JIM CHALMERS MP
SHADOW TREASURER
MEMBER FOR RANKIN
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC NORTH WEST QUEENSLAND
TUESDAY, 9 NOVEMBER 2021
SUBJECTS: Labor’s candidate for Kennedy; Mount Isa; Labor’s policies for cleaner and cheaper energy; Labor’s plan for cheaper childcare; Housing crisis; Eight years of wage stagnation and insecure work.
JULIA ANDRE, HOST: Jim Chalmers, why are you here?
JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: Well, this visit's a really good opportunity to spend some time with Jason Brandon - our Labor candidate for Kennedy - and to spend some time with the mining community. Because there's a massive opportunity for the Northwest when it comes to the future of our economy. We want the Australian economy to recover strongly after COVID-19 and we want this region to be a big part of the story. That means listening to and spending time with the local employers, the local workers, the local organisations, the local council and that's what we're here to do.
ANDRE: Okay, and who are you meeting with today?
CHALMERS: We've already spent some time with Glencore Mount Isa Mines in the copper smelter and getting a briefing from the leadership there about the opportunities over the next 10 or 20 years. Hearing about their needs, when it comes to energy, obviously, is a big part of the story, but also people - how do we fill that skills shortage here in the Northwest to make sure that it can prosper. That people are attracted here by the good opportunities. And also the infrastructure, you know the challenges around getting the mining output to the ports, and getting it away.
And so, a good opportunity to speak about that with the local council and about some of the more specific local needs, but also with Jason, who's an experienced member of the mining services committee, in the mining community, he's been working in the area. So what I want to make sure we're doing is, when we're talking in Canberra, and in the Labor Party, about the future of the economy, I want to make sure this part of the world has a really prominent voice. And I'm confident that's what Jason will be. But we also need to make sure we're spending time here.
ANDRE: Being in a mining community, when people hear reaching net zero, it kind of freaks them out a little bit understandably, what's your views? And what's the party's views heading into the next election about meeting net zero? What's your target?
CHALMERS: Well, I think regional Queensland, and including the northwest of Queensland, stands to be among the biggest beneficiaries of going to cleaner and cheaper energy. If you think about the copper and the cobalt, and the nickel and the zinc that comes out of this town and Mount Isa Mines in particular, you know, those are the resources that we desperately need when it comes to more efficient white goods, when it comes to phones, when it comes to batteries, when it comes to electric vehicles. And so this is a big opportunity for here and for Australia as we move towards cleaner and cheaper energy and net zero emissions by the middle of the century.
It's really communities and towns and employers like these here, which stand to be the biggest beneficiaries. So we know that from a local level, we know that from Jason's advocacy and speaking to the businesses. But we also know the Business Council of Australia did a whole bunch of modeling about the benefits are getting to net zero by 2050. And what they discovered was that the regions will be the biggest beneficiaries, including in areas where new sources of cleaner and cheaper energy will actually turbocharge areas of traditional strength like mining, and like agriculture and other industries like that. So a big opportunity.
But in order to grab those opportunities, we've got to be serious about creating some certainty on policy, but also making sure that, as the economy recovers, as we look for those new sources of energy, we need to make sure that places like Mount Isa have a prominent voice, and that they are a big part of the economic story. And that's what I want to be. And that's what I want Jason to be.
ANDRE: Have you got any policies yet that will affect this part of Queensland? Or is that something you're still working on?
CHALMERS: Yeah we do. I mean, already, we've had a lot to say about skills in particular, you know, you think about the hundreds of jobs in this town that are going begging right now, at the same time, as we've got almost 2 million Australians who can't find a job or can't find enough work. There are hundreds of jobs going begging in Mount Isa itself. And so, we've got policies around better matching skills with opportunities. We've got policies around making sure that we boost apprenticeships on big government projects, particularly infrastructure projects. We've got policies around making sure that we can more efficiently transmit new sources of energy and I know that's a big part of the story here when you think about the industrial base of this town. So we've already had a lot to say about how we can broaden our economy, how we can create jobs and how we can diversify our regions and make sure that our regions are a big part of our economic success story. And we'll have much more to say between now and the election.
ANDRE: One of the biggest barriers for getting skilled workers up here is the housing shortage. How are you going to make that easier? The housing stock in Mount Isa is really poor. It's hard to get a rental as well. How are you going to make that easier?
CHALMERS: Yeah, we just spent some time with some of the workers at Mount Isa Mines. And clearly that's front and centre, particularly when you think about younger workers. I was speaking to some who had graduated from the University of Queensland in Brisbane, they'd come up to work here at the mine and that is obviously front and centre. You know, the rental market is not what we would want it to be and that's a story in lots of parts of Australia. It's a big challenge, we don't have one lever that you can pull to fix that. We think we should start with social and affordable housing and build some new housing stock and build some new supply. But that's not the whole story. And we'll have more to say about housing between now and the election as well.
ANDRE: Okay. The cost of living is super high up here. Sometimes when people move to regional Australia, they think that it's gonna be, it's gonna be cheaper, particularly up here, when flights to Brisbane (return) can be close to $1,000. How are you gonna make that easier for your average Mount Isa resident?
