QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Dr CHALMERS (Rankin—Treasurer) (14:30): Thanks to the member for Gellibrand for his question and for the big contribution he makes to our team. Last Friday, Fitch reaffirmed Australia's AAA credit rating, and that means all three major ratings agencies have reaffirmed the AAA in the last few months since the budget. There are only nine countries with a AAA from all three agencies, and we are one of them.

It's a reminder that Australia's budget and economy are in better shape than other countries', and it's another welcome endorsement of our responsible economic management. When we came to office, debt was rising fast, deficits were much bigger, average real spending growth was faster, there were no savings in Josh Frydenberg's last budget and inflation was much higher than it is now and rising fast.

We've delivered two surpluses and smaller deficits. The budget is $230 billion stronger. Gross debt is lower than what we inherited and is lower than every major advanced economy.

Average spending growth is less than half. We found $880 billion in savings and banked upward revisions to revenue. At the same time, we are reforming the tax system to cut taxes for workers, to make the housing market fairer for first home buyers and to make the system fairer overall.

The trust reforms that we will introduce this week have gone through multiple rounds of consultation and don't start until the middle of 2028. Ninety-five per cent of Australians don't get income from trusts and less than 10 per cent of small businesses will be affected by our changes. About 90 per cent of total private wealth in trusts is held by the wealthiest 10 per cent of households.

So our changes will better align the tax treatment of income from assets and income from wages and help fund tax cuts for workers. Now, those opposite voted against tax cuts for workers before the election and after the election, and they've made well over $110 billion in unfunded commitments since then, which would double the deficits and, by their own logic, push up inflation and interest rates.

Now we hear that Josh Frydenberg wants to jack up the GST as well, and that rings a bell. In fact, the House should be aware that the shadow treasurer, in his first speech in this place, called for a 20 per cent GST. So now the Leader of the Opposition is being stalked from the inside by the member for Canning.

He's being stalked from the outside by the failed former member for Kooyong. We are getting on with the job of reforming the tax system, improving the budget and providing the responsible economic management which underpins the AAA credit rating just reaffirmed by all three major credit ratings agencies.