JIM CHALMERS MP
SHADOW TREASURER
MEMBER FOR RANKIN
 

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC BRISBANE DRIVE 
MONDAY, 26 JULY 2021

SUBJECTS: Legislated Income Tax Cuts; Negative Gearing; Scott Morrison’s Failures On Vaccines And Quarantine Risking Lives, Livelihoods And The Recovery; Lockdowns Costing The Australian Economy $300 Million A Day; Australian Values; Bill Shorten; The Federation. 

STEVE AUSTIN, HOST: Let's say hello to Jim Chalmers, the Shadow Treasurer and federal Member for Rankin. And what a surprise it is to see you in the studio, thanks for coming in.

JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: Thanks for having me back, Steve.

AUSTIN: You've announced today I hear that you're going to support the federal government's tax cuts now, why what changed?

CHALMERS: The tax cuts are legislated, they were legislated a couple of years ago, and what we said at the time, we said that the priority is people on low and middle incomes and that we'll come to a view on the whole tax package closer to the election and we'll announce that so people know where we're coming from. We made those decisions today, we announced them immediately, within an hour of the various meetings breaking up, because we wanted people to have clarity on our position and we wanted them to have some certainty. So for more than 9 million Australians earning more than $45,000 a year, they'll get the same legislated tax cut under us as under them. And we thought that that was an important thing to do because right now, when it comes to economic policy, the most important thing that we need to be focused on is the economic costs and consequences of getting vaccines, and quarantine, and JobKeeper wrong, as you and I have spoken about a lot. But also how do we make sure that we can make the economy stronger after COVID than it was before when it comes to things like job insecurity,wage stagnation, and flatlining living standards.

AUSTIN: And you think tax cuts are the best way to do that?

CHALMERS: The best way to think about this is we want to focus on those challenges and those issues. We want to give people certainty and clarity about these tax changes. We said that we do that, we'd consult and we'd listen to people, and we'd come to a view. The next election won't be about a difference on these particular legislated tax cuts, the next election will be a referendum on the economic consequences of the mismanagement of the pandemic at the federal level, and also looking forward. Australian people want us to look forward, beyond the next election, not backwards to the last election. They don't want us to necessarily re-prosecute all the fights from last time. They want us to look forward. And that's what we're doing.

AUSTIN: Why have you scrapped your negative gearing policy that you took to the last federal election? You put a lot of work into that one. There was a lot of national debate about its merits or otherwise. Many, I think, a reasonable number of economists, thought it had strong arguments as a way of lowering the cost of housing. And now in a hyper-heated housing market in this State and the other East Coast states of Australia, you've thrown away the one thing that many thought would have brought down the cost of housing?

CHALMERS: There's a few things in that obviously, Steve. I don't think it's the only thing that matters when it comes to house prices. Some of the reasons why we're seeing these high prices is because interest rates are at lows that I thought I would never see in our lifetime and probably you're the same, interest rates are extremely low. We've got some issues around supply which we want to help tackle with our Housing Future Fund, a policy that we've already got out there. And there's also obviously some issues around the regulation of the housing market which we need to be looking at. I think a bit like the decision that we took today on the income tax cuts, we wanted to provide a bit of stability and a bit of certainty for people in this area. We've got other priorities when it comes to housing, that Future Fund which is all about affordable housing, and we'll have more to say about how we help people in the housing market between now and the next election.

AUSTIN: So the negative gearing policy of federal Labor is dead. No more.

CHALMERS: We will leave in place the negative gearing and capital gains arrangements as they exist now. We don't do that lightly. As you rightly point out, we've had a policy on this in the past, we've consulted on it, we've listened, we've learned the lessons from the last campaign. We always said we wouldn't have exactly the same policies or exactly the same set of policies at the next election that we had at the last one. I think that's normal, no political party does. We've taken this decision today and announced it straight away.

AUSTIN: You won't change capital gains tax, like there's a lot people arguing an adjustment in capital gains tax will be wise?

