Inflation has jumped to 4% in the year to August, from 3.5%, as Jim Chalmers was again forced to defend Labor’s economic management amid fears the Reserve Bank will need to hike interest rates again before Christmas.
The increasingly embattled treasurer was asked if he was “gaslighting” Australians by insisting that government spending was not responsible for high inflation, blaming instead higher fuel costs associated with the ongoing US-Israel war on Iran.
