Dan Tehan slams Labor budget for 'not helping Australian people with cost of living pressures'

Now in opposition, Mr Tehan said regional Australia had been "punished" by the Labor government after only six months in office.

Mr Tehan was in the chamber in Canberra when Treasurer Jim Chalmers delivered the budget. It was the second budget for 2022, and the first for Anthony Albanese's Labor government.

"The really concerning thing is regional Australia has been punished by this Labor government and punished in only six months in office," Mr Tehan said.

"That is the thing that is deeply, deeply concerning because this is a budget for urban Australia and it's a budget that punishes regional and rural Australia."

He said the Building Better Regions Fund was "slashed" and infrastructure funding for regional and rural Australia was cut, while Labor's "priority is more public servants for Canberra".

Mr Tehan said the budget was about Labor's election commitments and "not helping Australian people with cost of living pressures".

"It's a bread and butter Labor budget," he said. "Spending's up, unemployment is up, interest rates will go up and wages are forecast to go down.

"I was hoping for a lot better. The sad reality is this is going to make a bad situation worse."

"What I'd hoped for is they would take the strength that we'd seen in the economy, especially with unemployment at record lows, and really be able to deliver a plan for our nation as to how we would address cost of living pressures that everyone is feeling, but sadly there was no plan," Mr Tehan said.

"It seemed to be about implementing Labor's election commitments and nothing else."

Mr Tehan said unemployment was forecast to rise from 3.5 per cent to 4.5 per cent next year and "their economic management is going to lead to higher unemployment".

He said Labor had promised wages would go up before the election, but it was now saying pay packets would go down.

On 97 occasions before the election, Labor pledged to cut electricity bills by $275 but this "was nowhere in the budget", Mr Tehan said.

"It's a budget where you were hoping for something good but all the data and all the facts actually point to something which is pretty disappointing and worrying for the regions."

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