JIM CHALMERS MP
SHADOW TREASURER
MEMBER FOR RANKIN
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
4BC DRIVE
WEDNESDAY, 30 MARCH 2022
SUBJECT: Federal Budget
SCOTT EMERSON, HOST: Jim Chalmers is the Federal Shadow Treasurer and Member for Rankin, and he's on the line now. Jim, good to have you on 4BC Drive this afternoon.
JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: Good afternoon, Scott. I hope Darryl filled up at $1.89, that sounds like a pretty good price.
EMERSON: Well, now, let's talk about that then. He's very happy to see the price drop. He would be obviously realising, and he said he heard that the numbers are going to come down, so is that a worry for Labor? That people like Darryl are already seeing the benefits of the cut to the fuel excise and probably saying, well, thanks to the Morison Government.
CHALMERS: That wouldn't worry me in the slightest. That's the reason why we support fuel excise relief, we want to see people under less pressure at the bowser. That's why we agreed to fast track the legislation through the Parliament today, that Parliament is one in providing this cost of living relief. Nothing would make me happier than if there was some pressure taken off families who are doing it tough because they're dealing with, not just skyrocketing costs of living, but also as the Government's own Budget confirms falling real wages. Wages go backwards in real terms about $26 a week this year in the Government's Budget that they released last night. People need cost of living relief, that's why we support it.
EMERSON: Well, do you hope that by you and Anthony Albanese in the Labor Party saying, look that we back every cost of living relief in last night's Budget, that might neutralise the political benefit for the Coalition?
CHALMERS: We just don’t think about it in those terms, Scott. I know that this is a very political Budget, a lot of people have been describing it as the vote-seeker Budget. Because five minutes before the Prime Minister has to call an election, all of a sudden he wants people to think he cares about the cost of living pressures that have been building up for some time before Russia invaded Ukraine. For much of the last decade or so we've had stagnant wages, which have made it hard for families to keep up with the cost of living. So, on the eve of an election, we get some movement here. We’ve said, really for some time, if there's some movement on cost of living in the Budget then we're likely to support it. We’ve confirmed that again today having had a look at it. Our issue is not with the cost of living relief in the Budget, our issue is that the Budget doesn't really say anything or do anything beyond the May election. It's a very short-sighted thing. It's an act of political desperation that the Government is hoping helps people forget almost a decade now of attacks on wages and job security and pensions and Medicare and all the rest of it. We want Australians to be able to deal with these costs of living pressures, we want their wages to be growing, we want their costs to come down. We will vote that way in the Parliament but what's missing here is a plan for the future that goes beyond the election.
EMERSON: Well, listening to Josh Frydenberg’s speech last night, and at the end he made the point, look we promised you three years ago there'd be more jobs out there, lower unemployment, that you’d paying less tax. Well, they're the two things, particularly, you are paying less tax than you were three years ago, and also well the unemployment rate it's 4 per cent, with it tipped to go below 4 per cent, and maybe the lowest rate we've seen in almost 50 years. Doesn't that demonstrate that the Coalition has done a good job over the last three years and deserves to be re-elected?
CHALMERS: It doesn't. We obviously want the unemployment rate to be as low as possible. It's been coming down and we welcome that, but unfortunately it hasn't come with a lift in real wages. It hasn't come with the things that you would expect from having the unemployment rate falling and skill shortages in the economy. So I think there's been a failure on wages, even as the unemployment rate has come down in welcome ways. You want to talk about tax, the Government is actually taxing more, in total, as a proportion of the economy per person adjusted for inflation across every measure. This Government taxes more than its Labor predecessor, so we need a bit of perspective here. But you started the question by talking about the end of Josh Frydenberg speech. The reason why parts of the Parliament were laughing at Josh Frydenberg last night at the end of that speech is because he seems to have omitted the whole point of his speech three years ago when they were flogging those Back In Black mugs for $39.95 on the LNP webpage. He said that there was no way that the Budget wasn't going to go back into surplus, now we've got deficits as far as the eye can see.
EMERSON: But isn’t that because of the pandemic and COVID?
CHALMERS: Let me finish Scott. Clearly when there's a crisis, there's a reason to borrow and to lean into the crisis. But what he doesn't tell you is that debt had already more than doubled before the pandemic by this Government, more than doubled what they inherited. They want to pretend that it's all pandemic related this debt, this trillion dollars of debt that we’ve got, with nowhere near enough to show for it, but the reality is very different. When it comes to net debt, most of it was actually added by this Government before the pandemic so we need that perspective too.
EMERSON: I’m talking to Jim Chalmers, the Federal Shadow Treasurer. All right, Jim. Well, today you've said look, you’re backing the cost of living relief package of the Federal Government. Tomorrow night Anthony Albanese gets his chance to deliver his Budget reply. Well, what is Albo going to announce tomorrow? Are we going to see a series of announcements tomorrow night to say, look, we're not the Coalition, we back the cost of living relief, but where are Labor's promises? Are they going to be in tomorrow night’s statement by Albo?
CHALMERS: Well you would understand, Scott, it would be career limiting in the extreme for me to give Albo’s speech, or give you a tip off on his speech. But I think people can expect, and I encourage them to tune in at 6:30pm your time.
EMERSON: So he’s going to have a series of announcements tomorrow night? You don’t have to give me the details, but will there be more than just a bit of rhetoric and a bit of attacking the Coalition?
CHALMERS: He will stake out some differences, policy differences, between us and the Government. But remember, as well, we've got an election somewhere in the next six or seven weeks. Typically in election campaigns you make announcements as you go. So the Budget reply speech tomorrow will be an important speech. It will have some policy in it. We'll have our pitch to Australians as we get closer to the election, but also during the election itself you can expect to hear policy announcements from us. We've already got a heap of policy out there already, as you and I have discussed before, and there'll be more to come tomorrow night, of course, but also after that during the campaign itself.
EMERSON: Just quickly, Jim Chalmers. Last night we saw a speech by the LNP Senator Fierravanti-Wells. She labelled Scott Morrison as a bully and someone who is not fit to be PM. What was your response to those comments?
CHALMERS: I think there's a pattern here in the sense that the people who've worked most closely with the Prime Minister, the people who know him best, seem to trust him the least. I think Australians are a little bit onto this as well. I think they were prepared to give him a chance when he was first Prime Minister, they were certainly prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt at the beginning of the pandemic, but I think people are working him out. So when people like Senator Fierravanti-Wells, who has been in the Senate, and known Scott Morrison for a really long time now, when she gives such a heartfelt speech I think people do notice that and I think it reinforces some of the views that they might have already had about him.
EMERSON: Don’t they also think she's a bit bitter because she lost a preselection contest? You've been around politics a long time, you know how in these contests sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Wasn't it just a reaction to not getting a winnable spot on the Senate ticket at the weekend?
CHALMERS: Well, not everybody that loses their preselection reacts in that way. As you would appreciate, it's not rare for people to lose a preselection, but it is rare, incredibly rare in fact, I can't think of another time in my time here that a Senator has unloaded in such an impassioned and personal way, so I think that part of it is rare. I think people are reasonable about politics. They know that there are ups and downs and winners and losers and all the rest of it but I think what Senator Fierravanti-Wells was talking about went beyond the usual post-preselection assessment.
EMERSON: Alright, Jim Chalmers, good to speak to you. I'm sure we'll be speaking a lot over the next six weeks or so as we head to that May election, but thanks for being on 4BC Drive this afternoon.
CHALMERS: Thanks for having me back on your show Scott. All the best.
ENDS
