JIM CHALMERS MP
SHADOW TREASURER
MEMBER FOR RANKIN

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DOORSTOP INTERVIEW

BRISBANE

MONDAY, 28 JUNE 2021

SUBJECTS: The Morison Government's failures on quarantine, vaccinations and the future; 2021 Intergenerational Report casts a long shadow of generational debt without a generational dividend; Refusal to accept Australia has peaked; No plan for population and migration; 8 deficits with 40 more to come.

JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: The Morison Government's failing on quarantine, failing on vaccinations, and failing the future. This is a Government which is putting lives and livelihoods at risk and putting the future at risk as well. It's a Government which can't build quarantine and can't roll out vaccines, and that means it can't build prosperity and roll out opportunity in the future either.

I think today's Intergenerational Report really bears out this Government's deficit of vision. The Report shows that eight long years of the coalition's economic mismanagement casts a very long shadow. It paints a disturbing picture of an Australian economy, smaller than expected, growing slower than before, saddled with four decades or more of deficits and debt.

All Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg have to show for decades of debt is an economy worse and weaker for the next 40 years than it was in the 40 years to now. All they have to show for all of this debt is an economy weaker after COVID-19 than it was before.

Generational debt without a generational dividend. Slower growth over the next 40 years than it was over the last 40 years. That is an admission today from the Treasurer that the Government's economic management is failing.

I encourage you not to believe for one second what the Treasurer says about these dire predictions being a consequence of COVID-19 alone. The rot had already set in under this Government before COVID-19. The economy was already defined by weak growth, and stagnant wages, and flatlining living standards before we'd even heard of COVID-19. So don't believe for one second what he says about all of these dire predictions being a consequence of the virus alone.

He said today that future growth will depend heavily on productivity growth, and we agree with that. But assuming that productivity will come roaring back is different to actually having a plan for it. They haven't hit their productivity projections in the past and there's nothing that's been said today or in the document today that gives us any confidence that they will hit these productivity projections into the future.

Getting productivity growing again in this country is all about cleaner and cheaper energy, and teaching and training our people to keep up with technological change, and making sure that we can turn Australian ideas into Australian jobs, and getting the growth in the services economy in particular right. All of these things are the key determinants of whether or not we get productivity back on track.

We won't get productivity back on track, we won't grow the economy, with more attacks on wages and super, or if the Government uses this document as another excuse for more harsh cuts to the NDIS and Medicare. This document can't be an excuse for more of the same politics and ideology from the Government. That was the low road that gave us low growth and low productivity for the last eight years and will give us low growth and low productivity for the next 40 years if things don't change.

What we know about today's document is that eight long years of the coalition's economic mismanagement cast a very long shadow.

The Treasurer today threw in the towel when it came to the future economy. He seems content to manage Australia's decline. 

I refuse to believe that Australia has peaked. The next 40 years can be better, and stronger, and more inclusive than the last 40 years, but not if we continue down the path that this Government has us on.

Australians rose to the occasion during this pandemic and their Government fell back into old habits and old excuses. A smaller, slower economy, decades of debt, and stagnant wages, cannot be the thanks that the Australian people get for all the sacrifices they've made throughout this pandemic. Over to you.

JOURNALIST: Given the results of this Report do you think that it means that Government's, Liberal or Labor, will have more trouble funding vital services into the future?

CHALMERS: Budgets are always about priorities and what this Intergenerational Report sets out, in quite stark terms, is the challenges that governments of either persuasion will have in managing the Budget into the future. But we won't get the economy growing again, we won't get productivity going again, with more of the same harsh ideological cuts to wages and superannuation, the NDIS and Medicare. We won't fix the Budget without fixing the economy, we won't fix the economy unless people actually get a slice of the action when it comes to this recovery.

JOURNALIST: Is population growth a concern, do you think we should return to the baby bonus?

CHALMERS: The troubling thing about this document is it points to the difficulties of slower population growth without actually having a plan for it.

