JIM CHALMERS MP
SHADOW TREASURER
MEMBER FOR RANKIN
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
4BC DRIVE
THURSDAY, 11 NOVEMBER 2021
SUBJECTS: Brisbane storm damage; Job losses and labour market; Patchy and uncertain recovery risks leaving too many Australians behind; Federal election campaign; Scott Morrison, Anthony Albanese and the polls.
SCOTT EMERSON, HOST: Today we've seen the latest labour force figures. Australia's unemployment rate has increased with more than 46,000 jobs lost over the past month. Lockdowns in New South Wales, Victoria, and the ACT have clearly played havoc with the country's jobless rate, which has risen 0.6% in October. The data also shows as restrictions start to ease more people are starting to look for work. Underemployment is also up during the month. Many people have some hours but not enough. Economists believe the jobs situation will improve as every state does open up. Now I'm joined by Jim Chalmers. He's the Member for Rankin here in Brisbane and he's also the federal Shadow Treasurer. Jim, great to have you on the show.
JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: Nice to be on the show, Scott. I heard Danny say before about the power line over Bluegum Drive in Marsden, that's in my electorate. So Ivan, and Lisa, and some of my other friends that live on that street, they've got to be really careful.
EMERSON: Well done, Jim! Good local Member there, knowing the names of the people in the street! Excellent work there. It might sound a bit cynical when I say that, but having been an ex-pollie, I can tell you that is the bread and butter - knowing the people that live in your electorate. I know the fact you can name them just doesn't come off because you've got a list in front of you, that is not the case. So good work, I do mean that sincerely. Best of luck to those people in Marsden, hopefully they'll get their power back pretty quickly.
CHALMERS: Yep.
EMERSON: Jim Chalmers, the national unemployment rate has jumped from 4.6% to 5.2%. That would have been expected given those lengthy lockdowns we've been seeing in New South Wales, Victoria and the AC T, wouldn't it?
CHALMERS: I think it was a little bit worse than people expected. Obviously, we've had those difficulties in those places, the whole economy hadn't opened up yet at that point. I think these new jobs numbers today are a pretty brutal reminder that the economic recovery is patchy, it's uncertain for too many people who are at risk of being left behind. I think for a lot of people, they hear Canberra, particularly Prime Minister Morrison and Treasurer Frydenberg, talking about how great things are going but things aren't that great if you're one of the 46,000 people who lost your job last month or the 141,000 that lost their job the month before. It's an important reminder that even as the economy recovers in aggregate, it's not recovering for everyone. There's still a lot of softness, particularly in the jobs market, and we've got to make sure that we don't leave those people behind.
EMERSON: No, you don't want to leave people behind. But as I said, economists do believe the jobs situation will improve as every state starts to open up. And if I look at those numbers there, even if it's jumped up above 5% now, having an unemployment rate, in the last figures of 4.6%, that's an extraordinarily low number historically.
CHALMERS: It doesn't tell the full story though, Scott. If you look at the number in isolation, I can see how you come to that conclusion. But if you speak to a lot of the economists, they'll say that one of the issues with the unemployment rate is it captures people who are working zero hours, or one hour, or very little, and they'd like to be working more. Obviously, we want that number to be as low as possible but we also need to recognise it tells part of the story but not the whole story. There is a lot of underemployment in the economy. There is a lot of insecure work and stagnant wages. So when we think about the jobs market, we need to think about all of it and not just one number.
EMERSON: I'm talking with Jim Chalmers, the Federal Shadow Treasurer. Jim, I see that Scott Morrison appears to be on the campaign trail already. I know Anthony Albanese, your leader, is out there as well. Are we already in a faux election campaign, well and truly before Christmas and well and truly before 2022?
CHALMERS: Obviously, the election's not far away. It might be March or it might be May. And when you've got Christmas between now and then I think it'll go pretty quickly and we'll be in a formal election campaign before much longer. I think when it comes to Scott Morrison - and you watch him as closely as I do - I think he's probably always in campaign mode. Most people would prefer he does a bit more governing and a bit less campaigning. He's always into the marketing, and the spin, and the photo ops, when the country needs more than that. But yes, we're entering into our election campaign, it will be very tight. I think this election will be incredibly close. The Government will be asking for 12 years wheras we think it's time to make a change to a Labor Government led by Anthony Albanese, because for eight years now we've had stagnant wages, and insecure work, and some of those other things that we were talking about, and we think the country can do better after COVID than it did before.
EMERSON: You say that Scott Morrison is in a campaign mode but I don't think I've seen Anthony Albanese moving away from a high-vis vest opportunity anytime in the last couple of months. So we are heading into election. You mentioned it'll be close. Newspoll has Labor well ahead at the moment even though it also has Scott Morrison ahead of Anthony Albanese as the preferred PM. Is that a problem for Labor, that your while your primary vote and your two-party-preferred vote is doing better than the Coalition your leader is trailing Scott Morrison - someone you say is a liar and is always playing politics rather than delivering for the country?
CHALMERS: Well, first of, leave the numbers aside for a moment. I am supremely confident that we've got the better leader. You'd expect me to say that but Anthony is a real person who's got a real, authentic view about how the place needs to change. And I think Scott Morrison's shown - whether it's on electric vehicles, or climate change, or whatever it might be - you can't really believe a word that he says about this stuff. So I'm happy with that contrast between the leaders. But when it comes to the polls, I think there probably was a time when those kind of opinion polls were taken more seriously, but the idea that an opinion poll five or whatever months out from the next election can pick the result when it couldn't pick the result five days out from the last election in 2019. I think people don't pay as much attention to those polls as perhaps they used to.
EMERSON: Alright, Jim Chalmers. I'm sure we'll be talking to you a lot in the lead up to the election. Thanks for being on 4BC Drive this afternoon.
CHALMERS: Appreciate it Scott, nice to talk to you.
ENDS
