“The way to deal with it,though,isn’t to push this nation into recession with higher and higher interest rates.”

Bullock said last week the RBA board had considered lifting the official cash rate above 4.35 per cent – the level in place since a rate hike in November – and sent a strong signal that Australians should not expect a rate cut this year.

While some senior Labor figures believe they will have to go to the election by May next year without a cut to interest rates and an easing of the pressure on households,others think there is a chance of a rate cut early in 2025.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and senior cabinet ministers talked up their economic plans on Tuesday in a series of “Dorothy Dixer” questions from Labor MPs,while the Coalition did not ask about the economy and focused on questions relating to conflict in the Middle East.

In a separate challenge to Labor economic policy,crossbench MPs warned against a draft government law to tax unrealised gains at superannuation funds. Independent MP Allegra Spender proposed an amendment to allow the deferral of payment for taxpayers who might otherwise be forced to sell their assets.

But Spender and other independents backed the government on its build-to-rent housing plan,and said the Coalition and the Greens should stop delaying the government’s attempts to increase the housing supply.

Coalition finance spokeswoman Jane Hume said there was “open warfare” between Labor and the RBA when independent economists were saying that government spending was keeping interest rates higher for longer.

“Labor’s bovver-boy ministers would rather criticise the independent RBA than make the hard decisions to reduce spending,” she said.

Hume said Australian families were making tough choices about their household budgets every day,but Labor would not do the same with the federal budget.

Shorten said those who wanted higher interest rates would only “drive the economy into a brick wall” when conditions were already difficult for households.

“The economy is not hot,and anyone who thinks it is hot should get out and start talking to a whole lot of small businesses in the high street of the suburbs and regions of Australia,” he said.

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