JIM CHALMERS MP
SHADOW TREASURER
MEMBER FOR RANKIN

 
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
PRESS CONFERENCE
BRISBANE
WEDNESDAY, 6 APRIL 2022

SUBJECTS: Call the election; Political advertising; Interest rates; Flood rebuild; Scott Morrison always turns his back on Queenslanders when we need him most; Anthony Albanese; National Press Club address; Labor’s plan to fix the aged care crisis; Labor’s plan to ease the costs of living and support economic growth; Paid Parental Leave; Desperate and unhinged Liberal scare campaigns; AUKUS and hypersonic Missiles; Error in tweet.
 
PETER COSSAR, LABOR CANDIDATE FOR RYAN: Good morning everyone. My name is Peter Cossar and I'm the Labor candidate for Ryan. I'm here today with our fabulous Shadow Treasurer, Jim Chalmers. Now I've been telling Jim about how the people in Ryan having been doing it tough and he understands that. Under Scott Morrison, the price of everything has been going up except people's wages. That's why Labor has a real plan to deliver cheaper child care, lower your power bills, and deliver secure sustainable jobs. Over to you, Jim.

JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: Thanks very much, Peter. It's a real joy to campaign with Peter in Ryan, and also to be here in Brisbane at the magical Lang Park, and it's good to be with you all today.

Scott Morrison needs to call this election. Let's call this election and let's get it on. The only reason Scott Morrison hasn't called the election already is because he had to sort out messy preselections and because he wants to spend taxpayer money on political ads. Every time you see one of those taxpayer funded political ads remember Scott Morrison has put that on the national credit card for you to pay back. He’s been dragging his feet because he wants to run those ads for as long as possible and because he has had messy internal politics which is still impacting on the government. We say call the election. Let's get this election properly started. Let's get campaigning with absolutely outstanding candidates, like Peter here in Ryan. Let’s have a conversation about all the issues that Peter raised.

Now, Josh Frydenberg was out there today talking about wages and talking about interest rates. If Josh Frydenberg doesn't understand that interest rate rises will hurt and if he thinks that wages growth is strong enough, then he's even more horrendously out of touch than we feared. Everything is going up except people's wages and interest rate rises are about to be part of the pain.

One of the reasons why this Budget has sunk like a stone is because this budget is nothing more than a plan to get the Liberals and Nationals from one side of election to the other, not a plan to get people through difficult times or a plan for a better future for this country. If Josh Frydenberg thinks all is well and interest rate rises won't hurt and wages growth is sufficient to keep up with the skyrocketing cost of living he is even more out of touch then we feared.

Now, today we've learned that the Prime Minister, once again, has gone missing when it comes to flood support for Queenslanders. Scott Morrison always goes missing when Queenslanders need him the most. He bagged us during the pandemic and now he's duding us after the floods. This is a Prime Minister who takes Queensland's votes for granted but when we really need him to support Queenslanders, he's nowhere to be found. This is a Prime Minister who never takes responsibility, doesn't show up when we need him and always wants to play divisive politics. Flood support shouldn't be an election announcement, it should be the normal course of governing. We need a Prime Minister who can work with premiers, Liberal or Labor, to get the right amount of support to help communities rebuild after a really difficult period. This Prime Minister is even prepared to play politics with flood support for people who desperately need it and I know Peter in his community has people who were affected by the recent floods. Anthony Albanese will show up when we need him, he'll take responsibility and he'll bring people together. You can't say any of those things about Scott Morrison.

