E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC RN BREAKFAST
MONDAY, 30 JULY 2018
 
SUBJECT/S: By-elections; Turnbull’s $17b handout to the big banks
 
FRAN KELLY: Jim Chalmers is the Shadow Finance Minister and a senior Queenslander in Shadow Cabinet. Jim Chalmers, welcome back to breakfast.
 
JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW MINISTER FOR FINANCE: Good morning, Fran.
 
KELLY: Labor is triumphant, but given the history of by-elections in this country, aren't you getting a little carried away? You've thumped the Government in Longman in Brisbane, but you're not the first Opposition to do that, really.
 
CHALMERS: We take great confidence from the outcome on Saturday, but we're certainly not complacent about it. It really was an endorsement of our approach, which is to listen to people, to lead on policy, and to make sure our priorities are the priorities of people who work and struggle around the country. And that was endorsed really, by the people of those communities. It was a great night.
 
KELLY: Hang on, when you say "of those communities", yes, I guess you can claim it was an endorsement of your policies where your vote went up in Longman, but your primary vote dived three points in Braddon. So that's not an endorsement, is it?
 
CHALMERS: Well, there's a heap of new candidates in these sorts of contests, Fran. I think the most important thing to take out of what happened on Saturday, which was a great day for Labor and for those communities, is that Malcolm Turnbull asked them to weigh up the leaders; we asked them to weigh up the policies; the people in those communities did both of those things, and the Liberals went backwards everywhere on the two-party preferred. So, as a consequence, I think Turnbull, his agenda, his leadership, is under pressure now because he was humiliated on Saturday and his credibility was destroyed.

KELLY: If we're going to talk leadership, do you say this was an endorsement of Bill Shorten's leadership?

CHALMERS: It was certainly an endorsement of the approach that Bill has taken. What Bill has been doing for some years now, which is reflected in our position in the published polls, is he's gone around the country listening to people, he's led on policy, and he's made sure that our priorities are the priorities of middle Australia. That was endorsed on Saturday and we are confident, but not complacent, that will be endorsed over the coming months as well.
 
KELLY: Can Bill Shorten be confident that his leadership is safe? Because it's no secret that in the run up to the by-elections, there was a lot of speculation, much of it coming from within your own ranks about Bill Shorten's leadership - that if they failed, he would have been under a lot of pressure. 
CHALMERS: He will absolutely take us to the election, and I can only speak for myself when I say, Fran, that I think that his approach, which has been to go around the country doing all of these town hall meetings listening to people, learning from them and their experiences, then leading on policy in a way that is consistent with the values and priorities of middle Australia - that is the only way to lead this country. It's a big contrast with what Malcolm Turnbull has been doing, which has been going around the country barking and whinging about Bill Shorten, cutting money from hospitals and schools to give to the top end of town. The contrast couldn't be clearer, and that's why we got the result that we got on Saturday.
 
KELLY: It couldn't be clearer either, according to repeated Newspolls now, that people aren't big fans - don't seem to be fans - of Bill Shorten's leadership, because Malcolm Turnbull consistently leads him now. 48 to 29, that's a big gap - 19 points. Why is that?
 
CHALMERS: I don't think you can separate the two things, Fran. Bill's been the leader for every single day of the two years that we've been ahead in every single poll.
KELLY: And he's been trailing Malcolm Turnbull on popularity for a long time now. Why is that?
 
CHALMERS: Bill is more responsible than anyone for the fact that we have been in an election-winning position every day for the last two years in every single published opinion poll. We don't obsess about that, we're not complacent about that, we know we have work to do, and we especially know we had work to do in these by-elections. We did the work; we listened to people; we announced the policies; we defended our policies; we pointed out the contrasts with the Prime Minister, who hasn't learned from Saturday's result. He says he'll go back and re-examine his policies, but all of the signs point to a Prime Minister who is temperamentally incapable of listening to people. Anyone who saw him wander through a beer garden in Longman of Friday wagging his finger at people who had a problem with his cuts to penalty rates understands he will learn nothing from what happened on Saturday. 
 
