Budget Will Make Australia ‘An Island of Reliability in a Sea of Uncertainty’: Treasurer

The next federal budget must focus on security as much as prosperity, Treasurer Jim Chalmers has told the Lowy Institute. Australia was a major contributor to, and beneficiary of, the rules-based world it helped “underwrite for the two decades between the Berlin Wall coming down, and the global financial system blowing up,” he said. That “congenial” world had been “upended by the 2008 financial crisis, severe recessions in the U.S. and Europe, an uncertain recovery that ended with COVID, and a subsequent spike in inflation which crested not long ago.” Lingering inflation, weak growth in China, population decline and a slowing in other large economies, the risk of higher oil prices due to the Middle East conflict, the continuing Ukraine war, and fragmenting supply chains all posed ongoing risks....