JIM CHALMERS MP
SHADOW TREASURER
MEMBER FOR RANKIN
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC BRISBANE DRIVE
MONDAY, 14 JUNE 2021
SUBJECTS: Labor’s affordable housing plan, Multi-billion-dollar benefits of Brisbane’s 2032 Olympic Games bid; Home to Biloela campaign a tribute to regional Queenslanders.
STEVE AUSTIN, HOST: Jim Chalmers is the ALP Shadow Treasury spokesperson and he's the Labor Member for Rankin, an electorate on the Southside of Brisbane. Jim Chalmers, thanks for coming back on the program.
JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: Thank you, Steve.
AUSTIN: I seem to recall that ahead of the previous or the last federal election your party had a very strong economic platform to deal with this by scrapping negative gearing. What would that have done? Can you jog my memory, Jim Chalmers, please?
CHALMERS: The policy that we took to the 2019 election was that if you were negatively gearing investment properties you could keep doing that if you had an existing investment, but it would stop from the following year, unless you were building a new property you could keep doing it. S it was a policy basically to wind back that concession but also to encourage the building of new homes.
AUSTIN: It seemed to me a good policy at the time, now that's since been scrapped since you have to start again after the election result. So what would Labor do, or what would you do, to take the heat out of the housing market in Australia?
CHALMERS: I think it's right to describe it that way: the market is pretty hot at the moment. We've seen really strong demand for housing, we've got rising prices, we've got strong growth in housing credit, and so I think the way you began this conversation by describing how difficult it is for people to get a toehold in the market, I think that's unfortunately increasingly true.
Housing's become even less affordable. It's been a problem for some time now but it’s a bigger problem now, it’s been very volatile the last six or twelve months. I think one of the things that has surprised economists is how robust that housing market has been in the absence even of migration for the last little while, so I think there's a few things that need to be looked at.
Clearly, the regulators have a look at the housing market when it's in this kind of mood to make sure that we're dealing with financial risk. Clearly, there's an issue with supply and we've already made some announcements around building affordable homes for essential workers, for example.
But in terms of the policy around negative gearing, we're still working through all of that. No party takes an identical set of policies to one election that they took to the election before, so we are going through all those policies and people will know where we stand on that before the next election.
AUSTIN: Is there any chance it'll be revived? I thought your economic policies prior to the last federal election were pretty good. And there was a lot of interesting fascination at the time, it was a very detailed policy that Labor presented at the last federal election. Is there no chance that they will be revived?
CHALMERS: Oh, it was a big agenda that we took to the last election, obviously not universally supported Steve, otherwise I'd be speaking to you as the Finance Minister not as the Shadow Treasurer.
(LAUGHTER)
AUSTIN: Fair point!
CHALMERS: What we're trying to do this time around is to be just as ambitious on policy but a bit more focused. We are having a look at all of those tax policies we took to the last election, we've already said for example that the policy on franking credits won't be our policy going into this election.
AUSTIN: That particular policy got most of the blowback, didn't it, at the last federal election?
CHALMERS: It depends on who you ask, but yeah I think that's probably a reasonable sort of analysis. I think that was the one where people were most uncertain. And so Anthony Albanese said some time ago that that won't be part of the agenda that we take to the election this year or next election, and there are other elements too that we're working our way through. But I think when it comes to housing there's just not one policy or another that will do what's necessary here. There's a role for regulators, there's a role for building more housing, and it's been building more housing that's been our priority this term.
AUSTIN: Who has a greater influence over housing - state government or federal government, Jim Chalmers?
CHALMERS: Well, it's one of those blurred lines, isn't it? It's one of those ones where state and federal both have a role and local council as well. I mean one of the reasons why we want local council involved in National Cabinet for example in the aftermath of the pandemic is because some of these issues cross not two but three levels of government. And this is one of them. Councils in terms of land release, and infrastructure charging, and rates. State governments have got some of those tax levers, and some of the planning levers, and social housing with the assistance of the federal government. The federal government's a big funder of some of those things and so we really need all three levels of government working together.
When we were last in office we had some formal institutions to try and coordinate housing supply. They've hit the fence unfortunately in the last eight years, but there's some areas there that we should be looking at to try and coordinate our activities because it's a big problem. As the ABC survey has laid bare, I think it's something that people are very concerned about and it's a problem that's gotten worse over the last eight years not better.
AUSTIN: Both state and federal governments are currently providing significant financial incentives for first homebuyers, people wanting to get into the housing market. Is there any proof it's actually aiding that or is it simply pushing up the price of housing?
CHALMERS: That's a concern that people have, that it pushes up the price of housing. It's difficult to disaggregate that sometimes and state and federal governments of either political persuasion have tried various things to get people into the market.
