Labor's candidate for treasurer Jim Chalmers has lambasted an "out-of-touch" Coalition over a threadbare agenda despite skyrocketing cost-of-living pressures, while Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has targeted foreign aid, parental leave and childcare as his great concerns about unknown ALP spending promises.
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The Treasurer also accused a "holier-than-thou" Labor party of hypocrisy over its attacks on controversial Coalition pork-barrelling scandals including "sports rorts", saying community funding programs would always exist.
The major parties' two economics spokesmen sparred at the National Press Club on Wednesday - as the election campaign remains focused on inflation, interest rates and wage growth - and laid out their greatest concerns if they did not become treasurer in the next parliament.
Pointing again to poor wages growth, Dr Chalmers said the Coalition is ignoring Australia's "cost of living crisis".
"I fear that this government will continue on the path that they've created for the best part of a decade now. The biggest risk of this election is that nothing changes at all," he said.
"You know, it takes an especially out-of-touch Liberal treasurer in the context of skyrocketing inflation out of control, and falling real wages and rising interest rates and consumer confidence plummeting, his key argument at this election is 'you want to stay the course'."
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Mr Frydenberg raised questions about the sources of funding for Labor's spending promises on programs such as foreign aid, parental leave and childcare.
"My greatest fear is that if Labor got over the line, they would revert to their natural instincts to tax more and to spend more, instincts that were on full display when they thought they had the election in the bag last time," he told the National Press Club.
He said Labor's platform this election involved more than $300 billion in spending, but Labor wasn't giving a straight answer on how this would be funded.
"They are trying to sneak into government and say that they will have a budget after the election but not tell the people before the election what would be in that budget."
Mr Frydenberg said the Labor Party got the big calls wrong in the pandemic, including advocating for JobKeeper to continue and warning its removal would hurt the economy.
"They wanted the COVID disaster payment to keep going and they wanted to splash $6 billion of taxpayers' money on people to get the jab when they already had the jab," the Treasurer said.
He rubbished the Labor economic plan as simply involving a "13 page brochure, which means more public servants, another review and Bill Shorten's old multinational tax agenda".
Mr Frydenberg also accused Labor of being hypocritical in attacking it over scandals such as "sport rorts" and "car park rorts".
He said news reporting had found Labor was promising small grants in targeted seats.
"And we do know that the Labor Party ... ahead of the last election also had a park and ride scheme, and Bill Shorten was going out and promoting it and making announcements."
Mr Frydenberg said with respect to local community programs, "they'll always exist, they have always existed, and they will continue to exist".
Dr Chalmers attacked the Coalition's record on grants and spending, referring to the "sport rorts" saga revealed by the Australian National Audit Office.
"We have seen people in ministerial offices poring over colour-coded spreadsheets, allocating money purely for political purposes," he said.
"This is one of the reasons why Australia doesn't have enough to show for Josh's trillion dollars in debt.
"This is one of the big problems we've got and one of the most egregious examples of this was the more than $600 million committed to commuter car parks."
Dr Chalmers said there had not been enough value for money in the budget for almost 10 years.
"That's why we've got these stupendous levels of debt and why we don't have enough to show for it and we are committed to doing better and we're also committed to auditing this wasteful spending in the budget," he said.
Labor's treasury spokesman said his party was the only party taking Australia's economic challenges seriously.
"After almost 10 years now in office the Liberal and National legacy in the economy is weak growth after the pandemic, high and rising inflation, falling real wages, flatlining productivity, weak business investment, and a budget which is absolutely heaving with rorts and waste and Liberal debt," he said.
"Now, they have absolutely no idea of the pain that inflicts on ordinary Australians, and they have no plan to deal with it. If they do, that plan isn't working."
He said the cost-of-living "crisis" had happened on the Coalition government's watch and could not be blamed squarely on international events.
"It didn't just show up when Russia invaded Ukraine. It showed up when the Coalition the best part of a decade ago started attacking the wages and job security of Australian workers, and neither a war in Europe in 2022, nor even a pandemic explains or excuses what has been almost a decade now of economic mismanagement."