E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
101 FM
WEDNESDAY, 21 OCTOBER 2020
 
SUBJECTS: Federal budget; Pensioners and deeming rates; Debt. 
 
IAN “BLUEY” GEORGE, HOST: Good morning Jim Chalmers. How are you this morning?
 
JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: Morning Bluey. I'm well thanks. Thanks for having me on your show.
 
GEORGE: It's a pleasure to have you on board mate. I tell you what, it's really an interesting time because we've had a couple of weeks where the budget's been out. What I wanted to mainly talk to you about was in fact the budget. Everybody makes protestations about it the day after, but here we are now, a couple of weeks down the track. You are the Shadow Treasurer. On the other side of the camp, the buck stops with you. How do you feel about that?
 
CHALMERS: Yep, something like that. I think it's true that you don't get a good sense of it immediately. It normally takes you a little while to go through the ins and outs of the budget as I've been able to do a couple of times now, and work out what's in there but, importantly, what's not in there. 
 
GEORGE: So how is this going to affect the locals around Logan City? Now, I'm just talking about our specific area here.
 
CHALMERS: One of the disappointing things about the budget is it's got all of this spending in it, something like $98 billion in new spending, it racks up a trillion dollars in debt for the first time in the history of the country, but there's still some really big gaps. Unfortunately our local community where I grew up, where I'm raising the kids now, it's one of those communities which has been more or less left behind. There's nothing for social housing and very little for unemployment which is a little bit higher in our area than elsewhere. It still has unemployment too high for too long. 
 
GEORGE: Yeah.
 
CHALMERS: There are some obvious gaps. Childcare is another one. Renewable energy is another one that impacts on our community. My major concern, the summary of my concern, is they managed to spend all that money and still leave a lot of important things out where we'd get more bang for buck, and particularly more bang for buck in our local area.
 
GEORGE: So we've got large numbers of unemployed people around the Logan City area. Go and stand outside Centrelink across from Station Road and you'll see them over there. There are also big pensioner numbers moving into the area. Now you look around and there are quite a deal of nursing homes and aged care facilities. There are big areas where the elderly are now living. How can you see support for those people in the near future?
 
CHALMERS: When it comes to pensioners, there's a couple of little payments for pensioners, but that's really in response to the fact that the pension was actually frozen in September for the first time in decades. The Government's tried to play a little bit of catch up there. It's important that they try and do that because pensioners have been more or less left behind. A lot of pensioners including those listening will be sick and tired of hearing that inflation's nice and low at the moment so everyone's cost of living is down. A lot of other things that pensioners really rely on and need, the costs of those things specifically are going up. We recognise there's a lot of cost of living pressure on particularly older locals. We want to make sure that they get those payments because it's not good enough that the pension was frozen a few weeks ago. 
 
GEORGE: Okay, Jim. There are anomalies that were put into the budget and the way it was framed from Josh down in Melbourne. He looks at it with one set of eyes from a certain political fence, and you have the opportunity to look from the other side.
 
CHALMERS: That's about the size of it. He's pretty focused on what's happening in Victoria. Particularly, he's in a knock 'em down, drag 'em out fight with the Premier down there - 

GEORGE: So true!
 
CHALMERS: So true, and I think he's doing that so that we don't focus on the broader national story of unemployment and some of the other issues that we've talked about already. My worry is that he doesn't recognise or understand that if the national economy is going to recover strongly, we need communities like ours to be a bigger part of a story. Outside of the Sydney-Melbourne-Canberra triangle, and even beyond our part of the world, the outer suburbs, and the regions need to be a big part of story. We need him to understand that but I think he is very focused on what's going on in Melbourne and the  political opportunities there rather than the economic opportunities in places like ours. 
 
GEORGE: So changing the tack just a fraction; when we talk about pensioners - and I'm in that bracket, and there are a lot of us around here - if you go and put some money into, and I'll use a brand ING Direct, the best you can get is 1.3 per cent. How the heck can you have a deeming rate at around 2.3 per cent?
 
CHALMERS: It's a bit bizarre, isn't it? For those listeners who aren't involved in this part of the system, it basically means the Government assumes that you're making 2.25 per cent on your term deposits when, as you rightly point out Bluey, everybody is making much less than that. That duds pensioners. It applies the wrong assumption to what you're earning and that has implications for pensions and all the rest of it. What's supposed to happen is that when the interest rate gets really low as it is now, the deeming rate is supposed to move more responsively to that. But the Government's pulled a bit of a swifty there and left the deeming rate up a bit too high to save money and skimp money on the pension and that means a lot of people are short-changed.
 
GEORGE: Given that there's low borrowing rates at the moment for government, does having a large deficit makes sense so that you can push forward on those shovel-ready projects?
 
CHALMERS: Borrowing costs are down, so we need to be investing in the future. But we've got to recognise as well that it shouldn't just be a free for all where we're just throwing money around and spraying money out of a firehose. We need to get really good value for money for those investments. Infrastructure is a good thing, but also investing in child care, in energy so that electricity is cheaper and cleaner. Those sorts of things make sense because you get a lot of bang for buck there. What matters isn't just the level of debt and deficits, but also the quality of the spending that constitutes that. That's really what I try to focus on as the Shadow Treasurer. We recognise that we don't have a choice right now between borrowing and not, but we do have a choice about whether we get a good return for the community from that. That's what the focus should be for the time being. 
 
GEORGE: Okay, just one final question. I'm not going to take up your time because you've obviously got a busy day today, being able to squeeze us in at such short notice. Okay, this is the hard one, I'm told. We all have our own two, five, and 10 year plans. What are you laughing about?
 
CHALMERS: It sounds like a job interview now Bluey. It sounds like I've come to see you about a job.
 
GEORGE: As a matter of fact, I've just got to check your qualifications out here. Look, where do you see yourself in, say, three years' time, okay? Just polish up the elbows on Albo and just tell me what you think is going to happen. 
 
CHALMERS: Ideally, I'll be the country's Treasurer in an Anthony Albanese-led Labor Government. In three years' time hopefully that would be the midpoint through the first term of a government which delivers for our community and the country beyond.
 
GEORGE: Jim, it is always good to talk to you, Really great that you could come on the program this morning. Feel free to touch base again. I'd like to have you on on a more regular basis - is that possible? 
 
CHALMERS: Yeah I'm keen for that, absolutely Bluey. I really want to pay tribute to the station and all the work that you do in our community and in the suburbs. I run into your fans around the place from time to time. As frequently as you'll have me on, I'm keen to come on. 
 
GEORGE: That's great. Thank you, Jim Chalmers, this morning. The member for Rankin and Shadow Treasurer.
 
ENDS