E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TV INTERVIEW
SKY NEWS, AM AGENDA
WEDNESDAY, 20 NOVEMBER 2019
SUBJECTS: Liberals' infrastructure announcement; AUSTRAC investigation of Westpac.
KIERAN GILBERT, SKY NEWS: Jim Chalmers thanks so much for your time. What do you make of this AUSTRAC case against Westpac? Some very disturbing details in there.
JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: Appalling revelations and allegations which have been made by AUSTRAC about the behaviour of the Westpac Bank. Any breach of the really important laws that we have about money laundering and counter-terrorism is serious. We're talking here about allegations of something like 23 million breaches adding up to $11 billion. It's astounding and appalling. There's a process underway now, which is a good thing. The work of AUSTRAC is very, very important. The alleged behaviour here is very concerning, astounding and appalling.
GILBERT: If confirmed through those processes, heads should roll?
CHALMERS: Let's wait and see what the various legal processes uncover, but on the face of it, these allegations are extraordinarily serious. Any breach on its own is serious but when it adds up to millions of breaches and billions of dollars, then something very serious is alleged to have gone wrong here. If they've done the wrong thing then the book should be thrown at them.
GILBERT: It's extraordinary off the back of the Royal Commission that one of the biggest institutions in the nation, one of our big banks, could have governance so flawed as exposed by AUSTRAC in their claim this morning?
CHALMERS: Absolutely. These are extraordinarily serious allegations. If they are right, and there's no indication that they're wrong, then Westpac's got some very serious questions to answer about their governance and about their processes. There have been allegations of similar kinds of behaviour with one other bank. This is one of the reasons why we had the Royal Commission in the first place. It's astounding with this kind of behaviour that the Liberals resisted a Royal Commission into banking for two years and voted against it 26 times.
GILBERT: On another matter, the infrastructure spending, it's been expedited. Palaszczuk, the Queensland Premier, obviously pleased with what Queensland is having delivered over the next few years. Nearly $2 billion of upgrades to the Bruce Highway and other major arterials. Are you welcoming of this fast-track infrastructure spending in terms of a softening economy?
CHALMERS: We've made it clear for a very long time now that we want to see extra investment in infrastructure and we need to see it brought forward. We always want to see the states and the federal Government working together to get good outcomes for people. What we're seeing today is an admission that the economy is much weaker than Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg have been telling us. As the economy has deteriorated they've been claiming that their policy settings are bang on and the fundamentals of the economy are really strong but what this announcement proves today is that neither of those things are true. It's an admission that they've been getting it wrong for some time now and Labor, the business community, the Reserve Bank and others have been getting it right.
GILBERT: Well, what the Prime Minister argues is that this is methodical and the Government's been measured in its response to this point, not panic merchants. That's the way he's going to put it this evening to the Business Council and in doing so compares the Government's approach through infrastructure to the former Labor Government's approach of stimulus spending, cash payments and the like.
CHALMERS: The Prime Minister's got a bit of a problem. He's got a real obsession with Labor. They've been in office now for more than six years but he always seems to be talking about the Labor Party. The nation is really proud of what workers and businesses were able to do together during the Global Financial Crisis under the leadership of Rudd and Swan, as one of the best performing economies when the world economy was in serious trouble. The nation should be proud of that. Scott Morrison always wants to talk about Labor as a distraction from his own failures. The economy has deteriorated substantially on his watch, including since the election, but he hasn't got a plan for it. Not even what he's announcing today is a comprehensive enough plan for an economy which is floundering on his watch so he always wants to talk about us.
We have been saying for some time that what we're seeing now is different to ten years ago during the Global Financial Crisis. We've joined with the Reserve Bank, the business community, economists and others in saying that we do need a measured, proportionate and responsible boost to the economy. What has happened today is partly a response to that pressure but it's not a comprehensive plan to deal with all the other issues we've got in the economy like slowing growth, rising unemployment, stagnant wages, weak business investment, and a weak retail sector. The list goes on and on.
GILBERT: Jim Chalmers, I know you've got to go to a news conference with the opposition leader, Anthony Albanese. I'll let you go. Appreciate you squeezing a here.
CHALMERS: Thanks for that.
ENDS
