Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers will deliver a budget in the last week of October, so as to put the Albanese government’s election promises in play and start the cutting back of wasteful expenditure.
Chalmers told an economic forum hosted by Sky News and The Australian that he intends to provide a ministerial statement to the Parliament when it first sits in July, to be followed by a series of key events that will culminate in the first Chalmers budget in October.
That ministerial statement will contain an update of various forecasts so that there is an updated economic outlook before the budget.
“We’ll have a jobs summit sometime after Parliament resumes and from that a white paper on the challenges in our labour market, including skills shortages, the gender pay gap, and some of those associated issues as well,” Chalmers said.
“By the end of September, we’ll have the final budget outcome for last year and we’ll have the budget in October. I haven’t said this publicly before, but we’re looking at the budget being on or around the 25th of October, subject to the finalisation of the parliamentary sitting schedule. But certainly in the last week of October is our objective when it comes to the budget,” Chalmers said.
The Treasurer said the issues surrounding inflation need to be discussed frankly, given their broad economic impact across a range of sectors including energy.
“Now we’ve got a choice when we think about these challenges in our economy, we can tiptoe around them, we can try and pretend them away, but my style and my preference is to be pretty blunt about them,” Chalmers said.
“We’ve got cause for confidence in the medium term and in the longer term but, in my view, there’s no use in mincing words when it comes to this inflation challenge, which will get worse before it gets better.”
This article was first published by The Mandarin.
Tom Ravlic is a freelance investigative journalist.
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