Now when it comes to taking responsibility, I just wanted to finish on this set of points: Yesterday I gave a speech which pointed out that the average unemployment rate under the Liberals, under this government, is 5.7 per cent. Under the last Labor government it was 5.1 per cent. I sent out a tweet, which had the numbers around the wrong way which we quickly fixed up. I'm happy to put my hand up for a typo in a tweet. There's a typo in a tweet, and there's the truth. The truth is that average unemployment is higher under the Liberals and Nationals than it was under Labor. In fact, average productivity, economic growth, business investment, wages and unemployment rate are all worse under the Liberals and Nationals than under Labor. So if I'm prepared to put my hand up for a tweet, and fixing up a tweet, it's time for the government put their hand up and take responsibility for a trillion dollars in debt but not enough to show for it. Take responsibility for real wages going backwards. Take responsibility for the fact that everything seems to be going up except people's pay. We had two senior ministers in this government read out a speech after the budget about a decrease in medicine prices which had been taken out of the udget before then. They still haven't fessed up to that. Josh Frydenberg has been given the opportunity to fess up to that and hasn't done it. If I can fess up to this error in a tweet surely they can fess up to the errors that they made in the parliament when it came to medicine costs. It won't give Australians any sense of comfort to learn that the finance minister in this country spends all of his time monitoring my social media feed – no wonder we've got a trillion dollars in debt and not enough to show for it. Australians know the truth. They know that they're dealing with skyrocketing costs of living. They know their real wages are going backwards. They know we've got a trillion dollars in debt and not enough to show for it. And they know that the budget that was handed down just over a week ago in Canberra was silent on most of these important issues. Over to you.

JOURNALIST:  You said yesterday the government's tax to GDP ratio is arbitrary.  If you’re not planning to raise taxes, why not keep the tax to GDP cap?

CHALMERS: The point that I made yesterday and the point that I'm happy to repeat here is that the government plucked that number out of the air. They did that for political reasons, rather than economic reasons. They don't even hit the cap over the course of the forward estimates and nor would we. We've said we don't have proposals for tax changes beyond multinationals. We've said that repeatedly now. The government is desperate to talk about the Labor Party because they are so bereft of any ideas about the future. When the Prime Minister finally gets around to calling this election we'll see scare campaign after scare campaign after scare campaign. That's because they can't defend the indefensible which is they've been in office now for almost a decade. Their budget has sunk like a stone and so they want to spend all their time talking about Labor and I think Australian people deserve better than that.

JOURNALIST:  [Inaudible]

CHALMERS: Our position on taxes is really clear. The government once again, is playing their usual politics trying to unleash these scare campaigns based on lies. We've seen this before from this Prime Minister and this Treasurer. This is a government which has been in office now for almost a decade. They've delivered the worst set of books ever taken to an election in this country. A trillion dollars in debt and not enough to show for it, real wages are falling and in their desperation not to talk about those things all they want to do is talk about Labor. I think that's another reason why it's time to put this government out to pasture. Call the election. Let's have an election campaign based on the future of this country and on the record of this government, not ridiculous, unhinged, desperate and panicked scare campaigns.

JOURNALIST:  In terms of the flood package funding that the Prime Minister has called the Premier [inaudible]. The argument there is that it's not the federal government's place to fund  housing resilience. So would Labor fund it?

CHALMERS: We want the Morrison government to work with the Palaszczuk Government. The problem with Scott Morrison is he sees everything through the political colour of the premier, the seat, the electorate, or whatever it might be. It's not too much to ask for the Prime Minister to work with the Premier in difficult times like these. These floods didn't just impact Liberal voters or Labor voters. It didn't just impact Liberal seats or Labor seats. It didn't just impact New South Wales or Queensland. It affected everyone in those areas. So whatever the argument that he wants to put, I don't think it's too much to ask for him to work through these issues with the Premier. Instead, once again, Scott Morrison has left Queenslanders hanging. There's a pattern of behaviour here. He shows up at the election he takes our votes for granted, but he goes missing when we need him the most and we're seeing that again now.

JOURNALIST:  Is your argument then that the Prime Minister's looked at the set of rules and gone well, it doesn't fit into this template, so therefore, it can't happen. Is your argument that he should, think more create creatively I guess for lack of a better word and try and figure out a solution?

CHALMERS: My argument is that he should be looking for opportunities to cooperate with the Queensland Government and not always picking fights with the Queensland Government. Not just during the floods but during the pandemic. The pattern was he would jet in here and diminish our collective efforts, he would bag Annastacia and then he would fly off again. Queenslanders deserve better than that. There is an opportunity here for governments at all levels, for the whole nation to come together and solve some of these big problems. Whether it's the challenge of rebuilding after floods or the challenge of rebuilding our economy after the recession and the pandemic. What we need is a leader who prepared to work through these issues, and work with people and bring them together. Anthony Albanese has shown a willingness to do that, Scott Morrison hasn't.

