JIM CHALMERS MP
SHADOW TREASURER
MEMBER FOR RANKIN
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
ABC NEWS BREAKFAST
THURSDAY, 31 MARCH 2022
SUBJECTS: Anthony Albanese’s Budget Reply; Petrol excise and cost of living pressures; Minimum wages.
MADELEINE MORRIS, HOST: Anthony Albanese will tonight outline his response to the Budget, a speech that is taking on extra significance as we wait for the election to be called. Shadow Treasurer Jim Chalmers joins us now from Canberra. Good morning to you, Jim Chalmers. Now, you made clear that this is not going to outlay an alternative economic approach. So what can we expect from Anthony Albanese?
JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: Good morning, Madeleine. What you'll see tonight is a plan for the future. Tuesday night's Budget from the Government was a plan just for an election.
You'll hear from Anthony Albanese tonight a plan for the future. You'll also see a leader who is prepared to turn up, and take responsibility, and try and bring people together, and to work together to strengthen our economy, versus a Prime Minister who always goes missing, doesn't take responsibility, and who tries to divide us. So I'd encourage your viewers to tune in at 7:30pm Daylight Saving Time tonight, to make sure that they see our alternative plans for Australia - a plan for a better future not just a plan for an election campaign.
MORRIS: Will that plan for the better future include the detail on whether you will keep the cut to the fuel excise should you win power?
CHALMERS: We've said throughout the course of the week that it will be difficult for a government of either persuasion to prevent the cost of petrol going up again in September, that's how the Government designed the legislation. Obviously, we don't pre-empt the economic conditions at the time, or the Budget conditions at the time, but I think it's only being upfront with your viewers. As the Government has said as well, under the legislation that's gone through the parliament this week, petrol prices will go down over the next couple of weeks and they'll go back up again in September. That's how the Government designed the legislation.
MORRIS: Okay, so that's a pretty clear answer from you on front. You've absolutely condemned the Government for those cost of living pressures that they have added. I think Anthony Albanese said he may as well have stapled how to vote cards on that money coming out, bet yet you waved it through last night. So how should voters view that?
CHALMERS: We think some cost of living relief is necessary because people's real wages are going backwards, one again in the Government's own Budget. The average worker is in the hole about $26 a week as a consequence of the real wage cuts which were outlined on Tuesday night by Josh Frydenberg. So in that context, we've got little choice but to support some cost of living relief. Our argument with the Government is that there's nothing beyond that.
The point that Anthony Albanese has been making and that I've been making, is that this is a desperate and panicked and short term Budget, which is designed to get the Government through an election and not designed to get people through difficult times. It's designed to lock-in a fourth term for the Liberals and Nationals, it's not designed to lock-in that better future that we need to see. So the contrast will be there tonight. Anthony Albanese has the capacity to see beyond the next election, the Prime Minister doesn't.
MORRIS: So on that, the ACTU has announced they'll be seeking a 5% increase come July for low paid and minimum wage paid workers, that's about 2.3 million people. Will you be supporting that 5%?
CHALMERS: We don't typically nominate a number, the Fair Work Commission weighs up the contributions from the ACTU, and from the employers, and from others, but I'd say this about the low paid. The low paid in Australia deserve and need a decent pay rise. In many cases, we're talking about workers who've been at the frontline during the pandemic. They need and deserve a decent pay rise, they are battling skyrocketing cost of living, they're dealing with wages which have been stagnant for far too long. We want to see wages growth across the board, it makes sense to begin with the lowest pay.
MORRIS: So how do you go about doing that? Everyone says people need to be paid more, ultimately wages are in the hands of the employers. How would Labor go about increasing wages?
CHALMERS: Not just the employers, but obviously that's a big part of the story. Well, it begins, I think, with a decent pay rise for the lowest paid as we've just been discussing.
MORRIS: So you support that 5% claim then?
CHALMERS: We support a decent pay rise for minimum wage workers, we don't typically nominate, that's the job for the Fair Work Commission to weigh all of that up. But it's self-evident that the lowest paid in Australia need and deserve a decent pay rise to deal with the skyrocketing cost of living pressures. We also need to train people to grab the higher skilled, higher wage opportunities in the economy. We need to make child care cheaper and more accessible so people can work more and earn more if they want to. We need to sensibly regulate the gig economy so that there are protections there.
We need to deal with labour hire, which is undercutting people's wages and conditions. We need to empower the Fair Work Commission to turn casual insecure work into more secure, more permanent work. There are a range of things that governments should do. This Government has waged war on wages, and job security, and living standards, for the best part of a decade now. Now that we're on the eve of calling an election, the Government now pretends to care about cost of living pressures. If they cared about cost of living pressures, they wouldn't have been going after people's wages and job security for the best part of a decade.
MORRIS: I just want to ask you about another matter. We did have the situation where Kimberley Kitching, the former Labor Senator, said that she was bullied. Now we have Concetta Fierravanti-Wells and even Pauline Hanson accusing the Prime Minister of bullying as well. What should people sitting at home watching this make of that? We're just having so many accusations fly around the federal parliament about this, a really important institution, what do you say to people?
CHALMERS: I think our commitment is to try and lift the standards in this place. I think we've been saying for some time we recognise that the standards of this place need to improve. I think when it comes to this avalanche of criticism of the Prime Minister in particular, it seems that there's a pattern in the sense that the people who work most closely with the Prime Minister and know him best seem to trust him the least. That's the pattern of the commentary of the last few days. Beyond that, we've said if there's more that can be done to lift the standards of this place it will be done.
MORRIS: Okay, Jim Chalmers, we'll leave it there. Thanks very much.
CHALMERS: Thanks very much, Madeleine.
ENDS