I personally think that the big piece here is on supply, on building those homes for essential workers as Anthony Albanese and Jason Clare have been talking about for some time, getting that supply part of the equation right so we're building new homes.
What the pandemic's done is it's really scrambled the housing market a bit. We've seen those rising prices and all of that but it's also seen a different distribution of people, some people getting out of the big cities realising they can work an hour or two out of the big CBDs and so that's another thing that we need to keep an eye on as well, what the geographic distribution of this housing unaffordabilty looks like.
AUSTIN: My guest is Jim Chalmers, the ALP Shadow Treasury Spokesperson. It's thirteen to five, news at five, Steve Austin's my name. Let's move on to that from housing to the Olympic Games. The International Olympic Committee on the weekend, the report into the cost of Queensland hosting the 2032 Olympic Games is going to be about $1.35 billion more than originally claimed. It's now estimated to be about $5.8 billion, which is 30% more than the original forecast, according to the Australian Financial Review. Is this value for Queensland and Australia, when the federal and state governments will be funding this, Jim Chalmers?
CHALMERS: I think yes, Steve, and that's one of the reasons why I'm a massive enthusiast for this bid for the Olympic Games. I think there is the financial benefit, which has been measured at something like $8 billion directly and $3 billion indirectly.
That doesn't always capture some of the legacy items that come out of hosting the Games, for example there's going to be a lot of affordable housing leftover in Hamilton and on the Gold Coast, which we need to factor in.
But there's also those things that you can't really measure, I mean look at what the Sydney Games did for Sydney and Australia in 2000. Look what the Melbourne Games did for Melbourne and Australia in 1956. This is a big opportunity, not just for South East Queensland but for the whole country, to show what we're capable of in the eyes of the world.
There is the direct measurable benefit but there's the immeasurable, intangible benefit as well. And I think it's going to be a massive opportunity for our part of the world and I enthusiastically embrace it.
AUSTIN: Jim Chalmers with a very strong, enthusiastic support for the Australian Olympic Games here in 2032! And you don't think that that $5.8 billion, $6 billion is anything to be concerned about?
CHALMERS: Obviously, hosting something of this magnitude costs money, but it's an investment that gets a return. It gets a financial return, but it also gets a cultural return, it gets a return for our society, and our community, and our nation in the eyes of the world.
Along with all the jobs it creates I think it puts a bounce in people's step. There's going to be benefits for the Queensland regions and the country more broadly.
I just think it's going to be one of those extraordinary opportunities, like the Commonwealth Games was in 1982, like the Olympic Games in Sydney and Melbourne. And I think that the State Government in particular, but all levels of government, have really come to the table here.
We've put a really compelling bid, it looks like we're going to get it, and if and when we do that will be a great thing.
AUSTIN: Alright finally just before I let you go I want to ask her about his family, this Tamil family, who were in Biloela. Two of the children were born here in Australia and the controversy has blown up after their daughter was very sick while on Christmas Island and had to be flying back to Perth, I think it was, for treatment. I don't want to rehash the story that's been done by everyone for the last few days, Jim, but this Tamil family, as I understand it they're not recognised as refugees. So against that background, what are Australia's treaty obligations with Sri Lanka over people who arrive here from Sri Lanka that are not declared refugees? As I understand it, behind the scenes, this is the problem for the Australian Government, that we actually have treaty obligations to friendly nations like Sri Lanka. Can you give me Labor's position on this at all, if that's possible?
CHALMERS: As I understand it, Steve, I'm not an immigration lawyer, but as I understand it there hasn't been that final conclusion that they're not refugees. My understanding, or my memory, is that the youngest child didn't get procedural fairness and that means that that process of determining whether they're refugees or not has not been concluded. So her claim hasn't actually been finally assessed. But even beyond all of that I think most Australians, Steve, and this is the reason why the Government looks like it's moving on it...
AUSTIN: Yes, we're awaiting an imminent announcement, apparently something's going to happen this afternoon on this matter?
CHALMERS: Apparently, this afternoon or tomorrow morning, is what we're told as well. But, Steve, let's take a step back for a moment.
This is a beautiful story about a town in regional Queensland, Biloela, who embraced this family, this beautiful family, and wanted to make them as comfortable and welcome as possible in Biloela. And if and when that family gets home to Bilo, it will be a tribute to the people of that part of regional Queensland for the way they stuck by this family in the most Australian way.
AUSTIN: Jim Chalmers, thanks for your time.
CHALMERS: Thank you, Steve.
AUSTIN: Jim Chalmers, the ALP Shadow Treasury Spokesperson.
ENDS
