E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC BRISBANE DRIVE
MONDAY, 1 JUNE 2020
SUBJECTS: Robodebt; National Cabinet; Health funding; Dental funding; Labor’s constructive approach; State borders; Travel restrictions.
STEVE AUSTIN, HOST: Jim Chalmers is my guest. He's the Opposition Treasury spokesperson. Jim Chalmers, when I spoke with you last week, we talked about the amount of money that the Federal Government didn't need to borrow for the JobKeeper program. My observation was then that Treasury admitted that this was one of their calculation issues. But this one is a Government policy issue. It is directly, completely, entirely a Federal Government policy issue. Stuart Robert is the man who presides over this policy mistake, disaster, whatever you want to call it. Normally, in the Westminster system for a mistake of this size, would a Minister of the Crown be required to resign over it?
JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: Absolutely. But the standards unfortunately have been run down so far, whether it's by Stuart Robert on multiple occasions, Angus Taylor, or others, they’ve been run down so far that that accountability has not been a feature of this Government. But also, we should remember that Stuart Robert is responsible for this disaster in that he's the current Minister, but the architects of it were Christian Porter and Scott Morrison himself, which probably at least partly explains their rush to try and settle things up and hope that -
AUSTIN: How do we know that? I knew the Christian Porter, now Attorney General, was -
CHALMERS: Morrison was the Treasurer. When the idea was first floated, it was seen as a way that Morrison was putting forward to pay for their election commitments in the 2016 election cycle. Morrison and Porter are in this up to their necks, and Stuart Robert as well of course. One of the reasons people are reluctant to apologise, one of the reasons they've tried to settle up and move on, is because the Prime Minister is at least partly responsible for what's happened here.
AUSTIN: Well they can't move on. They owe $750-odd million to Australians.
CHALMERS: You're right to draw the line Steve between that, the bungle on JobKeeper which from the Friday before and even the failure to get the bushfire relief money out the door. There are a lot of occasions unfortunately, where the Government's come up with a big announcement, lots of fanfare, played the trumpets and then the implementation and execution of these schemes has been found wanting. This one is especially egregious because as I said it's not just badly executed, but in my view, badly motivated as well.
AUSTIN: And has any Minister ever resigned or taken full responsibility for this failure?
CHALMERS: Not this one. In the history of our democracy, Ministers have resigned for much less. Now what we're talking about here is the illegal thieving of people's money. It has ruined a lot of lives, Steve, as you probably know. In some cases, people have taken their lives. This is enormous, more than a blunder. It's a horrible set of outcomes.
AUSTIN: It was a deliberate Government strategy, who then wrote a computer program that then sent out computer-generated threatening notices to Australians saying, you owe us money and we're just going to take it from your account. And they did take it from people's accounts, whether or not they could afford it or not.
CHALMERS: Yes, and that gave people a lot of sleepless nights, as you can imagine. There has been a number of people in my community that we helped, a lot of people whose money was taken wrongly and who we had to fight very hard for to get that money restored, even before this class action came up with this partial settlement last week. It's been going for some years now. We've been saying for a long time that it's unfair, but what was found subsequent to that was, as you said, that it's also illegal. That's why we're seeing these pretty remarkable steps being taken by the Government, but still no apology.
AUSTIN: My guest is Jim Chalmers. Jim Chalmers is the Opposition's Treasury spokesperson. He's Labor's Member for Rankin. This is ABC Radio Brisbane. I'll move on. Let me ask you; it came out on Friday, but to be honest when it was first announced, Jim Chalmers, I missed it. The Australian Government announced the funding contribution for public hospitals here in Queensland, growing by an estimated $30.1 billion under the new agreement which is apparently $8.4 billion in extra or additional funding. How does Labor see the agreement that was reached with all the States of Australia over health funding?
CHALMERS: I think something like this shouldn't be remarkable. Coming to an agreement between the Commonwealth and the States on health funding where we've had all this population growth and extra need in the health system; that's how this system is supposed to work. I know that the State Government here is happy with the outcome and the feds -
AUSTIN: Are they really? So, the State Government in Queensland has told you that?
CHALMERS: They said it in the Parliament. I think Steven Miles, the Health Minister said in the Parliament that this was a good outcome for Queensland.
AUSTIN: Okay.
CHALMERS: I think because we've had so many years now of fighting between the Commonwealth and the States over these sorts of things, with hospital funding not keeping up with population growth, we've seen a lot of argy bargy about it. What we see now is an agreement; that's a really good thing. I'm not pretending that it isn’t, but it shouldn't be remarkable. That should be the norm, that the different levels of government come together and fund the services that people need.
AUSTIN: Jim Chalmers is my guest. $8.4 billion just for Queensland in extra funding from the Federal Government is serious money. How should it be used?
CHALMERS: That's largely for public hospitals, which is a good thing, I think, particularly in our big growth corridors including the one I'm standing in right now on the way between Brisbane and the Gold Coast. Clearly there's a lot of need, so that should be the first port of call. But there's one other thing that hasn't been getting the attention it deserves. I do welcome the extra money into public hospitals, but did you know, Steve, that the agreement that the Commonwealth and the States have on dental care for adults still hasn't been renewed? It runs out at the end of this month, runs out in a few weeks' time, four weeks. It still hasn't been signed. It's been left really late. We're worried that that won't get signed. That means that about 180,000 people won't get their procedures each year. So yes, we can welcome extra money for the public hospital system, but let's not forget that the dental agreement that has existed for some time still hasn't been renewed. There are only a few weeks left.
