JIM CHALMERS MP
SHADOW TREASURER
MEMBER FOR RANKIN
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC BRISBANE DRIVE
MONDAY, 29 NOVEMBER 2021
SUBJECTS: New Logan City CEO; Social media reannouncement but still no legislation; Voter ID laws; Religious discrimination legislation; National Accounts and new COVID variant.
STEVE AUSTIN, HOST: Let's talk federal politics with Labor's Jim Chalmers. Jim Chalmers is the Shadow Treasury spokesperson for federal Labor. He's also the federal Member for Rankin. What other arrows do you have to your bow, Jim Chalmers?
JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: I was about to say well done for supporting Meals on Wheels Steve, but then you seemed to be ragging on Logan a little bit so I wasn't so sure about that!
AUSTIN: I'm not ragging on Logan at all.
(LAUGHTER)
CHALMERS: Being the CEO of Logan City Council's one of the most important jobs in the world, it's a massive promotion. I wish Darren well, I look forward to working with him.
AUSTIN: He was the Under Treasurer of Queensland Treasury, that a really big gig. I mean, that's normally sort of quite a sought after position, I'm bemused, amused, intrigued to know why he went from that to the Logan Council.
CHALMERS: I think that Logan City - I'd have to check if this is exactly right - but I think it's the sixth biggest council in Australia.
AUSTIN: Sixth fastest growing I think it is, something like that.
CHALMERS: Massive enterprise. A big - really big - job. You know I was being facetious a moment ago Steve, but it is a massive, massive, massive job - really important job - and I hope he goes well with it.
AUSTIN: Every time I drive through Logan City on the M1 there at that Springwood area, there's always a new bit of work. They've just cleared the whole bit of the M1 on the side of it at Springwood there. Do you know what's happening there? Do you know what they're doing there on the side of the highway?
CHALMERS: Yeah, that's the freeway works, that's the M1 works.
AUSTIN: The freeway's open, they've knocked down all those buildings that were right beside the freeway.
CHALMERS: Yeah, there's a whole massive program. The bus way comes down further. There's some more widening all the way through to Daisy Hill. There's a heap of investment going in there and I know this because I live in Springwood and I grew up in Springwood, so that's my neck of the woods. There's a heap of activity there, the northern end of Logan City is going gangbusters and so the roads have to keep up.
AUSTIN: Endless, endless change and work in that part of South East Queensland. We'd better talk federal politics.
(LAUGHTER)
AUSTIN: I enjoyed talking local government with you as well Jim, but on the weekend the federal Government did something that many have been calling on for quite a while. And that's to start requiring some of these global social media giants to stop being used by abusers, as it were. So the federal Government's social media laws, will you support the social media laws, particularly the section about knowing who is actually contacting, abusing, or trolling you, Jim Chalmers.
CHALMERS: We haven't seen it yet. The Government's made an announcement, but they announced this for the first time in 2019, they announced it again in October this year, and now they've announced it again at the end of November, but there isn't actually any legislation to have a look at yet. So when we get that we'll have a really close look at it, but we do think this is really important. These social media platforms are incredibly powerful and they do have a responsibility to stop their platforms being used to bully, or defame, or incite violence, or engage in hate speech, or spread dangerous misinformation. I think this is an important area for governments to be focused on but we need more than just an announcement every few months. Let's see what the Government is actually proposing to do so we can engage with it and hopefully come up with something which is appropriate and attacks this problem. It is a big problem and I think as a parent I feel it especially when it comes to the kind of world that our kids will increasingly interact in on social media platforms.
AUSTIN: I haven't seen the legislation either, but I did go to the Prime Minister's website and downloaded his two page release. He said the rules that exist in the real world should exist online as well. And that seems, I mean, how do you regard that?
CHALMERS: Well, to the extent that we can. Let's be realistic about it, there are particular challenges about the online world. I think the issue of anonymity is the big one that we want to get out. The best version of this, of what the Prime Minister is talking about, is partly about that. So there are special challenges online that don't exist necessarily in what people would call the real world. I guess the point that we're making is let's properly try and address this. Let's not just treat it as a way to kind of get the front pages of the papers. I've got the headlines from the other two times he's announced it. In 2019 the headline was 'Scott Morrison declares war on social media trolls'. In October this year 'tech giants could face legal responsibility for trolls' - still no legislation. And again on the weekend. I fear that this really important issue is being used instead as a bit of a distraction from all the other things that the Government's not doing.
AUSTIN: You think he's all announcement, no action.
CHALMERS: Well, I want to see action. As I said, I'm trying to be constructive and say this is really important. This is a big problem in our community. We genuinely want to get some kind of solution here, or at least on the way to some kind of solution, but that requires an actual plan not a series of headlines.
AUSTIN: You must cop a fair bit of abuse yourself on social media Jim Chalmers. I mean I cop a bit at the ABC, but from what I hear certain Members of Parliament cop some really - sometimes funny, sometimes totally unreasonable, and sometimes ugly things. You must cop a fair bit yourself.
CHALMERS: Yeah, I cop a bit. You see colleagues from time to time who get it worse. You try and have some perspective on it. And you also you want to make sure that - one of the great things about being an Australian is that people are treated more or less equally - so you want people to be able to genuinely kind of take the mickey out of you but sometimes it does go too far. Sometimes it's inappropriate. Even in some cases that ends up being threats of physical violence. So that's just a taste of what's happening in the broader social media world, and a lot of people get it way worse than we do. So let's work out a way - if we can, if the parliament can - work out a way to try and address these challenges so that we get the upside of social media and less of the downside, then I'm all for that.
