JIM CHALMERS:
Because of our collective efforts, we will be putting the Budget into much better shape. And one of the key objectives of the 2023 Budget, like the 2022 Budget, was to get the Budget in much better shape, to put the Budget on a more sustainable footing. This will be a Labor budget in every sense: help for the vulnerable, an eye to the future, and strict budget responsibility. Now, this will be a budget which is all about seeing people through and setting this country up for the future. We are proud of the distance that we have come in our first two budgets, but we've got a long way to travel still.
JOURNALIST:
If the Budget is in better shape, do you expect a surplus then?
CHALMERS:
That will be made clear on Budget night ‑ the final budget position will be made clear on Budget night, and I don't intend to pre‑empt that. But what is already clear is we wouldn't even be having this conversation if we'd taken the same approach to the Budget as our predecessors. The fact that people are speculating even about a Budget in balance is because of the responsible approach that we have taken to the first two budgets by making sure when we get these big upward revisions to revenue that we let most of that flow through to the bottom line. And that, more than anything ‑ our responsible approach to the Budget ‑ is why people are speculating about a budget in much better nick. Our objective all along is to get the Budget in much better nick so that we can fund the things that our society values: help for the vulnerable, setting the economy up to grow into the future. And that requires a foundation of strict budget discipline. And that's the approach that Katy Gallagher and I, the whole cabinet, the whole government are taking. You wouldn't even be asking me about whether the Budget is in balance or not if we had spent at the rate of our predecessors who gave us a trillion dollars in debt and not enough to show for it. What we're seeing now is the immense interest bill on the Liberal Party's failures, and our job is to clean up the mess that we inherited. It will take more than one budget, more than two budgets, probably more than one parliamentary term, to clean up the mess that the Liberals left behind.
JOURNALIST:
The Prime Minister is due to meet Rishi Sunak on Friday UK time to strike this free trade agreement deal, and he's indicated that it could be deflationary by making importing goods cheaper. Would that help with cost‑of‑living pressures?
CHALMERS:
Well, two things about that: I think a really important meeting between Prime Minister Albanese and Prime Minister Sunak, a great friend of Australia, and a really important opportunity for our Prime Minister to engage with theirs to strengthen both of our economies in our mutual interest. And when it comes to the Budget, our objective here is to provide responsible cost‑of‑living relief and invest in the foundations of growth into the future in ways that alleviate rather than exacerbate this inflation problem that we have in our economy.
JOURNALIST:
Maybe pre‑empting the Budget but it's worth a try: are you going to be considering the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax and can we expect something from that?
CHALMERS:
Look, we've said for certainly the last couple of weeks that we have received some advice from the Treasury about the PRRT. We're engaging with that. We're working through that in a methodical way, and we're doing the sorts of consultation that you would expect of us with the companies. And that's why this is a legitimate topic of public conversation. I've said before that I think the PRRT is worth looking at. My predecessor obviously agreed with that because he started this process. This process began some years ago under the Liberals of reviewing the PRRT and we've received some of that advice. We're working through it, we're doing the consultation and when I can say more about that, I will.
JOURNALIST:
We’ve seen some pretty big announcements, aged care yesterday. Have we seen all the big announcements that we're going to see in the Budget, or is there more to come?
CHALMERS:
There's more to come. You have to tune in on Budget night. I'm really proud of the Budget that the Albanese government has put together. It's been a big collective effort. There's been a lot of work and there's still a little bit of work still to do. It will hit the printers over the weekend. I'll have an opportunity to get ready for Tuesday and to finalise the speech and all of those sorts of things. But I'm proud of it because I think what people will see on Tuesday night is a Budget that strikes a really good balance between what we need to do to help people right now and what we need to do to set this country up for the future. It'll be a budget that sees people through and sets Australia up, and I'm really proud of it. And inevitably, there be speculation before the Budget ‑ some of it will be right, some of it won't be quite right. I encourage people to judge the Budget in its entirety: what it means for helping the most vulnerable, what it means for the foundations for future growth, and what it means in terms of getting the Budget in much better nick. As I said before, I am really proud of the distance that we have travelled as a government in a short time and the progress that we've made on the Budget. We have come a long way in a short time, but we've got a bit further to go. Thanks very much.