JIM CHALMERS MP
SHADOW TREASURER
MEMBER FOR RANKIN
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
PRESS CONFERENCE
BRISBANE
TUESDAY, 1 FEBRUARY 2022
SUBJECTS: Morrison Government reduced to a grab bag of political patch-ups and panic buying, slush funds and scare campaigns; Prime Minister failed all five of the tests he set his own government at the Press Club this time last year; Australians can’t afford another three years like that last eight; Australia needs a leader not a marketing man masquerading as a Prime Minister; RBA interest rates decision; Morrison Government’s aged care crisis; Green hydrogen; Labor’s Powering Australia policy.
JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: After a decade in office, this Government's been reduced to a grab bag of patch-ups and panic buying, slush funds and scare campaigns. That’s what we'll see at the Press Club today. A speech full of political patch-ups and panic buying when the country desperately needs leadership.
All the speeches in the world won't make up for the fact that this is the Prime Minister for higher prices and lower wages. He can give all the speeches he likes, he's still the Prime Minister which stuffed-up the management of this pandemic and therefore the management of the economy. He can give all the speeches he wants, he’s still the Prime Minister that didn't order rapid antigen tests and that cruelled the recovery and gave Australians the summer from hell.
Thousands of words from the Prime Minister today and none of them can be believed or trusted.
This speech is all about political panic buying, political patch-ups, slush funds, and scare campaigns.
The reason you can't believe a word that the Prime Minister says today at the Press Club, is to look at what he said this time last year at the Press Club when he was there. He said that there were five priorities for this government.
The first one, was to suppress the virus and deliver the vaccine. What followed was the vaccine strollout, the serious mistakes made with rapid antigen tests and all the rest of it, which have delivered a very difficult couple of months for Australia and for Australians.
His second priority was to cement the economic recovery. The recovery is hostage to the Prime Minister's failures on rapid antigen tests, and purpose-built quarantine, and boosters and all of the rest of it.
The third thing he said he would do was guarantee essential services. Aged care is in crisis today. We're talking about 20,000 cases today, more than 1,400 deaths in aged care. The Prime Minister has clearly failed when it comes to aged care, and there wouldn't be an Australian anywhere that thinks that this Prime Minister gives a stuff about aged care workers if we weren't on the eve of an election. Aged care workers shouldn't be treated as the political equivalent of panic buying. That’s what we're seeing with the announcements being made by the Prime Minister today.
His fourth priority was to secure Australia's interests in a challenging world. All he’s done in the year since then is show the world and world leaders that his word cannot be trusted.
His final pledge, his fifth pledge, at the Press Club last year, was about caring for our country. Instead, he handed down a joke of a climate change policy written and authorised by Barnaby Joyce.
If he's judged on what he said last time at the Press Club, across all five of those areas that he said would be a priority for him in the year after he was last at the Press Club at this time of the year, he has failed on all five counts and that's why Australia's in the position that it is now.
Australia and Australians can't afford another three years like the last eight or nine years. Australians can't risk more attacks on Medicare, more attacks on wages and take home pay and job security. They cannot afford another three years of a Liberal National Government racking up a trillion dollars in debt with nothing to show for it, all of the wage stagnation, all of the economic and Budget mismanagement, all the rorts and waste which defines this Government's Budget. Australians can't afford another three years like that.
If you think about why the Government's in the position that they're in today - this speech, full of slush funds, and scare campaigns, and panic buying, and political patch-ups - it's because the Government can't run on their record on the economy. Because that's defined by stagnant wages and job insecurity, a trillion dollars in debt and nothing to show for it. They can't run on the economy now, because it's characterised by skyrocketing costs of living at the same time as people's real wages are going backwards. They can't run on their management of the pandemic because the Prime Minister ignored warnings, didn't order enough rapid tests, and that put all that pressure on supply chains and meant we saw grocery shortages in our supermarkets. And he can't run on a plan for the future because he doesn't have one.
That's why this Government, under this Prime Minister, has been reduced to that grab bag of political patch-ups and panic buying, slush funds and scare campaigns. The country desperately needs better than this. Australia needs a unifying leader who takes responsibility, who can chart the path to a better future.
Instead, today what we'll see is the pathetic spectacle of a marketing man masquerading as a Prime Minister, handing out all kinds of pre-election bribes and all these announcements that you can't have any faith in - all of this grab bag of patch-ups, panic buying, slush funds and scare campaigns - because after a decade in office, the Government can't do any better than this.
The Reserve Bank Board meets today and will make a decision about interest rates. Clearly, we don't pre-empt or second guess decisions made by the independent Reserve Bank Board. All of the respected economic commentators, everybody who looks closely at what's happening here, understands interest rates won't be at almost zero forever - no matter what the bank decides today, or at the next meeting, or the meeting after. What that means, is governments have a responsibility to do the best they can in an environment where prices are skyrocketing and real wages are going backwards, the responsibility for governments is to invest in the right kind of growth in the economy, to lift the speed limit on the economy. That's why our economic policy priorities are cleaner and cheaper energy and more investment. Our priorities are free TAFE and more university places to deal with these skill shortages in our economy. Boosting the NBN so we can boost the digital economy, particularly as more and more people are working from home.
These are the sorts of investments a responsible government makes in the environment that we will see as we recover from this pandemic. We haven't heard anything from the Government across those fronts and we won't hear anything across those fronts today, that's because the Prime Minister and the Government doesn't have a plan for the future.
