More to do in the fight against inflation: Chalmers

The government is rolling out a host of measures to provide cost-of-living relief to Australians.

As previously flagged in the Budget, from this month the government will provide more help for renters, pensioners and reduce the cost of medicines for all.

"We recognise that people are under the pump and we're doing something about it," Treasurer Jim Chalmers said.

"We're already rolling out tax cuts for every taxpayer, energy rebates for every household and a million small businesses, and a wage rise for minimum wage earners and more help is on the way from this month."

From this month, the maximum rates of Commonwealth Rent Assistance will increase by a further 10% which Chalmers said will benefit nearly one million households.

The government will also extend the higher rate of JobSeeker to single recipients who have an assessed partial capacity to work less than 15 hours per week. They will benefit from at least an additional $54.90 a fortnight.

In addition, Chalmers said the government was finalising the rollout of 60 day dispensing with additional medicines being made available, bringing the total to almost 300.

"We're indexing payments for people on Jobseeker, the age pension, disability support pension, carer payment and parenting payment, as well as Commonwealth Rent Assistance," Chalmers said.

"This support is on top of the billions of dollars of relief that has been rolling out to millions of Australians to help ease the cost of living since July."

Chalmers also flagged additional cost-of-living support to be rolled out in the future, including tax cuts, energy rebates for households and small businesses, student debt relief and more funding for emergency and flood relief, amongst other things.

"The primary focus of the Albanese government is to ease the cost of living for Australians at the same time as we fight inflation in our economy," Chalmers said.

"Treasury estimates the government's energy bill relief and additional increase to Commonwealth Rent Assistance are expected to directly reduce inflation by half of a percentage point in 2024-25 and are not expected to add to broader inflationary pressures."

Chalmers acknowledged that inflation is still higher than the government would like, but said it was heading in the right direction.

"We know there's more to do in the fight against inflation and people are doing it tough, and that's why we're rolling out responsible cost-of-living relief," he said.

"We're doing our bit in the Budget to fight inflation and ease pressure on Australians, including through cost-of-living relief and our responsible economic management."