Live: Treasurer reveals ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred’s damage to budget

Angus Taylor may have been keen to avoid any concrete declaration about tax cuts while speaking with ABC’s News Breakfast this morning.

But National frontbencher Bridget McKenzie had no such qualms on the Today Show earlier this morning.

“We’re delivering a lower tax guarantee at the next federal election,” she said.

McKenzie insisted the opposition would “have much more to say about our lower tax guarantee” in the weeks to come.

Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor is also doing the media rounds this morning, ahead of a marginal seat blitz across Tasmania, Victoria, NSW.

Speaking with ABC’s News Breakfast, he says the focus will be on Coalition analysis, based on data from the Parliamentary Budget Office, that suggested Australians were paying more tax now than in the last financial year.

Taylor is asked if he’s using the figures as springboard to announce a fresh round of tax cuts if the Coalition wins the next election.

“We’re putting them out to make the point that Australia’s standing of living has collapsed under Labor and we have never seen this collapse before,  7.9 per cent in just over 2.5 years,” he says.

Host James Glenday interrupts: “That was quite a specific question … If you win the election, are you going to cut income taxes?”

Taylor says the Coalition has been “very clear” that it will restore the “basic rules”, which included the tax-to-GDP cap in the budget.

Pressed further, the shadow treasurer still would not be drawn on whether the Coalition would pledge a tax cut.

“I know you want me to announce our next election policies on your program this morning, but the best thing to do about it, the most important thing, the first thing you’ve got to do is beat inflation,” he says.

Taylor says the opposition will have to wait until the budget comes out next week.

“But we will always fight for lower and simpler and fairer taxes. As we did last time we were in government with stage 1, 2 and 3 tax cuts,” he says.

It’s a day ending in y, so there’s no surprise politicians from both sides of the aisle fronted up for a morning television show grilling about the rising cost of groceries.

A report in the News Corp papers suggested families were forking out an extra $3,000 at the checkout, according to analysis conducted by SEC Newgate.

Energy Minister Chris Bowen and Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek were both asked what the government was going to do to address the issue in separate interviews on the Today Show and Sunrise.

Both stuck pretty close to the talking points, pointing to the action Labor had taken on the cost of living. Plibersek added the government had made the supermarket code of conduct mandatory and Labor was targeting inflation.

When the tables turned on Nationals frontbenchers Bridget McKenzie and Barnaby Joyce, McKenzie placed the blame on government spending for keeping inflation up.

Meanwhile, Joyce said if Labor wanted to address competition in the supermarket sector it would adopt the Coalition’s “big stick” approach (it wants powers to force the supermarket giants to sell stores).

Treasury has put the cost of ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred at $1.2 billion as south-east Queensland and northern New South Wales continue to clean up the destruction left in its wake.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers will warn the cost places new pressure on inflation and the budget in a speech to the Queensland Press Club on Tuesday.

A week out from handing down his final budget before the election, Chalmers will say initial estimates point to a quarter of a percentage point hit to quarterly growth.

“We don’t yet know the precise cost to our budget, but again it will be significant,” he’ll tell the room.

“I expect that these costs and these new provisions will be in the order of at least $1.2 billion, a substantial amount of money and that means a big new pressure on the budget.”

The additional cost will take the federal government’s disaster support to at least $13.5 billion, with $11.6 billion of that already included at MYEFO.

Chalmers is also expected to detail the possible economic impact of escalating trade tensions, prompted by US President Donald Trump’s pursuit of tariffs.

Hiya friends.

Welcome to another Monday on the politics live blog. I hope you all had a lovely weekend. Courtney Gould from the ABC’s Parliament House team here to guide you through the morning.

Let’s go!

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