Chalmers said the rising prices were a large part of the inflationary pressures facing the nation, admitting he didn’t know when people could expect costs to start dropping.

“There’s no use pretending otherwise … we’ll have these challenges ahead of us for a little bit longer than we’d like, that’s why the cost of living relief is so important,” he said.

But Chalmers said climate and environment funding would indirectly bring power prices down.

The budget included $20 billion over 10 years for cheap finance for new electricity transmission links and a $1.9 billion fund to back jobs and emissions cuts in the regions.

“Renewable energy isn’t just cleaner energy, it’s cheaper energy as well,” he said.

“There is more work to do when it comes to the electricity market, we do understand these electricity prices make it harder for Australians who are already under the pump.”

Chalmers denied the government had broken an election promise to bring down household electricity bills by $275 per year, adding a $7.5 billion cost of living package would help ease short-term consumer pain.

“Cheaper child care, paid parental leave, cheaper medicine, more affordable housing and getting wages moving again, that’s a substantial cost of living plan,” he said.

“When you’re providing cost of living relief, if you do it in an excessive way or an indiscriminate way you risk pushing inflation up and interest rates up even further.”

Shadow treasurer Angus Taylor said Labor had broken a series of promises and didn’t have the structures in place to get prices down.

“You’ve got to get more gas supply into the domestic gas networks and you’ve got to get more dispatchable electricity generation in place,” he said.

“I don’t see anything from Labor that’s going to achieve any of those things, so the situation will get worse and Australians will pay the price.”

-with AAP