It points to the consequences of not dealing with climate change, not grabbing the opportunities of climate change, but still has no numbers to bear all of that out.

So what we see here is a lot of problem identification but not a lot of solutions from the Government. What we have said all along is that we won't turn around these generations of debt that the Government has racked up without a proper plan to fix the economy.

Today was a missed opportunity from the Government to tell us how they plan to do that. What we need to see is cleaner and cheaper energy. We need to teach and train our people to take maximum advantage of technological change. We need to turn our ideas into jobs. These are all of the sorts of opportunities before this country but today's document, and the budget before it, was a missed opportunity for the Government to tell us how they would go about those important tasks.

JOURNALIST: So if things don't change you're saying that this will continue to be a detrimental effect for our economy, in your mind what does this plan look like for you, for our economy to grow?

CHALMERS: Clearly, what we need to do is we need to invest in people, invest in the future. And what we want to see is more jobs and more opportunities for more people in more parts of the country. And that's why our priority has been childcare, investing in advanced manufacturing, investing in cleaner and cheaper energy, all of these sorts of things which are crucial ingredients if we are to see the economy stronger after COVID-19 than it was before. And that's what the big missed opportunity was in the Budget and in today's Intergenerational Report.

There is a deficit of vision at the core of this Government. They wouldn't understand the future if it poked them in the eye, and we see that again today. We see the Treasurer who is able to read out a Treasury document about all of the challenges which will confront us over the next 40 years but doesn't seem to have a clue about anything to do about it. There's no plan from the Government to deal with these challenges which have been laid bare today.

The Treasurer did throw in the towel today. I think the task of economic leadership is not just to identify these problems, as have been identified today, but to actually do something about them. That's where he's gone missing.

JOURNALIST: Do you have a solution for the population growth issue?

CHALMERS: This pause in migration, the closing of the international border, should have been an opportunity for the Government to think about what is the best version of our migration program. I think everybody understands that absent migration before COVID-19, the economy wouldn't have grown at all. It's an absolutely crucial part of our economic policy.

The Government seems to have done no thinking about what the migration program ideally looks like after COVID-19. We are prepared to do that thinking, Kristina Keneally and other colleagues, have made constructive contributions to that debate. We need to make sure that the migration intake is sustainable, that it's beneficial, and we also need to make sure that where there are skill shortages we're taking the opportunity to teach and train our people to fill those shortages. None of that thinking, none of that work, has happened. And we see the costs and consequences of that in the document today.

JOURNALIST: So in your mind, boosting population growth, people inside the country already, it's not necessary?

CHALMERS: Population policy has a number of important elements. Firstly, what are we doing to teach and train our people to fill skill shortages in the economy. There are skill shortages. Remarkably, in a country that has 1.7 million people who can't find work or enough work, we still have skill shortages. That's an indictment on its own. That's part of our population policy, what do we do there, but also what's the best form of migration for Australia.

Australia has always relied on migration to grow our economy. We will continue to rely on migration when the international borders reopen. The deficit of vision, which poisons this Government, contaminates this Government, extends to their failure on population policy. We know today what the Treasury expects will happen when it comes to the size of our population but we're still yet to hear what the Government intends to do about it.

JOURNALIST: Are you worried that we don't really seem to have a path to getting the Budget back into black at the moment?

CHALMERS: Under the Government's own numbers over the next 40 years the Budget will never return to surplus. These are the characters that printed the ‘back in black’ mugs. These are the characters that declared victory prematurely.

They've delivered eight deficits already and today they said that there'll be at least 40 more. And I think for a Government which said that the main reason to elect them and re-elect them was that they would get the Budget back to surplus, then I think the numbers speak for themselves.

I think beyond that, clearly, when the economy is in a difficult place like it has been in the last 12 or 18 months, we've always said that there's a role for the Government to step in with spending. Our quibble with the Government is that they don't have enough to show for these generations of debt and deficits that they've racked up. It's one thing to have that. It's another thing to have absolutely nothing to show for it. And I think that's the problem. Thanks very much.

ENDS