Jim Chalmers

Thanks very much, everyone.

Thanks.

Thanks, everyone.

Appreciate it.

This budget is ambitious in the face of adversity.

It helps people with the pressures that are bearing down on the Australian economy as a consequence of the war in the Middle East at the same time as it reforms our economy for the future.

We expect inflation to hit 5% in the middle of the year, heavily dependent, heavily hostage to developments overseas for obvious reasons, including the duration of the conflict.

It would have been easy but wrong for a government like ours to see the way that the housing market is developing

to see the way that pressures on young people are intensifying and to leave some of these structures unattended to.

We've done that for the best reasons, which is we can't see these tax arrangements lock more and more people out of the housing market as the pressures on young people in particular, the pressures in the economy more broadly intensify.

Tonight's budget will be our most responsible and it will be our most ambitious budget.

It will be a really responsible budget focused on resilience and reform.

There are five major packages in tonight's budget.

A fuel security package.

A package focused on the cost of living and housing.

A productivity package.

a tax reform package and also a savings package as well.

This has been a really big part of our pre-budget deliberations.

It is easily the most important part of the savings package that we will present on Budget Night.

The big risks here are to inflation and to growth.