AUSTIN: I don't think I've ever blocked anyone, even if they're abusive and what have you. Have you ever blocked anyone?
CHALMERS: I try not to. I think maybe a handful of times probably, maybe half a dozen times. The common thread between some of the ones you might block are the ones that say the same violent thing over and over again, they kind of cut and paste into everything you put up and so there's not really much point engaging. I try and err on the side of leaving stuff up but there are obvious exceptions to that.
AUSTIN: My guest is Jim Chalmers. Jim Chalmers is the Shadow Treasurer in the federal Labor Party. He's also the Member for Rankin. Just before I move on, I sent you a tweet a little while ago that I didn't get a response to, so I'll ask you for a response now. I said Jim Chalmers why are vaccine passports good whilst voter identification is a negative?
CHALMERS: Because vaccine passports are about making sure that people are in safe environments where they're less likely to get sick, whereas voter ID is designed to disenfranchise people. One of them addresses a very real threat to our public health and the other one pretends to address a non-existent threat to our democracy. There is almost none of the fraud that the Government pretends that there is and so we all know what that voter ID law is about - it's about making it harder for people to vote. And we know that that disproportionately falls on parts of our community like Aboriginal communities, for example, and other disadvantaged groups. I think it is a shameful attempt to make it harder for the most vulnerable people in our society to vote. It's done deliberately for that purpose because it's not addressing a problem, whereas asking people to show that they've been vaccinated is addressing a very real problem. It's a public health threat and so it's entirely appropriate in my view.
AUSTIN: Thank you. Jim Chalmers is my guest. Jim Chalmers is the Shadow Treasurer for the ALP. Gavin of Paddington wants me to throw a question at you in relation to Peter Dutton’s defamation. You know Peter Dutton won a defamation case against an online troll who accused him of being a rape apologist. Peter Dutton won. I think he got about $35,000 in damages or something. I'm not sure if it's going to be appealed or not but would you do the same sort of thing and sue someone who defames you like that on social media. It's a question from Gavin of Paddington Jim Chalmers.
CHALMERS: I wouldn't have thought so, Gavin. I saw the reports of that case. I'm not quite sure of all of the back and forth or all of the legal detail. I wouldn't be going out of my way to spend time in the legal system about something like that. I guess everybody reserves their legal rights, but no it's not something that I would kind of reach for if I was unfairly criticised.
AUSTIN: Right. Last week you couldn't say if you'd support the Religious Freedom bill that Scott Morrison introduced into federal parliament. Now that you've had a week to examine it, which bits do you like and which bits don't you like?
CHALMERS: Obviously we like the idea that people should be able to freely exercise their faith and practice their faith. We've said all along that that's an important objective, just as it's important that we try and stamp out discrimination in other parts of our society. Yes, we've got the bill now. And yes, we are taking the time to go through it carefully. But in principle, we do want to see people able to practice their faith. That's our starting point, we start from a as constructive a place as possible.
AUSTIN: Would people be allowed to speak publicly about their faith?
CHALMERS: I think so Steve, but when you get a bill which is this complex and has these kinds of ramifications for parts of our community, what we try and do - and what we're doing in this case - is it goes now to a parliamentary committee, hopefully a joint parliamentary committee, House and Senate, all parts of the parliament represented, so you can go through in some detail all of these particular aspects of it. For example, there's an issue there around gay kids which we want to interrogate. That's one of the key issues that kind of pops up for us. Some of the other issues that you might want to ask questions about. Now it goes to a committee, hopefully, where we can do all of that. We'll also have a conversation about it in our Shadow Cabinet and in our party room. I don't want to kind of pre-empt too much of that, but the objective is right. We want to see less discrimination. We want to make sure that that's consistent with not impinging on the rights of other groups, which are at risk of being discriminated against. That's our starting point. And there's a whole lot of detail that hangs off that that we should put through the parliamentary committee.
AUSTIN: Thanks for that. Now just before I let you go, the National Accounts will be out on Wednesday. I noticed that the Australian Bureau of Statistics says gross company profits are up 4% in the September quarter but wages and salaries are down.
CHALMERS: Yeah.
AUSTIN: So what do you think will happen on Wednesday, Jim Chalmers.
CHALMERS: I think that's an important stat that you mentioned. What it shows is that working people are going backwards even as profits are going up quite strongly. That's not a good outcome. You'd like to see profits and wages growing strongly together. So there's an issue there and it is a bit of a taste of what we're going to see on Wednesday in the National Accounts. The September quarter was very weak. It was a big contraction in the economy, it could've been avoided were it not for the lockdowns made necessary by the big mistakes made on quarantine and vaccines in that part of the year. What it shows is, we enter this new period of uncertainty and the new variant from a position of weakness. The last time the economy looked like it was recovering strongly - as it does now - what killed it was complacency, and it kind of stomped on the green shoots of that recovery this time last year and earlier this year, and we don't want to see that happen again. The National Accounts will be an important measure of the costs and consequences of those mistakes which were made earlier in the year.
AUSTIN: I'll leave it there. Jim Chalmers, thanks very much for coming on once again.
CHALMERS: Thanks very much, Steve.
ENDS
