JIM CHALMERS MP
SHADOW TREASURER
MEMBER FOR RANKIN

 

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DOORSTOP INTERVIEW
WEDNESDAY, 7 JULY 2021
BRISBANE
 
SUBJECTS: Morrison Government’s absence of vaccines, quarantine, and leadership; Business vaccination roundtable; NSW Liberal Government request for JobKeeper; Need for vaccination public information campaign.
 
JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: ‘Team Australia’ doesn't need more slogans, and more platitudes, and more excuses. It needs more vaccines, more quarantine, and more leadership. Yet the Prime Minister has gone missing once again today. If this is Team Australia, then the captain has gone missing.
 
What we saw today was another elaborate blame-shifting exercise from a Government desperate to avoid responsibility for its vaccines debacle. 

The problem wasn't a lack of business input. The problem is a lack of vaccines, a lack of quarantine, and a lack of leadership. The problem here is the Prime Minister has gone missing when the country needs him to get his bungled vaccine rollout back on track. 
 
No amount of blame shifting and finger pointing, co-opting business or Generals, can make up for the fact that the Morison Government has stuffed-up vaccines from the very beginning. 

If this conversation with business was so important, why did it take Josh Frydenberg 18 months to arrange it? Once again: the problem wasn't a lack of business input; the problem here is a lack of vaccines. 

Australians and their economy are hostage to the Prime Minister's incompetence when it comes to those failures on vaccines and quarantine, these failures of leadership. 
 
Sydney has been locked down for another week. These kinds of lockdowns wouldn't be necessary if Scott Morrison was doing his job. These lockdowns wouldn't be necessary if Scott Morrison spent as much time trying to fix the vaccine rollout as he spends trying to shift blame and avoid responsibility for it. We need the Prime Minister to take responsibility. The Prime Minister is missing in action. 

No amount of staged photo opportunities with CEOs or Generals can make up for the debacle that he has made of this vaccine rollout. 
 
Sydney's locked-down for another week. This is the cost and consequence of the Prime Minister's twin failures on vaccines and quarantine. What we're seeing in Sydney, and right around Australia, is the price that ordinary Australian workers and small businesses are being asked to pay for the Prime Minister's incompetence. 
 
We saw today that the New South Wales Liberal Treasurer has asked Josh Frydenberg to bring back JobKeeper. 

This Government is too quick to rule out support for affected areas, and too slow to roll out the vaccine. If only Josh Frydenberg was as quick to introduce the vaccine around Australia as he was to rule out additional support for workers and small businesses doing it tough as a consequence of the Morison Government's incompetence. 
 
We don't want to see the Morison Government make the same mistake in Sydney that it made in Melbourne -  which was too little, too late, too narrow - and as a consequence, the hundreds of millions of dollars lost out of the Australian economy was nowhere near replaced by the half-hearted efforts by the Prime Minister to provide that support which is too little, too late, and too narrow. 
 
The Government is too quick to rule out support, and too slow to roll out the vaccine. 
 
Now we heard from the Reserve Bank yesterday that these lockdowns are costly when it comes to the recovery. We want the economy to recover strongly. The recovery would be stronger if the Prime Minister and the Treasurer weren't stuffing up vaccines and quarantine. We know from the Treasurer's own budget papers that he expects that there will be more lockdowns for longer, and that is an admission of failure. The Treasurer has said that there will be lockdowns every month for the rest of the year in his budget papers, but they're not prepared to do the right thing by workers and small businesses who are hostage to this Government's incompetence. 
 
What we're seeing around the world is other countries are opening up at the same time as Australia is locking down. We will see more lockdowns for longer if the Prime Minister continues to shift responsibility and fails to take responsibility for this vaccine debacle, which is holding Australia back.
 
JOURNALIST: Has the Government ruled out reinstating JobKeeper?
 