CHALMERS: I think you're right that that's not something that the city slickers understand. And a lot of people are, you know, back and forth to see family and so those costs very quickly add up. You've got those long kind of supply chains, so that groceries and all of that can be quite expensive as well. So we're aware of that. We want to take some of the pressure off, the cost of living pressure off people, particularly families. We want to make it easier, for example, to get childcare, which is cheaper, and that will free up some of people's budget in order to afford the essentials of life. We've also got policies around our wages. Wages are not always an issue on our mine sites, but in the community more broadly, insecure work and casualisation means that quite frequently, people are not earning as much as they need to provide for their loved ones. So those have been some of our early focuses. But again, you know, we are working on a lot of policy behind the scenes to help on that front.
ANDRE: Childcare is a huge issue here. At some childcare centres there's up to 300 people on the waiting list. I know one police officer that kept having to push back her job starting date. How would you attract childcare workers up here when you're competing against the mine salaries?
CHALMERS: We were chuckling because Jason, I hope he doesn't mind me saying, his family's expecting another addition in the next couple of days. Congratulations mate. We were talking about that on the way here. He's got two car seats in his car and the second one, very efficient, is for the one that hasn't arrived yet so he's ahead of the game. But yeah, I mean, childcare wages will be a big part of the story as are aged care wages for that matter. It's sort of strange in this country that you're working in two of the more important jobs, and you can get paid less than stacking shelves. Our focus in childcare is to try and make it more affordable for families with the rebate and the cap. And we are hoping that in doing so that we can attach to that some improvements in the standard of care, but also in the standard of employment.
ANDRE: We can't do this interview without mentioning Mr. Katter. He's got a chokehold on the region, I'm not gonna lie. His vote increased in the last federal election. How are you going to stand out from history and try to beat him?
CHALMERS: Well, we've pre-selected a great candidate in Jason, absolutely outstanding candidate. And that's a big part of the story, but also making sure that we've got policies and plans which are relevant to the Northwest. And, you know, having a Shadow Treasurer from Queensland I think does ensure or helps ensure that we've got to focus on Queensland’s regions, and we haven't had one for a little while from here. And so I want to be a more prominent voice up here as well working closely with Jason. We're not pretending that it's an easy task to knock Bob off. I don't think Jason is and we're certainly not. It's a big challenge. Let's be open and upfront about it. But we're going to do the work, and we're going to earn people's support and we'll see what happens from there.
ANDRE: Do you think people may want a change?
CHALMERS: I think the mood in the country generally is that we have an opportunity to not just rule a line under COVID but rule a line under lots that we haven't liked about this Coalition government. And you know, people might be able to do that simultaneously - move on from what's been a difficult period and move on from what has been, in my view, which you'd expect me to say, not a very good government.
A government that's wasted a lot of money in the budget, lots of rorts that flow into Sydney and Melbourne and not into the regions of Queensland. And a record on the economy that has not been good when it's come to wages and job security, all the rest of it. So I think there is a mood for change in the country broadly. And we've got to make sure that that's part of the story here in Kennedy, here in the Northwest, recognising that it's slightly different running against an incumbent independent than it is running against a Liberal.
ANDRE: Climate is going to be a massive issue at this election. The ALP lost a lot of seats in regional Queensland last election. How do you balance trying to win seats in regional Queensland and win those inner city seats?
CHALMERS: Yeah, obviously we learned from the last election. You know, any decent political party has to listen, when you get a result like we got last time. I think I've been into regional Queensland 55 or more times just this term of parliament alone. And that's been to listen to people and to listen to what we could do better in federal Labor. And I think the key is to recognise that we can do something meaningful about climate change without abandoning our traditional strengths in the economy, without abandoning mining communities, indeed.
And a real theme of this trip is we can do something meaningful on climate change, we can help ensure that some of these mining communities have a future, whether it's hydrogen power, whether it's gas firming renewables, which we'll be talking about this afternoon. There's an opportunity here, we should grab it. In order to grab it, we've got to be upfront with people about where the challenges are, but also where the opportunities are and where the jobs are going to come from and that's what we've been doing.
ANDRE: What's your message to Kennedy voters ahead of the next election? What can you promise them? What are you offering them?
CHALMERS: Well, a more prominent voice in an Albanese Labor Government. You know, if you want this region to prosper, you need a government that believes in you. That means voting for Jason Brandon and federal Labor, and making him part of the government so he can come to Canberra and advocate for you alongside me and the other Queenslanders and Anthony Albanese, who's a big supporter of the region as well. I mean, this is our big chance, not just this election, but this time, in our country's trajectory is a big, big moment for us. Where we get to work out what do we want the economy to look like after COVID? Can it be stronger after COVID than it was before? And what role does the Northwest play in that? It's an exciting time. We've got some reasons to be optimistic about it. But you need a government that believes in you and doesn't take you for granted. And that's what an Albanese Labor Government would be. We believe in you and invest in you.
ANDRE: Are you going to continue visiting before the election?
CHALMERS: Yeah, obviously I’ll do my best. I mean, what we've tried to do this term is spend as much time in regional Queensland as possible. 55 visits, I think, to about 29 different towns and cities. And so we want to make that part of what we do and not just as some kind of unusual thing, but a regular thing. And not just in opposition but in government. Because we are genuine about wanting to give your listeners a much, much more prominent voice in the way that the country is run, and in doing so secure a really great future for the region.
ANDRE: Thank you.
CHALMERS: Thanks for that.
ENDS