CHALMERS: Look our priorities when it comes to tax reform, again I think as you and I have discussed before, I think the most important avenue there is multinational tax fairness. If you were to change something about the tax system you'd probably go there first.

AUSTIN: The federal government, I mean Scott Morrison has done that pretty well.

CHALMERS: No.

AUSTIN: Why not? He has done it, hasn't he? He brought in major changes and they are pouring back some money?

CHALMERS: Not anywhere near what should be done. My view, and you'll expect this for me, but my view is they did some window dressing earlier on in the term in the hope that people would think that they're doing something about it. This is the area where there's the most global movement - President Biden, Secretary Yellen in the US, the OECD, and elsewhere - this is the big focus of the global economic community. I think it's the right one. We should be thinking how we can make multinational taxes fairer here in Australia too.

AUSTIN: My guest is Jim Chalmers. Jim Chalmers is the federal Member for Rankin here in Queensland. He's also the Shadow Treasurer. It's sixteen minutes to five, this is ABC Radio Brisbane. You've outlined your plans for the national corruption body, which the government's been promising for some time, but it hasn't come. So what would your model or structure be for a federal anti-corruption body?

CHALMERS: You're right Steve, in that the Government has said for some time that they'll have any anti-corruption body and they've been dragging their feet. And that's because, I think, they genuinely don't believe in having one. What we've been doing, and Mark Dreyfus in our team deserves a hell of a lot of credit for this, he's been consulting with experts and with people from the various state bodies to make sure that we get the model right. And so ours would operate as a standing Royal Commission with the powers to investigate serious and systemic corruption, whether it's parliamentarians, staff, public servants, statutory office holders, and other public officials. It' would have the power to commence inquiries off its own bat and it would be able to investigate private individuals and companies as well. And the reason why this is so important is we have seen so many egregious examples of the rorting of taxpayer money in the last eight years of this Coalition Government. The other States and Territories have got anti-corruption bodies, it's quite strange that the feds don't have one. We know why the Government doesn't want to go down this path.

AUSTIN: They have Australian Federal Police?

CHALMERS: But that's only one part of the story, Steve. I think it's crucial that we have an anti-corruption body. We don't come at this decision lightly either, I mean we've been working on it for some time but the Government has no real intention of coming forward with something meaningful. If they did, they would have done so already, so once again we're providing the leadership on this issue which is lacking in the Government. They will run scared from this kind of body because they know there's been all kinds of rorting on their watch.

AUSTIN: Jim Chalmers is my guest. So these are three significant policy announcements, roughly twelve months out from the federal election by the looks to me. That looks to me like you're now starting to roll out your position in the lead up to whatever the federal election is from now?

CHALMERS: Look the election could be three months, it could be six or seven months. Who knows when Scott Morrison will call it, he'll call it when he thinks he's got the best chance of winning it. Whether it's late this year or early next year we will be ready. and part of being ready is having a set of policies. these ones that we've announced today are incredibly important but they're not the first policies we've announced - more affordable, more accessible childcare; cleaner and cheaper energy; a national reconstruction fund in advanced manufacturing; a future made in Australia when it comes to manufacturing trains and the like; making sure there's more apprentices on big government projects; we've got a range of policies around more secure work and better pay, particularly in areas like the gig economy, which you and I have spoken about a lot. So we've got a lot of policy out there.  The political commentators will say that there's less policy out there but I think we are being ambitious with our policy but way more focused than we have been in the past. We are focused on managing the pandemic, the mismanagement of it is costing the economy dearly, which means it's costing workers and small businesses dearly. So there are issues there that we've made positive suggestions about, but also in the longer term as well.

AUSTIN: I want to play you something that Bill Shorten said on Insiders yesterday, if I may.

I'm just sick of Australia, that we've become the United Nations of Australia. I'm sick of the fact that we're eight mini countries. Now, I think in Victoria and the rest of Australia, if there are unsubscribed, unscheduled vaccines, Sydney is where the trouble is. So, like, we're Australians first. We're cheering our team on in Tokyo, but here we're in The Hunger Games and I think people are over the squabbling.

