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