KELLY: There is a template for a Government to revise things, shall we say, or scrape the barnacles off, which is how some analysts describe it after a loss like this. John Howard, and the parallels are being drawn by the Government and I'm sure Christopher Pyne will make it when we speak to him later, the Ryan by-election in March in 2001, the Howard Government lost that seat to Labor with a huge swing - almost 10 per cent. Eight months later, John Howard led the Coalition to victory. What he did was a lot of policy backflips. Do you expect a similar exercise from Malcolm Turnbull and the Coalition, and where do you think they'll start?
 
CHALMERS: I think they'll start by having a big barney about it. If you open the papers today, you see there's a lot of internal division. I interpreted Mathias Cormann a bit differently to you Fran a bit earlier on AM. I took that to mean they remain committed to these tax cuts for the big banks and foreign multinationals, which means the only way to properly kill off this daft policy is to vote Labor at the election. But Malcolm Turnbull himself has told Australians time and time again that the big business tax cuts is his one-point plan for jobs and growth. So if the big business tax cuts go, I think Turnbull has to go as well. He can't lead a Government that isn't as committed as tax giveaways to the big banks as he is. Even if after this big internal barney they're about to have about tax cuts, even if it is resolved in a way that sees them abandon these tax cuts, I just think that will be the beginning of a new set of problems for Malcolm Turnbull.
 
KELLY: You're a Shadow Finance Minister. Do you look on and hope the Government does come and get support for a new threshold on these tax cuts? Perhaps turnover for up to $200 million, or maybe $500 million? That would carve out the major banks, which is the big element of Labor's threat - better hospitals, not bigger banks. You are all against these bigger tax cuts for banks.
 
CHALMERS: You have to do what's fair and what's responsible and affordable, Fran. We’ve made our position clear; we support a threshold of $50 million. We don't support that going any higher. From a point of view of the Budget - I'm the Shadow Finance Minister, as you say - and from the point of view of the Budget, it makes very little sense, it makes no sense, to keep showering more money on these big business tax cuts when even the Treasury says the benefits will be negligible and felt far down the track. There're better things that we need to do; higher priorities that we have for this country - investing in our hospitals and schools. And when you've got record debt, as we do now under the Liberals, you have to work out where you can make the biggest positive difference.
KELLY: You say that's what makes most sense. Others look at it and go, why is it sensible for Australia to be left with a 30 per cent corporate tax rate for bigger businesses while our competitors in the US and UK have dropped their rates to 21 per cent or even lower?
 
CHALMERS: Because businesses make their decisions on investing in Australia based on a whole range of things - the quality of our human capital, which is about the quality of our education system; the quality of our infrastructure; the stability of our laws. All of these sorts of things factor into whether or not companies are prepared to invest in Australia, not just the headline tax rate, which has been proven again and again.
 
KELLY: You're listening to RN Breakfast. It's a-quarter-to-eight. Our guest is the Shadow Finance Minister Jim Chalmers. Jim Chalmers, there'll be lessons for the next federal election. The Coalition holds eight seats in your home state of Queensland by less than four per cent. How many of them do you think Labor can take to the bank?

CHALMERS: We can't take any to the bank, Fran. We don't think about it along those lines, but I think it is fair to say that Longman has a lot in common with other seats like Dickson, like Petrie, like Forde which is next door to me in Logan City and the northern Gold Coast. A lot of seats have a lot in common with Longman, and in those places just as in Longman and just like in Braddon frankly, people don't want to see these cuts to hospitals and schools. They don't want to see cuts to penalty rates, particularly when Turnbull's over-riding priority is to give those big tax cuts to the top end of town, to the people who need them least. So I think we can be confident, but not complacent, that we will be a real show in Queensland at the next election. We thought that before Saturday, frankly. Because the issues that we are putting to the people of Queensland are far closer to their values and priorities than the approach that Malcolm Turnbull is taking.
 
KELLY: You out-spent the Government by an enormous amount in Longman - a $450,000 TV and radio blitz in the final days of the campaign. Did Labor buy this win?
 
CHALMERS: Of course not, Fran. Consistently, as we saw in the last election when Malcolm Turnbull kicked in a lazy couple of million into his own campaign, it's not overwhelmingly why we win these contests. We win these contests because we've got better candidates, we got better policies, and we've got better volunteers on the ground - more numerous volunteers, but better strategies on the ground as well. So I don't think any objective observer would come to the conclusion that you've just put.
 
KELLY: Jim Chalmers, thanks very much for joining us.

CHALMERS: Thank you, Fran.
 
ENDS