Treasurer Jim Chalmers has laid out the Albanese government’s priorities after its “history making” election victory on Saturday night, revealing there would be a key difference between Labor’s first and second terms.
Labor romped to victory in Saturday’s federal election, winning at least 86 lower house seats to the Coalition’s 37, while another 17 are still too close to call.
Mr Chalmers said the significant increase in the party’s majority was “beyond even our most optimistic expectations”, as he paid tribute to the performance of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
“I can’t think of a campaign where a prime minister has campaigned more effectively than Anthony Albanese… He’s a Labor hero,” the Treasurer told the ABC.
“I think he is the biggest explanation for why we turned around the trouble that we’re in at the end of 2024 to the position that we won last night.”
However the Queensland MP said Labor was also taking the result with “healthy helpings of humility”.
“We know the global environment is uncertain, and we know that this second term has been given to us by the Australian people because they want stability in uncertain times,” Mr Chalmers said.
“People recognised that if you wanted stability while the global economy was going crazy, then a majority Labor government was the best way to deliver that.
“Not because they think we’ve solved every challenge in our economy or in our society more broadly, but because we’re better placed to work towards solving some of those challenges.”
The Treasurer said Labor saw itself as an “ambitious government”, and was looking forward to implementing the agenda it took to the election.
“Our agenda is really clear. We have to build more homes. We’ve got to get this energy transformation right. We’ve got to do more to embrace technology, particularly the AI opportunity,” he said.
“And what our agenda boils down to is obviously weathering and withstanding this global economic uncertainty in the near term, but also making sure that we make the Australian people the primary beneficiaries of all of this churn and change that we’re seeing in the world.”
While he said the government’s immediate focus would be on the “global economic uncertainty” – particularly in terms of the trade war between the United States and China.
“I think what’s happening, particularly between the US and China, does cast a dark shadow over the global economy … So we go in that with a sense we’re realistic about how this could play out in the world,” he said.
The Treasurer then described what he viewed as the key difference between their first and second term priorities.
“The first term was primarily inflation without forgetting productivity; the second term will be primarily productivity without forgetting inflation,” Mr Chalmers said.
“I’m looking forward to rolling out the changes we announced on a national regime for occupational licensing, the non-compete clauses change.
“The competition policy on working up with the states, reviving national competition policy – big priority for me as Treasurer.
“So there is an agenda there. But also don’t forget we commissioned, from the Productivity Commission, five big pieces of work on the main drivers, the main pillars of productivity in our economy.
“We’ll receive that in the third quarter of this year. I’m looking forward to receiving that, because we’ve got an agenda on productivity, but we can do more, and we will do more.”
The Labor MP also revealed why he thought the Opposition had so comprehensively lost the election.
“Not to dance on the political graves of our opponents, but there was a real kind of darkness at the heart of the Coalition campaign, this kind of backward looking pessimism, which Australians rejected,” he said.
“And in rejecting that, I think they embraced the kind of leadership that Anthony Albanese provides, which is practical, pragmatic, it’s problem solving, and it’s very forward looking. And that’s the approach that we’ll take.”