Australians deserve better than all these slush funds and scare campaigns, all of these patch-ups and panic buying. We desperately need a better future, and we'll only get that under a Labor Government and Anthony Albanese - focused on a plan for a better future, cleaner and cheaper energy, a better NBN, cheaper access to childcare, free TAFE, university places, and the like. This is how we deliver the better future that Australians deserve, and not another three years characterised like the last eight or nine years by attacks on Medicare, attacks on wages, and a trillion dollars in debt with not enough to show for it. Happy to take your questions.
JOURNALIST: What will Labor do to address the workforce shortages in aged care?
CHALMERS: Aged care is in crisis, aged care workers deserve better than to be treated as the political equivalent of panic buying on the eve of an election. If Scott Morrison cared at all about aged care workers he would have done something by now. There are a range of issues in aged care and some of the biggest pressures are on the workforce. That's why we've announced a policy when it comes to TAFE places, to make sure that we are training sufficient numbers of aged care workers. You don't need to be some kind of economic genius to understand that we will need a lot of aged care workers as our society, our community, ages. This Government has done almost nothing when it comes to the aged care workforce.
Now, on the eve of an election, Scott Morrison wants to pretend that all of a sudden he's discovered this issue. These issues in the aged care workforce, and in aged care more broadly - as my colleague Clare O'Neil said today - these problems have been around for some time now. They're more acute now in the pandemic. This Government has done almost nothing when it comes to aged care workers. They deserve better than being treated as some kind of quick fix, just because we're five minutes to an election.
JOURNALIST: Is a $5 per hour wage increase for aged care staff sustainable in the long term?
CHALMERS: We need a sustainable solution for the aged care workforce, this is a point that we've made for some time now. What the Prime Minister is offering is a couple of cheques on the eve of an election, in the hope that people won't notice his failures on aged care which have the system in crisis. Aged care is at the pointy end of the challenge here when it comes to the pandemic. We hear stories about aged care workers having to buy their own rapid tests, we hear all kinds of stories about pressure on the workforce, and because we're on the eve and election the Prime Minister comes forward with this policy. Aged care workers deserve a sustainable and secure long-term solution when it comes to the pressures they face, they won't get that today from Scott Morrison.
JOURNALIST: What does Labor think of the Government's $2.2 billion funding announcement for research and universities?
CHALMERS: All of the announcements that the Prime Minister makes are being made because we're on the eve of an election. These issues of commercialisation, turning our ideas into jobs - these have been some of the big, glaring problems in our economy for some time now, even before the pandemic. It's been really clear, when you look at the last eight or nine years and think about the economic challenges we've had - obviously stagnant wages, insecure work, the Budget's been mismanaged. We've also got a productivity problem, and we've got an investment problem. Part of that is that as a country we haven't been looking after turning our ideas into jobs.
The Prime Minister - having been in the cabinet for eight or nine years, having been Prime Minister for a large chunk of that - now, all of a sudden, seems to have discovered that we've got a problem here. This is why people are so increasingly dismissive of this Prime Minister, because he leaves all of these problems to fester for a long time, then he suddenly works out that we're almost at an election and he pretends to know what to do about them.
I think Australians will see these kinds of commitments for what they are, a desperate attempt to distract from the Government's failures, a desperate attempt to provide these kinds of patch-ups and bandaids because we're on the eve of an election. What the Prime Minister announces at the Press Club often has no relationship to what is actually delivered, he's got a problem with that. We know from the last time he was at the Press Club at this time of the year he gave five commitments and delivered on none of them. That's why I think Australians are pretty dismissive about these commitments and these announcements that he's making now.
JOURNALIST: Why has Labor backflipped on the Kurri Kurri gas-fired power station?
CHALMERS: What we've said today - and I'll leave the detail of the commentary to the Shadow Minister Chris Bowen who has also been up today - but the point that we've made, is we think that there is a future for green hydrogen. There's an opportunity in Kurri Kurri to make that a reality and that's what our policy is. We have a great affinity and a great regard for the workers of the Hunter and around Australia. The onus is on governments to make sure that we've got good, long-term, employment-creating projects in places like the Hunter, and that's what our announcement today is all about. Anthony Albanese and Chris Bowen have spoken about this at some length, and I'm happy to leave it to them.
JOURNALIST: One more question. How can voters have confidence that Labor's committed to addressing climate change, when the party has switched its position on this just months out from the election?
CHALMERS: Have a look at our climate change policy. Our climate change policy has been welcomed right across the board because it's all about cleaner energy, cheaper energy, and more investment. The climate change policy which was announced at the beginning of December last year fills, I think, a gaping hole in the country's economic policy. Because it is all about investment, it is about cleaner energy, it’s about getting our power prices down. The announcement that we're making today is entirely consistent with the commitments that we've made.
One of the big issues at this election will be who has a plan for a better future, right? At the Press Club today, you'll hear all of the patch-ups that I've been talking about from the Prime Minister. What you get from Anthony Albanese is a detailed economic plan for the future, which is all about cheaper and cleaner energy, more training to fill these skill shortages, getting the technology right with the NBN, making sure we can grow the workforce by making it cheaper and easier to access childcare, a National Reconstruction Fund to invest in advanced manufacturing and the care economy, and all the rest of it. That's the contrast here, and the announcement that we're making today is entirely consistent with those objectives.
Thanks very much.
ENDS
