JIM CHALMERS MP
SHADOW TREASURER
MEMBER FOR RANKIN

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DOORSTOP INTERVIEW
BRISBANE
SUNDAY, 27 MARCH 2022

SUBJECTS: The Morrison Government’s spakfilla Budget; Instead of helping Australians through a tough time this Budget is all about pushing problems from this side of the election to the other; Scott Morrison’s answer to the rampant skills shortage is extending a program that ends on Thursday by three months; Doing the right thing by our veterans should be a moral obligation not a political fix.

JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: This Budget will be the political equivalent of spakfilla, billions of dollars spraying around and squirting around in the Government's hope that nobody will notice the cracks until after the election. 

So much of what the Government is proposing is just taking a problem and pushing it from one side of the election to the other.

This needs to be a Budget which secures a better future for Australians, not just a Budget that secures a fourth term for Scott Morrison. It needs to help people through a difficult period, not just help the Liberals and Nationals through an election. 

Nothing that the Government proposes on Tuesday night will change the fundamental reality for Australian families that everything is going up except their wages. We've got the costs of living skyrocketing, real wages falling and ordinary Australian working families falling further and further behind. 

This Budget is not about topping up tanks it's about topping up votes. This Budget is not about cost of living pressures it's about political pressures on the Prime Minister. 

I think all Australians know that this Government is only pretending to care about costs of living pressures because we are on the eve of an election. If this Government really cared about cost of living pressures, they wouldn't have spent the best part of a decade going after people's take home pay and their job security. 

If this Government hadn't sprayed tens of billions of dollars around on waste, and rorts, and mismanagement, there'd be much more room in the Budget to properly look after Australian working families.

I think Australians expect this Budget to be a lot of money spraying around but not much in terms of a long term plan for a better future. This will be a Budget more about short term political fixes rather than a long term plan for a better future for the people of this country. This is the spakfilla Budget, there'll be lots of money spraying around and squirting around in the hope that Australians won't notice the cracks until after the election. I think we'll see that on Tuesday night. 

Two specific issues that I wanted to touch on. 

First of all, the announcement from the Government today on skills policy. One of the defining challenges in our economy is skill shortages. Employers are absolutely crying out for more skilled workers. This is a consequence of almost a decade of cuts to training, and neglect of apprenticeships, training, and education. 

When employers are crying out for more skilled workers the best the Government can come up with is to take an existing program and extend it for three months. If this is the Government's skills policy in reaction to the rampant skill shortages in our economy, that says a lot about this Government - pushing a problem from one side of the election to the other. 

All they're doing here is taking a program that was supposed to end on Thursday, and making it end three months later. That's not a genuine plan to deal with the skill shortages in this economy. There is nothing from this Government beyond June 30 when it comes to the rampant skill shortages in this economy. 

We need to be much more ambitious about skills. There needs to be fee-free TAFE spots where we've got skill shortages, more university places, Jobs and Skills Australia to identify and fill needs as they emerge, New Energy apprenticeships. We need a much more ambitious approach to skills because the skills shortage is running rampant in our economy. It's a big handbrake on the recovery, it's a big reason why we're seeing this inflation in the economy as well. The Government should be doing much better than simply extending a program from next Thursday until the end of June, pushing a problem from one side of the election to the other. 

The last issue I wanted to touch on was Andrew Gee's comments about veterans. This Government sees veterans as a political problem to be managed not a moral obligation to Australians who have served our country and made such extraordinary sacrifices. Imagine what these characters could do for veterans if they didn't just care about them on the eve of an election. 

Now, this story has a little way to run yet. I suspect the Prime Minister has been lying about the money being there all along. This Prime Minister lies about a lot of things and I suspect he's lying here as well. The Minister says that the money wasn't there and he had to threaten to resign. The Prime Minister says that the money was there all along. This story's got a while to run yet because I suspect that once again the Prime Minister has been caught out lying, this time about veterans. 

We need to see doing the right thing by veterans as a moral obligation to those who served not just a political problem to be managed on the eve of an election. Scott Morrison's got some questions to answer here. There's a difference of opinion, the Government is hopelessly split, I think most Australians would assume that the Prime Minister is lying once again, this time about veterans. Thanks very much.

ENDS