Rising unemployment, stubbornly high inflation and a looming interest rate hike are piling misery onto Australian consumers, but Labor insists better days are on the horizon, reports.
The pinch of optimism comes as mortgage holders brace for the Reserve Bank of Australia to lift the official interest rate to a near-15-year high of 4.6% on Tuesday, an outcome money markets are treating as largely a foregone conclusion.
Central bankers in the US, Japan and Europe have all pushed interest rates up since the RBA's board met in August, all crediting their decisions to rising oil and fuel prices resulting from the increasingly intractable US-Iran war.
On Sunday the deputy prime minister, said the government knew households were "doing it tough" and was working to put downward pressure on inflation.
Average fuel prices in Australia's five largest cities had risen to $2.37 per litre for petrol and $2.69 for diesel as of Wednesday, but Labor has rejected calls for it to reinstate a previous cut to fuel taxes to help ease the burden on road-users.
Inflation, which came in hotter than expected in August, could rise from 3.5 to 4% when the Australian Bureau of Statistics publishes its latest figures on Wednesday.
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The treasurer, , and the finance minister, , will present the final budget outcome on Monday, the updated accounting measure for the 2025-26 financial year.
Despite challenges facing the government, Chalmers is expected to say the figures show the budget deficit is smaller than originally forecast.
He will argue the improvements are worth billions of dollars to the budget.
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