean inflation across all of the forecast period,

00:53Mr Speaker. So what this shows is that we've been able to fight inflation without ignoring

00:58risk to growth and without sacrificing the gains that we've made in the labour market.

01:03We have struck the right balances by taking the right economic decisions

01:07for the right economic reasons. And because of that, we are confident but not complacent

01:12about a soft landing in our economy. We would much prefer a soft landing

01:16than to clean up after the hard landing that those opposite would prefer

01:20for political reasons, Mr Speaker. What these new forecasts show is that we continue to make

01:25welcome and encouraging progress in the fight against inflation. And the new

01:30forecasts released by the Independent Reserve Bank in the last few minutes go to that point.