E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
ABC 7:30
TUESDAY, 6 OCTOBER 2020
 
SUBJECTS: Federal budget; JobKeeper; Income tax cuts.
 
LEIGH SALES, HOST: We're joined now from Parliament House by the Shadow Treasurer, Jim Chalmers. Jim Chalmers, will Labor be railing against the Coalition for presiding over a debt and deficit disaster as the Coalition did when Labor used fiscal policy to cushion the country from the GFC?
 
JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: Two points about that Leigh. First of all, the Government has racked up a trillion dollars of debt, and yet still we've got unemployment too high for too long. A trillion dollars in debt, still no vision or plan for the future, still too many people left behind, still not undoing the damage of the last seven years of mismanagement. So, the point that we will be making is you'd think that we could get more bang for buck for the trillion dollars in debt that they've racked up. The history wars will continue to be fought, of course. The point that I would make about that is we've been consistent throughout. There is a role for Government when the economy is weak, as it was a decade ago, as it is now, for the Government to step in to support jobs and support people and their communities. We've been consistent on that, the Government hasn't.

SALES: The Government's going to put its income tax plan, legislation, forward tomorrow as part of a big Omnibus Bill. Will Labor support it?
 
CHALMERS: We've said that we support the income tax cuts, the bring forward of stage two and the extra help for low and middle income earners. We've said that now for some months that we would support that. We are now told by media, actually, that there will be one Omnibus Bill with all of the business tax measures in it as well. We are inclined to support those, Leigh, but we only saw them for the first time a few hours ago. One of the measures alone costs $27 billion. So, we will go through the detail of it and make sure that's the right and responsible way to spend so much money. We're inclined to support it, but I think people will understand that we will also take a little bit of time, whatever time we have available to us, to go through the details and make sure that we're getting bang for buck for such an extraordinary amount of money.
 
SALES: What are your early thoughts on the JobMaker plan?
 
CHALMERS: Who can keep up with all of these slogans, Leigh? If you're talking about the incentives for hiring, we do have a concern there and the concern is this: there are 928,000 Australians on unemployment benefits who aren't eligible for any of these hiring subsidies. Too many people have been left out and left behind like workers over 35 for example. When you think about the future for those workers there's been no budgeted increase in the JobSeeker amount so it's back to $40 a day unless the Government tells us otherwise, JobKeeper is being cut at the same time. I think for those 928,000 workers, they have been left out, left behind and left in the lurch, and that's very concerning to us.
 
SALES: The point Josh Frydenberg just made was that the measures introduced were always targeted and temporary and that they have to come off at some point.
 
CHALMERS: We've made the same point that at some stage JobKeeper won't be necessary in the economy but it's too soon now to be cutting JobKeeper. You think about those income tax cuts for example, Leigh: an average worker will get about $50, a fortnight at the same time as millions of workers are losing $300 a fortnight with the cuts to JobKeeper so we need to factor all of that in. Yes, at some point, JobKeeper will be tapered away but think about the weakness in the economy in Victoria, which you just profiled. I spent the first half of last week in Far North Queensland which is doing it extremely tough because of the closure of the international border. It's too soon to be pulling that kind of support out of the economy, especially when the Government hasn't responded with a comprehensive jobs plan to replace it.
 
SALES: But it's actually not coming out until March next year and that's quite a way off.
 
CHALMERS: But it's being cut, Leigh, and that matters for two reasons: it matters for the individual and the company that they work for, that $300 a fortnight is nothing to be sneezed at, but it's also hundreds of millions of dollars pulled out of the economy before it's ready for that. We've said that it should be tapered but now is too soon.
 
SALES: There's no specific economic support in this budget for Victoria even though it has fared worse than the rest of the country during the pandemic. Do you think that there is a case for that?
 
CHALMERS: I think the Prime Minister is more interested in playing a political blame game than actually helping Victorians. JobKeeper is really the main item of concern from my point of view. Clearly in Melbourne, most or many small businesses, and hundreds of thousands of workers can't afford to lose three hundred dollars a fortnight. But some of the other measures, loss carry-back and some of those other things in the budget, will help a little bit but I think it is disappointing, certainly if you're a Victorian, not to hear much empathy or not to hear much of a response for your specific circumstances. But not just Victoria, Cairns and other parts of Australia are doing it incredibly difficult at the moment and they need a Government that understands that.
 
SALES: We'll hear more from the Opposition on Thursday night when Anthony Albanese delivers his budget reply speech. Jim Chalmers, thank you.
 
CHALMERS: Thank you, Leigh.
 
ENDS