JIM CHALMERS MP
SHADOW TREASURER
MEMBER FOR RANKIN
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
PRESS CONFERENCE
BRISBANE
WEDNESDAY, 2 MARCH 2022
SUBJECT: South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales floods; National Accounts; Costs of living skyrocketing while real wages are going backwards; The Morrison-Joyce-Frydenberg Government is always looking for someone else to blame; Petrol prices were going up before Russia crossed the border into Ukraine.
JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: I wanted to acknowledge the really incredible work from SES volunteers, emergency workers, first responders, and community organisations, who are doing so much work around the clock to help keep people safe and to help clean-up our communities. We know from the Bureau of Meteorology that more storms are expected. As tough as the last few days have been we need to batten down the hatches again, there is the possibility of some more storm activity from this afternoon and possibly for the next few days. We need people to remain alert and vigilant, we may not be through this yet. Even though the sun is shining now, looks can be deceiving. Even though the clean-up has begun in many parts of South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales, we still need to be alert and vigilant because we may not be completely through this yet. Thank you to all of the people from all the neighbourhoods, all of the community organisations and volunteer workers, the SES and the fireys. All of the organisations who are doing so much, really quite inspiring work, to keep people safe and to clean-up our streets, after what has been an incredibly difficult last week or so.
Today we got the National Accounts for the December quarter of 2021. These National Accounts were from last year, and a lot has happened since. These National Accounts don't take into account the Prime Minister's rapid test debacle or the emptying of grocery shelves that we saw in December. These numbers today don't fully factor in the Prime Minister's failures on rapid tests or the grocery shortages that we saw as a consequence, and they don't factor in the substantial flooding activity that we've seen in South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales. There's a lot of uncertainty still because of the war in the Ukraine.
So these numbers are backward looking, they're from last year, and a lot has happened since then. They don't take into account the summer from hell that Scott Morrison put Australians through when he failed to order enough rapid tests. We saw all of that pressure on the supply chains, which meant that there were grocery shortages in much of Australia.
What we've seen in these numbers is a welcome but entirely unsurprising bounce-back from that horrible September quarter downturn we saw in the economy. Every economist expected the December quarter to rebound off that very low base, established by the downturn in September that we didn't have to have. What we're seeing in these numbers is thoroughly unsurprising. It is a welcome but an expected bounce-back in the economy - that happened before the summer from hell, the rapid test debacle, and the grocery shortages - and that’s before we even get to the uncertainty in the economy right now.
Three things stand out from these National Accounts today - skyrocketing costs of living, business investment going backwards, and productivity falling once again. The thanks that Australians get for all of the sacrifices they've made for each other can't be more of the same wage stagnation, falling investment, and falling productivity that we've seen for much of the Government's last decade in office. We can do much better than just going back to all of the wage stagnation, and economic stagnation in productivity and business investment, that we saw before COVID-19.
This is a government notorious for taking credit for the recovery and not taking responsibility to lock that recovery down. Half a dozen times now we've had the Treasurer tell us that everything was about to come good and then because of some mismanagement of the health aspects of the pandemic that recovery has been cruelled.
We welcome a bounce-back in the economy - it’s inevitable, it’s expected, but we can't be complacent about it - because the Government has failed on earlier occasions to lock-in a recovery that they had claimed credit for. For most Australians, the economy means skyrocketing costs of living, falling real wages, and working families falling behind. It's not a real recovery if working families can't get ahead. It's not a real recovery if it's defined by those skyrocketing costs of living, and falling real wages, and working families being left behind as the economy recovers in welcomed but expected ways.
JOURNALIST: How devastating have the floods been im your community?
CHALMERS: People in our local community are doing it incredibly tough. There are still a number of roads closed, still homes underwater, still some people who can't access their homes or electricity. I spent some time at the Logan Metro Evacuation Centre yesterday and people are understandably anxious about what's happening to their property and what's happening to their businesses. We need to remain alert and vigilant because there may be another difficult weather system on its way. The Bureau of Meteorology is expecting more thunderstorms over the next few days. That will be devastating for people who are already doing it tough enough. We know from earlier floods, that this is a really difficult period. It's obviously very unsettling as the waters rise but as the floodwaters begin to recede - whether it's now or after this next round of thunderstorms - people do get a bit down because the full extent of the damage becomes apparent. Our message to people who have been impacted by these floods, is that you are not on your own. What we've seen before - and what we will see again - is a flood of generosity and a flood of kindness as people come from everywhere to help people clean up and recover and rebuild from these really difficult floods in South East Queensland and in Northern New South Wales as well. We might not be out of the woods yet, there may be more difficult weather to come, but if we stick together then we will get through this as we've got through difficult times before.