AUSTIN: It's 4:42PM. News at 5. We're looking at how to get some prime beef, because there's so much of it floating around at the moment. We'll look at that story between now and 5. My guest is Jim Chalmers. Goodbye to COAG; hello new National Cabinet. What do you think of this, Jim Chalmers? I read, I think it was in the Weekend Oz that Paul Kelly wrote that it's a good move, but it gives a lot of executive power to Scott Morrison. How do you see it?
CHALMERS: It remains to be seen. The old COAG system, the Council of Australian Governments, was largely diminished and rundown. It wasn't meeting very frequently; it wasn’t getting great outcomes for the last few years. If there's a better way to do it then let's try it. Whatever Scott Morrison wants to call it, whether they meet in person or on the blower, we want it to work and we want it to deliver better outcomes than it has. In terms of whether it means more power and influence for the Prime Minister, again, I guess, when we see it working, rather than just set of slogans we'll be able to work that out. Certainly, it looks like there's going to be fewer working groups, which is a centralisation of sorts. We don't yet know whether the Freedom of Information laws will apply. We don't know whether Cabinet confidentiality will apply. All those things are what really matter -
AUSTIN: I hope not. There's too much confidential stuff going on in government in Australia.
CHALMERS: I thought you might have that view, Steve. I think one of the reasons behind doing it this way, certainly one of the reasons that Scott Morrison identified, is that he thought that a smaller tighter group meant a franker conversation. Let's see how that all plays out. Genuinely we have an open mind to it. We want it to work, we're not cheering for it to fail, because if it works that means better outcomes for people and that's what we should be about.
AUSTIN: I hear that overseas, Australia is actually being spoken about very positively, particularly in United States at the moment where the left and right can't talk to each other, where there's admiration that even though you're on opposite sides of the fence, you can talk to each other and you can reach outcomes for the benefit of the country as a whole. In other words, Australia is actually being held up in some quarters as, "my goodness, they're able to actually solve a problem."
CHALMERS: I think that's appropriate, Steve. The rest of the world is looking at us at the moment and admiring the way we've limited the spread or restricted the spread of the virus in the first place. But also, there has been some cooperation. I think that's a tribute in many ways to the way that Anthony Albanese has led us. His view all along has been that there's an appetite for people to come up with outcomes rather than arguments where that's possible. We agree where we can and disagree where we have to -
AUSTIN: Anthony Albanese has come in for a bit of flak from his own side because he's been doing that very thing, hasn't he? He's copped a bit of criticism from the Labor side for not being aggressive enough. But I think he's trying to show that, what you're saying, as I understand it?
CHALMERS: I think he's read the mood really well. The mood is that these are extremely serious times, it's not business as usual in the economy, so it shouldn't be business as usual in our politics. Having said that -
AUSTIN: Is he getting unfairly attacked though from his own side, though, in this case?
CHALMERS: I haven't seen much of that, Steve, to be honest with you -
AUSTIN: Maybe it's just the social media people that copy me in, tell me they're Labor Party members or you know?
CHALMERS: If that's the view I think it's an unfair one because we've been constructive, and we've been responsible, but we haven't been silent when the Government's got something wrong.
AUSTIN: Yeah.
CHALMERS: Robodebt, the big blunder over JobKeeper, bushfire funding; all those sorts of things where the Government's got it wrong, we've said so. Our first preference is to try and put people before politics and that means trying to be as constructive, responsible, and as forward-leaning as we can be when the Government proposes something.
AUSTIN: Jim Chalmers is the Federal Opposition's Treasury spokesperson and Labor Member for Rankin here in Queensland. Do you have a view on the issue of the ongoing lockdown of the Queensland borders? There's been an easing of some restrictions today, but the border issue stays in place.
CHALMERS: I think that it's appropriate that we be really careful about it. You know as well as anyone that Queensland's done an extremely good job of limiting the spread of this thing. Just a remarkable job. We don't want to lightly compromise that or trade that away. Everyone wants businesses to open as soon as they can. Everybody wants our tourism industry to get going again. But the worst thing that could happen is if we open things up prematurely, and we have a spike in in cases. I think the way that Annastacia's gone about has been appropriate. She's taking the advice of the experts and she's acted on that. There's no bigger champion of tourism than her in my experience, but you've got to be careful about it and that's what she's doing. The other thing, and I think that we might have spoken about this last week or the week before Steve, is that there's no hard and fast rule here. She's made it very clear that if the advice changes or circumstances change or whatever that this decision is under constant review, and I think that's a really responsible way to go about it.
AUSTIN: My guest is Jim Chalmers. You went to Eden-Monaro I think last week; did you have to self-isolate? Didn't you have to self-isolate when you came back into Queensland? How were you able to leave the State and come back here into Queensland Jim?
CHALMERS: There are arrangements for people who work inter-state. What you do is you fill out a whole bunch of forms, and when you come back into Brisbane in my case, you have to go through a bit of a process.
AUSTIN: What's the process you had to go through?
CHALMERS: When you're on the plane you fill out a form and when you get off it's a bit like when you travel internationally; you get off and there are police and other services there. You speak to the officer and they run through your form and they make sure everything's above board. There's a heap of people on my plane doing that and they're the people who generally work inter-state. That's been there since the beginning. That's not a special arrangement or anything like that. That's been the case -
AUSTIN: Have you been tested yet for COVID?
CHALMERS: I haven't, because remarkably I haven't had anything approaching -touch wood! - any kind of symptoms whatsoever and I haven't known anyone who's had it. Now that I've said that, obviously, I'll get a cold tomorrow and have to trundle off and get tested.
AUSTIN: [LAUGHS] In that seething cesspit of Canberra you didn't meet anyone who's ever had it?
CHALMERS: It's remarkable, isn't it? It's remarkable.
AUSTIN: Thanks for coming on.
CHALMERS: Thank you, Steve.
ENDS