CHALMERS: Josh Frydenberg has ruled out the New South Wales Liberal Treasurer's request to reintroduce JobKeeper. Once again, this Treasurer is too fast to rule out support and too slow to roll out the vaccine and what we're seeing here is the consequences of that. 
 
This is a Government which withdrew support for the economy before the pandemic was dealt with. The workers and small businesses of this country, and particularly right now in Sydney, are hostage to this incompetence when it comes to vaccines and to their failure to provide sufficient support to get through a difficult period. 
 
JOURNALIST: How do you see the business community assisting in the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines?
 
CHALMERS: The business community is absolutely critical here. The problem hasn't been an absence of business input, the problem has been an absence of vaccines, an absence of quarantine facilities, and an absence of leadership. 
 
What the business community is prepared to do, is to help Australians get through this difficult period by assisting with the vaccine rollout but business can assist with the vaccine rollout if the Government hasn't secured the vaccines in the first place. 

You can have as many plans like the Prime Minister announced, you can have as many meetings with CEOs and Generals as you like, but if the Prime Minister hasn't done his job and secured the vaccines in the first place, then obviously that is that much more difficult.
 
JOURNALIST: What sort of incentives do you think would encourage more Australians to get vaccinated?
 
CHALMERS: First of all, when it comes to incentives for people to get vaccinated, you need to make sure in the first place that there are vaccines available. And this is the Prime Minister's failure to secure enough deals and secure enough vaccines. 
 
I think there is a willingness in the Australian community to get vaccinated, and a lot of frustration at the Prime Minister, that he's not made that possible. When it comes to incentives, all kinds of options should be on the table. We should be open-minded about that. 
 
We also should have a dedicated, serious, genuine, public information campaign to deal with vaccine hesitancy. That's one of the missing pieces in this puzzle here. We've got a Government which is very quick to advertise and spend a billion dollars of taxpayers’ money when it comes to promoting themselves, but only a few thousand dollars when it comes to countering some of the misinformation on social media. We need to see that fixed as well. 
 
JOURNALIST: What could be the damage to the economy from the Sydney lockdown? 
 
CHALMERS: We know from Melbourne, we know from Sydney, we know from lockdowns here in Brisbane and elsewhere around Australia, these are incredibly costly for workers, and small businesses, and for the economy more broadly. And every dollar lost out of these local economies is a consequence of the Prime Minister's failures to sort out vaccines and quarantine. 
 
We wouldn't be having these kinds of lockdowns if the Prime Minister had done his job. His failure to do so means more lockdowns for longer. That will be devastating for workers, small businesses, and local economies, like we're seeing for many in Sydney right now.
 
JOURNALIST: Would reinstating JobKeeper be enough to remediate the situation? 
 
CHALMERS: Clearly, the workers and small businesses affected by Scott Morrison's lockdowns need additional support. We've said that all along. 
 
The Government came to the table in Melbourne with a support package which was too little, too late, and too narrow. And as a consequence, people didn't get the support that they need and deserve as they try and deal with what's been delivered to them by Scott Morrison's incompetence. 
 
So, whether it's JobKeeper, or some other type of measure, clearly there are workers and small businesses crying out for support. The Government shouldn't be so quick to rule that out. If only they were as quick to roll out the vaccine as they've been to rule out support of small businesses and workers impacted by Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg's  incompetence. 
 
JOURNALIST: Just going back to that point in the business community. Are you saying that they don't have confidence in the Government's actually making the supply of vaccines available? 
 
CHALMERS: I think the business community on the whole has been prepared to do their bit and help roll out the vaccines. They want their workers to be vaccinated. They want local economies to be open. They want people to be working. And all of us have that in common, we all want that. The business community certainly wants that as well. 

But the issue hasn't been a failure to have meetings with the business community, the issue has been an absence of vaccines, an absence of leadership, an absence of dedicated quarantine. If we had those things, then all of the goodwill - from the business community, from the unions, and from others - with all of that, we could actually progress this. But in the absence of vaccines it's that much more difficult. Thanks very much.
 
ENDS