JOURNALIST:  Would Labor then be committed to working through those issues if you take government?

CHALMERS: We would work with governments of either political persuasion. We would work with the Perrottet Government, we would work with the Palaszczuk Government and any state governments to do the right thing by people. That is to say that in cooperating, there's an opportunity to knock out an agreement and in an agreement between levels of government not everybody always gets what they want, but it starts with cooperation and collaboration and that's what's missing.

JOURNALIST:  On aged cared Labor promised around the clock nurses in aged care homes and that could be achieved by next year. Is that a commitment?

CHALMERS: It is. Our commitment is to get nurses into nursing homes 24/7 and provide that standard of care that older Australians need and deserve. If the best that the government can say about our policy is that we need to train lots of nurses then yes we do need to train more nurses in this country. That’s been evident for some time. We've got an aging population. We've got an aged care system that hasn't been providing the level of care that older Australians have a right to expect, and we need to fix that.

JOURNALIST: So that's the bottom line here? That we will have registered nurses in aged care homes by next year, but not all homes because there's not enough nurses?

CHALMERS: Our policy is to get nurses into nursing homes 24/7, that requires us to make sure we've got the workforce and that's our objective.

JOURNALIST:  Do you have any estimate for how much your multinational tax policy would raise?

CHALMERS: We're finalising our policy on multinational tax, and it will ensure that multinationals pay their fair share of tax at the domestic level, but also working with countries around the world, the Americans, for example, the OECD and others have said that we need to do something meaningful here and we're in the cart for that. That is one of the differences between us and the government.

JOURNALIST:  Yesterday you flagged there may be a need for more cost of living relief this year. What might that look like exactly?

CHALMERS: The point that I made yesterday was that the temporary relief in the budget will run out later on this year. We've got policies which will ease the cost of living pressures on families in a more enduring way. Whether it's their power bills through our Powering Australia plan to get emissions down but also to get power bills down to make energy cleaner and cheaper. We've got a policy on child care, which will leave a 96 per cent of families better off in the system to ease those cost of living pressures in an enduring way. So our policies will ease cost of living pressures after the government's cost of living relief runs out. If more needs to be done or more needs to be looked at or considered clearly every budget of any government considers the pressures on families at that time and that's what we would do.

JOURNALIST:  Are you concerned about the governments cash splash driving up interest rates [inaudible]. What would Labor do differently to avoid that?

CHALMERS: The point that I've been making about this cost of living relief is that it's made necessary by the fact that real wages are going backwards and that's why we've supported it through the parliament, it's already passed the parliament as you know. The issue that we've laid on the table is because the budget doesn't have a plan for the economy into the future it doesn't have a plan to increase the capacity of our economy in ways that don't add to those inflationary pressures. The Secretary of the Treasury and others have said that the inflationary pressures are on the supply side. The government doesn't have much meaningful to say about skills or childcare or energy or the digital economy or any of these other areas which are so crucial for making sure that we can grow the economy more strongly without adding those inflationary pressures. That's where we filled the void. We've got a five point plan for the economy, about growing it the right way in a way that doesn't add to those pressures on families and in the interim there's a role for that cost of living support.

JOURNALIST:  Would Labor consider offering more generous paid parental leave entitlements in office?

CHALMERS: We're always looking for ways to make the parental leave system work better for Australian working families. That comes with a cost and so you have to weigh it up against all the other priorities.

JOURNALIST:  How big of a security threat does [inaudible]?

CHALMERS: We welcome the progress made on these hypersonic missiles. We've been very supportive, very bipartisan when it comes to the AUKUS agreement and all of the various negotiations that flowed from that. We've said repeatedly we support the AUKUS deal and we support the necessary investment that goes along with it. We expect to be briefed on these developments as they happen. The government has been notorious for not briefing us even though they promised to. We're heading into the caretaker period when it comes to this election campaign and that needs to change. We need to be briefed on it but in principle, we welcome the progress. We understand that these negotiations flow from the AUKUS agreement and we've been supportive about it and bipartisan about it. Thanks very much.

ENDS