AUSTIN: Do you think he's right?

CHALMERS: Yeah, I do. And I think the most important aspect of what Bill said yesterday, and I saw that interview, was that if there was spare vaccines to go around people would have the capacity to be more generous about it. 

AUSTIN: It's supposedly who we are as Australians, we supposedly help our mates, in inverted commas.

CHALMERS: I still believe that we do. I think the issue here is a lack of vaccine supply. If we had more vaccines people would have something to share. So it all goes back to that in one way or another.

AUSTIN: We have an abundance of AstraZeneca, which I'll be getting soon. I still haven't got it yet but I'll be getting soon, because I'm over 50 or whatever it is, I'm over 60.

CHALMERS: It's hard to believe, Steve!

(LAUGHTER)

AUSTIN: I know, I know, it's shocking! And States have been storing up vaccine so they can give their second shots. So Queensland's argument is we're not hoarding vaccine we're simply keeping our stock so that we can give people the second shot as a required time. Fair enough. Seems like good management. If someone asks for help, I mean Queensland's asked for help in different scenarios, but if someone asked for help normally Australia, like we did with PNG, like we've done with Indonesia, like we've done with the Pacific Islands. You say, we'll do what we can, we can't do everything maybe, but we'll do something.

CHALMERS: I still believe that Australians have that in their nature. And I believe, long after it got discarded as a political slogan by the Prime Minister, I still genuinely believe that we're all in this together. I think the States are doing the best they can when it comes to deploying the vaccine, but there's not enough of it. That's just the truth of it. And we all know people who are having a difficult time making appointments to get the vaccine. There's an issue in one respect with hesitancy but the much, much, bigger issue is that people who are dead keen to get the thing and they can't access it. So that's the main issue. And Bill picked up on that as well. I'm not prepared to junk this idea that we are all in this together, I still think that's how Australians want to be, but in order for that to be possible we need to make sure that there is enough vaccine to go around. And unfortunately, because of the failures at the federal level, that hasn't been the case.

AUSTIN: The National Cabinet, where the federal and the state meet and discuss it, the states stopped it. But wouldn't you normally say, okay we can't give you everything but here's what we can give you, there is something we can do. We don't just say no it's not possible. 

CHALMERS: I'm sure that at some level that conversation is happening. I genuinely believe, and I don't just say this about Labor Premiers I say it about Liberal Premiers too, I genuinely believe that if people had the capacity to help out they would. I genuinely believe that. Nobody wants to see a fellow Australian in another part of the country go without if we can avoid that, if it's possible. But there's not enough vaccines, Steve. That is the issue. And that's how we got ourselves into this sort of situation. If the federal government wants people in different parts of Australia to look after each other, well make that possible.

AUSTIN: If the New South Wales problem gets out of hand, it will affect the other states whether we like it or not. And it doesn't matter if you can't drive your car across the border. It will happen. So surely it's in the national interest.

CHALMERS: I think it's already impacting. You know you think about parts of Queensland that rely on that massive Sydney market, it's already happening. I was speaking to Warren Snowdon, my colleague in the Northern Territory, big parts of the Northern Territory industry are impacted. So it's already happening. We already pay some price for the lockdowns. In terms of the economic activity that's been lost, the Treasurer himself said $300 million a day is being lost. $2 billion a week being lost out of the national economy.

AUSTIN: That's massive. That's massive.

CHALMERS: Massive hit. And we wouldn't be in this position if there was enough vaccine, we had purpose-built quarantine, we need JobKeeper back or something like it. These are no-brainers, this is just common sense in the Australian community but we're not seeing that. And that's not an issue of states not prepared to look after each other that's an issue of the federal government not prepared to do the right thing.

AUSTIN: Thanks for coming in.

CHALMERS: Thank you, Steve.

AUSTIN: Federal Labor's Jim Chalmers.

ENDS