00:01The Treasurer Jim Chalmers has said that it'll be unveiled by the Prime Minister and Energy
00:06Minister Chris Bowen later today. That's after the Prime Minister meets with state and territory
00:11leaders as part of National Cabinet. He says it'll focus on supply chain resilience and
00:16also ensuring more fuel for motorists and industry. But beyond that, pretty light on
00:21details. Of course, Australia's fuel supply and how we import so much of it has really
00:27been under the spotlight since the war in Iran. We've seen leaders here in Australia travel,
00:33particularly throughout Asia, to try and shore up energy supplies. So we should have more
00:38details on that package, which will be part of the budget this afternoon.
00:42That decision yesterday by the RBA to hike interest rates, how is that going to play into next
00:47week's budget?
00:48Yeah, look, this is pretty much a warning from the RBA Governor Michelle Bullock to Jim Chalmers.
00:53She's saying that the RBA has used the tool it can to try and tame inflation, of course,
00:59being a rate hike, the third this year. But now it's up to the government to ensure it doesn't
01:04do anything else to add to inflation. So we've heard from the Treasurer this morning, he was
01:10quite sort of defensive, saying that this was really a hypothetical situation and that the
01:15budget won't add all this extra stimulus. He says it'll be very responsible.
01:21The budget won't be pumping a lot of extra stimulus into the economy. In fact, overall,
01:25we'll be winding back spending in the budget. We've made that clear already. And so that
01:31hypothetical question, based on that budget speculation, the Governor did her best to give
01:37an in-principle hypothetical answer to that question.
01:40So this discussion about handouts might be really hard for people to hear, particularly, you know,
01:46depending on the size of your mortgage. Since the start of the year, it could have gone up three,
01:50four, five hundred dollars a month. So people are paying a lot more as a result of these
01:55interest rate hikes. But the Reserve Bank Governor, Michelle Bullock, says that the country really
02:00needs to get on top of inflation now before it gets even worse.
02:04The government still isn't ruling out this one-off tax break. What do we know about that?
02:09Yeah, this was reported yesterday in the Australian newspaper. And there've been lots of questions
02:13about it since. But the government isn't ruling it in or out, just saying that it's just more
02:17speculation ahead of a budget, which it says is typical, and says that sometimes that speculation
02:23is right, sometimes it's wrong. So we don't have too much detail about that, other than
02:27the report in the newspaper suggesting it'll be a tax offset for workers between two and three
02:33hundred dollars. Now, Angus Taylor, the opposition leader, was asked on the ABC this morning about
02:38if he would support or oppose extra cost of living measures.
02:43A couple of hundred bucks a year is not going to make the difference. Labor keeps talking
02:47about putting a bandaid on a bullet wound.
02:50That's Angus Taylor speaking there, so saying he still would need time to assess any policy
02:55that ends up being part of the budget.
02:57And plans for the Melbourne to Brisbane Inland Rail have been shelved. What's gone on there?
03:02Another budget measure here, Gemma. So essentially, this was supposed to be this big freight corridor
03:09between Melbourne all the way up to Brisbane. But the federal government has said this morning
03:14that it is costing so much more than it was expected, blown out to $45 billion, which is
03:20three times the current budget allocation. So work to Parks, the town in New South Wales,
03:26which is sort of halfway up New South Wales, that will continue and that should be delivered
03:32by the end of next year. So that'll allow double stacked freight between Melbourne and Perth,
03:38of course, going via parks there. But really a big announcement coming from the federal government
03:43because it's something that it's really talked up before this inland rail.
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