JIM CHALMERS MP
SHADOW TREASURER
MEMBER FOR RANKIN


E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DOORSTOP INTERVIEW
PARLIAMENT HOUSE, CANBERRA
THURSDAY, 4 FEBRUARY 2021

SUBJECTS: Second anniversary of the Banking Royal Commission final report; Government’s failure to implement two-thirds of the Royal Commission’s implementation; JobKeeper cuts; Government’s Industrial Relations changes will make job insecurity and stagnant wages worse; Caps Lock Craig and the Prime Minister; RBA Governor’s call to permanently increase JobSeeker; Media Ownership Laws.

JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: Today is the second anniversary of the release of the final report of the Banking Royal Commission and that awkward photo of the Royal Commissioner and the Treasurer in his office. It's been two years since that was handed down. Barely a third of the 76 recommendations of the Banking Royal Commission have been fully implemented two years after the government received the report. The government is showing contempt for the Banking Royal Commission and for the victims of misconduct in the financial services sector.

When it comes to rorts and rip-offs in the banking system, Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg will always side with the banks over ordinary working Australians. What we saw in that Banking Royal Commission was some incredibly concerning reports of misconduct in the financial system. Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg pretended to care about rorts and rip-offs in the banking system to get them through an election. They made all kinds of announcements about swiftly implementing the recommendations of the Royal Commission. Instead, they've treated victims and ordinary Australians with contempt, dragging their feet on implementing these recommendations.

The government's heart has never been in doing the right thing in the banking system. They voted against the banking Royal Commission 26 times. It took them two years before they'd sign up to Labor’s proposal for a Banking Royal Commission and only then after they got a little permission slip from the banks themselves. So the government's been dragging its feet on implementing the recommendations of the Banking Royal Commission, treating people with contempt.

When it comes to rorts and rip-offs this government will never be on the side of the victims or ordinary Australians. The banks are such an important part of our economy, especially in this recovery, we need to make sure that we restore confidence in their conduct. The best way that we can do that, is to implement these recommendations as swiftly as possible. The government's failure to do that means that ordinary Australians wonder whether there'll be the right outcome here.

Now a couple of things about Governor Lowe’s speech yesterday at the Press Club. Obviously, we welcome any recovery in the economy, any positive signs about the recovery from the deepest, most damaging recession in almost a century. But we need the government to acknowledge that despite some positive signs, millions of Australians are still struggling. 2 million Australians can't find a job or the hours they need to support their loved ones. Millions more can't get ahead on wages which have been historically stagnant for some time.

We call on the government to acknowledge, as the Reserve Bank Governor has, that the defining challenges in this recovery will be stagnant wages, unemployment and underemployment and all that means for people's capacity to provide for their loved ones in this recovery. The priority has to be secure, well-paid jobs. Now, when the defining challenges in the economy and in the recovery are underemployment, unemployment, and weak wages, and job insecurity, it makes no sense whatsoever for the government to be coming after people's take home pay, coming after their job security with these industrial relations changes.

The government's industrial relations changes will make a difficult situation worse, not better. When we're most worried about wages, and living standards, and unemployment, and underemployment, the government's IR changes will make a difficult situation worse, not better. Labor will always be on the side of people who want to work hard and get ahead and provide for their families. The government's making life much harder for those Australian working families.

Final set of points, about Craig Kelly. Yesterday, we saw the doorstop dust-up between Caps Lock Craig and my colleague Tanya Plibersek. The Prime Minister, after some months of this dangerous misinformation being peddled by Craig Kelly, gave a belated and half-hearted admonition of Craig Kelly.

This dangerous misinformation has been circulating in the Australian community for months, putting people's lives in danger. The only reason the Prime Minister finally acted, in his usual half-hearted way, is not because people's lives were at risk in communities, but because it looked like he was going to have an untidy night on the six o'clock news. This says a lot about the failure of leadership from the Prime Minister, when it comes to ‘Caps Lock Craig’ and all of this misinformation that he's been peddling, which has been putting people's lives at risk in real communities around Australia. He didn't act because people's lives were at risk. The Prime Minister only acted because the footage from the doorstop dust-up yesterday was going to be difficult for him on the nightly news. So marketing over leadership as always. He finally intervened, but when he did, it was belated and half-hearted.

JOURNALIST: Just on the Royal Commission recommendations. Doesn't the government have a point, you know, some of those recommendations related to the supply of credit, if they were implemented, isn't there a chance that the banks would have a lot of difficulty lending at the height of a very difficult pandemic?

