E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
2GB DRIVE WITH JIM WILSON
WEDNESDAY, 7 OCTOBER 2020
 
SUBJECT: Federal Budget.

JIM WILSON, HOST: Shadow Treasurer Jim Chalmers is on the line. Jim, welcome to Drive.
 
JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: Thanks so much for having me on the show, Jim.
 
WILSON: Now, in a nutshell, it's hard to argue with a big spend considering the crisis we're going through.

CHALMERS: I think certainly when we're in as deep a recession as we are now it's important the Government steps in and supports people's jobs and supports communities. We haven't been quibbling with that. The key is to try and get the most bang for buck from all these hundreds of billions of dollars in borrowed dollars and we measure whether it's good or bad by what it means for jobs.

WILSON: Legislation to bring the tax cuts forward - 11 million Australians this impacts - has been introduced into parliament today. Will Labor support the measure and will it all be done and dusted by the time parliament rises tomorrow?

CHALMERS: We’re keen on the income tax cuts. We’ve said for some time that there was a case to bring those forward so that low and middle income earners get some tax relief now. They really need it. Small businesses need it right around the country. So we've been up for that for some time. To take any doubt out of it, I actually wrote to the Tax Commissioner today, because all the Tax Commissioner needs is an assurance from the both the big parties in the parliament that they will pass these tax cuts, and he could start doing the work to implement them. So hopefully those tax cuts are in people's pockets sooner rather than later.

WILSON: There seems to be a bit of confusion about those tax cuts, Jim – about when they'll actually be in their pay packet of 11 million Australians – is it a couple of weeks or is it the end of the year?

CHALMERS: It's a combination of that. It's the right question and we've been getting a lot of questions like that into our office too. Some of the benefit is fortnightly, some of it’s in the tax return at the end of the year. But those fortnightly benefits, we're trying to make sure that they flow as soon as possible.

WILSON: Are you worried that the business incentives to employ younger workers, those under 35, could hurt the chances of older workers, more mature workers in the workforce?

CHALMERS: The way we see it Jim is there's something like 928,000 workers who are on unemployment benefits at the moment who aren't eligible for the hiring subsidies. Hiring subsidies are a worthwhile idea. We want to incentivise business to put more people on. That's an important objective. Particularly when you remember that something like 160,000 extra Australians are going to become unemployed between now and the end of the year. Almost a million Australians are unemployed. So it's important that we do something. Our concern is all of those people have been left out and left behind by the policy in the way it’s designed.

WILSON: The Prime Minister says though, that those over 35 years of age are looked after in other ways, what do you say to that?

CHALMERS: I’ll tell you how he’s looking after them: he's cutting JobKeeper and he’s saying that JobSeeker, the old unemployment benefit Newstart, there was nothing in the budget to say that it won't be back to the old $40 a day. We want to see people looked after. I think everybody wants that. All of your listeners would want to make sure that we do what we can to help each other out. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people excluded from these new policies which were released in the budget. It’s a fair effort given they racked up a trillion dollars in debt and still found a way to make people worse off. So we've been saying a few things about that today in the parliament.

WILSON: Okay, well, you say the budget doesn't create enough jobs, what would have Labor done differently?

CHALMERS: We’ll have more to say about that tomorrow night. Anthony Albanese gives a big speech here in Canberra, which is called the budget reply. But we said today already, that we think one of the big gaps in the budget was social housing. You get a lot of jobs out of maintaining social housing and we’ve said that that should be a government priority. The benefit of that is for the money that you invest in it, you create a heap of jobs. It's got a nice local benefit because it's in communities right around Australia and it’s got a lasting benefit. You're building something that lasts, so that we've got something to show for all this debt. That's an initiative that we will definitely be pushing for in Anthony Albanese’s budget reply, tomorrow night, and there'll be other things too.
 
WILSON: Do you think it's fair that Anthony Albanese – I’m looking forward to his right of reply tomorrow night with that budget speech. The Morrison Recession. It’s a COVID Recession. Come on.
 
CHALMERS: Well, it’s a statement of fact.
 
WILSON: Well you can’t blame the Prime Minister for a recession that began with his health crisis. It's a COVID Recession.
 
CHALMERS: We've always acknowledged Jim that COVID-19 is having a big impact on the economy and on the budget. But we also need the Government to acknowledge that the economy was quite weak going into this crisis which left us vulnerable and in our view, there have been decisions taken by Scott Morrison which have made the recession worse like being late to the party with JobKeeper and excluding too many people from it. That meant that the unemployment queues are longer than it needs to be.
 
WILSON: But you can see the recession started with the health crisis. We went into recession when the health crisis began. 
 
CHALMERS: Well, we have always said Jim, we said repeatedly that we understand that the COVID-19 is having a massive impact on the economy. I probably said that 30 or 40 times.
 
WILSON: But come on. It's pretty disrespectful isn’t it?
 
CHALMERS: I don’t think it is.
 
WILSON: I get politics, but to go and pin it on the Prime Minister, a recession that was sparked by the health crisis. It's pretty unfair. 
 
CHALMERS: Well, I’m pleased you put it to me Jim, because I genuinely don't think it’s unfair to point out he’s the Prime Minister, and we're in the worst recession for almost 100 years. So I don't take a step back from that description whatsoever.
 
WILSON: But a lot of it's going beyond his control.
 
CHALMERS: Some of it has, but what has been in his control has been how we've responded to it. It's been in his control what the economy looked like going into this crisis where it wasn't growing fast and where wages were stagnant. We had issues with productivity, business investment and debt in the budget had more than doubled before most of us had even heard of coronavirus. So I think the Prime Minister needs to take responsibility for that and also for the fact that the decisions he’s taken to respond to it have not been as effective as they can be. They've racked up a trillion dollars in debt and still we've got unemployment too high for too long. I think that's on him.
 
WILSON: So let's just go back to JobKeeper and JobSeeker. There is a chance there'll be flexibility as far as the dates go when those two schemes will end, you'd welcome that?
 
CHALMERS: Well, they’ve already been cut in the last weekend of September. That's already happened. But there's some opportunity for the Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, to do the right thing going forward. How those payments are set up, the rates of them and who gets them is entirely up to the Treasurer. He can just change that literally with a stroke of a pen. So we'd like to see some flexibility. We want to make sure that people don't lose those payments, while the economy's still quite weak.
 
WILSON: You'd be pretty happy that  - you've mentioned tax cuts, which you’re supporting - you'd be happy also with the investment in infrastructure and manufacturing?
 
CHALMERS: Yes but we want to see it delivered though. Unfortunately, there's been a sort of a culture in the last few years with these big announcements to get the front page of the Tele saying that they commit all this money for infrastructure, but it's actually a fact that not in any budget have they spent what they said they would. Not in the last seven budgets. So we want to see that infrastructure money actually delivered. The point of announcing infrastructure isn't the headline. It's the actual outcome. So we'll be keeping on their tail making sure that they do it.
 
WILSON: Well, as I said the right of reply from the Opposition Leader, Anthony Albanese tomorrow, alright Jim, appreciate your time this afternoon. 
 
CHALMERS: Thanks for having me on the show, Jim.
 
ENDS