JOURNALIST: The latest National Accounts [inaudible]
CHALMERS: We want the recovery to be strong and enduring, we expect the economy will recover because it's come off such a very low base from that September downturn. Every single economist in Australia expected the economy to recover at the end of last year before we had the rapid test debacle and the grocery shortages. These numbers today are welcome but thoroughly unsurprising and entirely expected because they're coming off such a low base. We want the economy to recover strongly, we expect that it will, but it will require a government which doesn't just take credit for a recovery and actually takes the necessary steps to lock-it in.
JOURNALIST: Josh Frydenberg says the best way to push real wages is to keep tightening [inaudible]
CHALMERS: We can't trust a word that Josh Frydenberg or Scott Morrison say about wages, these characters have delivered almost a decade now of historically low wages growth. Even now as the economy is recovering real wages are going backwards. We've got skyrocketing cost of living, real wages going backwards, and working families are falling even further behind. This is a government which said that stagnant wages growth was a deliberate design feature of their economic policy. This is a government which has attacked penalty rates, and job security, and undermined wages growth in this country. Josh Frydenberg either doesn't know or doesn't care that wages growth has been stagnant for much of the last decade. You cannot believe a word that this government says about wages. The big risk for Australians in this election is that a re-elected Morrison-Frydenberg-Joyce Government will deliver another three years like the last nine - of stagnant wages, real wages going backwards, costs of living going through the roof, and working families finding it even more difficult to make ends meet.
JOURNALIST: What impact do you expect the floods and Russia's invasion of Ukraine to have on economic growth?
CHALMERS: It remains to be seen, the full extent of the damage in South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales from these floods. As the floodwaters recede, we will get a better sense of the damage. Clearly, people are worried about a shortage of building materials and the skills shortages that we have in our economy, as we turn our minds to recovering and rebuilding from these floods. The full impact of that remains to be seen. When it comes to the war in Ukraine - this violent unprovoked act of aggression by President Putin and the Russian regime - we already know that this will push up energy prices, it will have implications for food security in Europe, and it's making investors very jumping. There will be implications for Australia from the war in Ukraine, and from these floods that were seeing right now. The full extent of the damage and the impact remains to be seen, but it's a reminder that we cannot be complacent about this economic recovery. Too many times in the last two years, we've had a government take credit for a recovery without taking responsibility for locking it in. There's a lot of uncertainty in the economy right now, so the Government should not be patting itself on its back for recovery before it is locked-in. There is so much going on since these National Accounts were measured in the end of last year, there is enough to worry us in the economy that we need to be very careful about the Government’s boasts here. Whether it's the damage from the floods, or the impacts of the war in Ukraine, we need to be vigilant about what it means for Australian working families.
JOURNALIST: The federal Treasurer is warning the price of petrol is likely to continue increasing. Anthony Albanese has said Coalition mismanagement has left the country vulnerable to higher fuel prices during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. So are you say that under a Labor Government petrol prices wouldn't increase?
CHALMERS: Petrol prices were rising substantially before the war in Ukraine. What Josh Frydenberg and Scott Morrison will try and do is to pretend that petrol prices - which were already near two dollars a litre before the Russians crossed the border into Ukraine - are somehow entirely explained by what's happening overseas. Petrol prices have been going up for some time. What’s left us more vulnerable there than we need to be, is the Government's failures on fuel security, on refineries, and their failures on electric vehicles. So the point that Anthony Albanese has been making, is that if we had a government that believed in EVs and took serious steps when it came to fuel security, then we would be less vulnerable to some of these shocks that we're seeing imposed on us from overseas. Skyrocketing costs of petrol are not the only cost of living pressures on Australian families. Whether it's rent, whether it's childcare, all of these other pressures that people are feeling, we have policies when it comes to easing the cost of childcare, getting power bills down, and getting wages growing again in this country. We have a plan to address the cost of living crisis in this economy, the Government doesn't. They're entirely bereft of ideas so, as always, they’re looking for something else.
JOURNALIST: What policy changes would you announce to alleviate price pressures [inaudible]
CHALMERS: We need to look at these costs of living pressures across the board whether it's rent, whether it's childcare, whether it's power bills. We do have a strategy to get wages growing again, remembering that real wages are going backwards, making it harder for families to make ends meet. We've got a strategy for wages, we’ve got a policy for more affordable childcare - which is one of the big pressures on family budgets - we’ve got a policy for cleaner and cheaper energy to get those power bills down. We'll have more to say about housing because rent is such a big part of the story when it comes to these cost of living pressures. The Government is always looking for someone to blame. Clearly, the war in Ukraine is going to have implications for energy prices, nobody's pretending otherwise, but petrol prices have been rising for some time. Costs of living have been skyrocketing for some time. Real wages have been going backwards for some time. Labor is the only major party with a plan to deal with those issues.
JOURNALIST: [Inaudible]?
CHALMERS: I wish Scott Morrison a speedy recovery from COVID. Obviously, there are many Australians in the same boat as the Prime Minister. We wish them - and we wish him - a speedy recovery, so that he can get back to work. Thanks very much.
ENDS