CHALMERS: Well, first of all, they've implemented barely a third of the 76 recommendations right across the board but I'm really pleased you asked me about the flow of credit. The first recommendation of the banking Royal Commission, the government is completely ignoring with their changes to the responsible lending standards. Responsible lending is all about making sure that people don't get in over their head, that there's a proper process to make sure that vulnerable people aren't mistreated when it comes to the provision of loans. If you speak to the banks, they will tell you they are writing heaps of loans right now. These responsible lending changes are a solution looking for a problem. There are lots of home loans being written. The recent data on loans was incredibly strong. The government's argument about Labor’s position on responsible lending will choke off credit is absurd. There is lots of lending going on, that's a good thing. Our job here in the parliament is to make sure that people aren't mistreated in the banking system, that we strike the right balance between the flow of credit and looking after vulnerable people, and that's what our position is all about.

JOURNALIST: What about on JobKeeper, this proposal to have a HECS-style scheme for some businesses. Is that a good idea?

CHALMERS: Obviously we'll engage on any idea that's put forward which has the capacity to help small businesses and workers who are still struggling in this recovery from the recession. This is just an idea which is in the newspaper, it's not a government proposal. We'll wait and see if the government proposes it. It will be no substitute for many workers and small businesses for an extension of JobKeeper. We understand that JobKeeper is a temporary programme, we've always understood that, but equally, the government needs to understand that JobKeeper needs to be responsive to the actual economic conditions. And if you think about many industries, and towns, and workers, and small businesses, impacted by the closure of the international border, in particular, there is still a need for some kind of JobKeeper support. Places like Cairns are on JobKeeper life support and the government will be pulling the plug next month. That will be too soon, for too many workers and small businesses. As the Reserve Bank Governor said yesterday, there will be job shedding when the government cuts JobKeeper, and that's of great concern to us.

JOURNALIST: Is Google bullying Australia by threatening to switch off its search engine here?

CHALMERS: The government said they'd have this sorted by last year. Once again, the triumph of announcement over delivery, that they're still engaged in this argument with the tech platforms over an issue that the government said that they would fix last year. We have always said right throughout this process, that we will provide in-principle support for an arrangement, for a code, where the tech platforms are paying for the news that they use. That seems to us a reasonable proposition. But as always, whether it's Josh Frydenberg or others, lots of overpromising and underdelivering. Clearly, the negotiations are going really badly because these threats are being made. It's up to the government to clean this up. They've made a mess of it. They've over promised and underdelivered. They are having discussions with the tech platforms and it's on the government to fix this problem.

JOURNALIST: Just on JobSeeker as well, the Governor yesterday said that he thinks it should be raised for fairness reasons as well as economic reasons. Do you think the government will listen to him?

CHALMERS: I think JobSeeker should be raised for fairness reasons and economic reasons. It should be raised permanently from the old $40 a day rate because it's become too difficult for people to support themselves and look for work, but it also has an important economic dividend. There are shops and small businesses which are starved of spending power and JobSeeker has a role to play there. So I think that there's an economic reason and a social justice reason to increase JobSeeker above the old $40 a day rate. It's getting very close to when JobSeeker will be cut, the government needs to come forward with their plan for what happens to JobSeeker on an ongoing basis. And we'll make our views known about that then.

JOURNALIST: Back on Google, Bing seems to be the next sort of successor for Google here, taking up that market space would that be an acceptable alternative to you, if Google leaves and Bing, with it’s three-point-something per cent market share, becomes the search engine of choice for Australians?

CHALMERS: Well, it's not really for me to say whether it's acceptable or not. What we want to see is the provision of good technology to Australians and we want to make sure that news organisations are paid for the journalism that they create. Those are our in-principle positions. There will inevitably be some changes in the market as a consequence of that. We don't yet know whether various threats will be followed through on. We don't yet know whether the government has some kind of solution that they're working on. Our role is to support in-principle, the step that the government said that they would implement, throughout the course of last year. Once again, the triumph of announcement over delivery.

JOURNALIST: Do you think the tech giants are a bit arrogant threatening Australia, they don't seem to have much leverage here?

CHALMERS: Oh look, I'm not going to get into that, making character assessments about the various players. I think the policy outcome is clear, that what we need to see in a policy sense, is clear. The government said that they would implement it. How many times did we see Josh Frydenberg giving himself a big pat on the back in the media about how he'd fixed this problem? It's clearly not fixed. And that's on him. Thanks very much.

ENDS