JIM CHALMERS MP
SHADOW TREASURER
MEMBER FOR RANKIN
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DOORSTOP INTERVIEW
CANBERRA
THURSDAY, 31 MARCH 2022
SUBJECTS: Anthony Albanese’s Budget Reply and Labor’s better plan for a better future; President Zelenskyy’s address to Parliament; Fuel excise; Scott Morrison’s temperament.
JOURNALIST: Jim, we're hearing that tonight is not going to be an alternative Budget but it is going to be still that Budget In Reply speech. What can you tell Australians about what they can expect from tonight's speech from the Opposition Leader?
JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: You'll hear from Anthony Albanese the plan for a better future that was missing on Tuesday night. Tuesday night's Budget was a band-aid when Australians needed a proper plan. What you'll hear tonight from Anthony is a plan for a better future, a sense of where Australians fit in the unfolding story of this country as we emerge from this pandemic.
What you'll see tonight is a leader who is prepared to show up and take responsibility and bring people together versus a Prime Minister who goes missing when we need him most, never takes responsibility, and is always trying to divide us.
The contrast will be really clear tonight - a plan for the future from Anthony Albanese and Labor, versus a plan for the election from Scott Morrison and the Liberals in the Budget on Tuesday night.
JOURNALIST: Why not put forward an alternative Budget tonight so that Australians can compare apples with apples when it comes to making their choice?
CHALMERS: I'm not going to get caught up in your description of it. What you'll see tonight is a plan for a better future. Whether you want to call that an alternative plan, an alternative Budget, what matters here is Australians will get a sense tonight of our economic agenda, our plans that go beyond the May election, and also I think a glimpse of what real leadership can look like in this country.
For too long now, this country has been drifting under the leadership of someone who doesn't show up and doesn't take responsibility and is always looking to divide us. Tonight Australians will get a glimpse of what real leadership looks like in our community and in our economy, they will get a glimpse tonight of a leader who genuinely wants to work together with people and bring people together to solve the nation's problems and to chart the course for a better future. So the most important thing that people will see tonight is that contrast.
We have had a wasted decade of missed opportunities in this country. We can't afford and can't risk another three years of going election to election, with a government that can't see beyond the politics of the day, and a leader who can't take responsibility. So the contrast will be really key tonight.
JOURNALIST: Are there big bang policy pledges going to come from Labor during this campaign or is the strategy small target all the way to polling day?
CHALMERS: I don't except that characterisation either. You're welcome to make it, I don't agree with it Trudy, and I've said that before. We have a bold, ambitious agenda for a better future for this country. You'll see some of that tonight, you've seen some of it already, and you'll see more in the campaign.
JOURNALIST: Are you worried that the Ukrainian President's address to parliament could overshadow the Budget reply speech?
CHALMERS: I'm not troubled by that, the timing is for the Government to agree with the Government of Ukraine. I'll say this about President Zelenskyy. President Zelenskyy is a leader of rare courage and character. We stand proudly with President Zelenskyy. The Russian regime has underestimated the leadership of President Zelenskyy and the courage of the Ukrainian people, and I will proudly and attentively listen to one of the world's most courageous leaders as he addresses us later today.
JOURNALIST: Speaking of the character in leaders, do you share the assessment that Scott Morrison is a bully?
CHALMERS: Look, I've got my own descriptions of Scott Morrison. I think Scott Morrison is the type of guy that goes missing when we need him, he's always looking to point the finger of blame, and he's always looking to divide us. My experience of Scott Morrison is what we saw on full display yesterday in Question Time. There are $3 billion dollars in secret cuts on page 49 of Budget Paper Two. When we asked on behalf of the Australian people what those $3 billion in secret cuts were, we got a characteristically dishonest, unhinged response from a Prime Minister who very easily loses control when he's questioned. That's my experience of Scott Morrison.
I think that there is a pattern in the commentary about Scott Morrison the last few days. The people who work closest with Scott Morrison and know him the best, trust him and like him the least. If the people who work with him can't trust him, then the Australian people can't trust him with their wages, with their job security, with their cost of living, and with the future of their economy.
JOURNALIST: Just on the cut to the fuel excise. If Labor becomes the government, is that going to be politically difficult in six months to raise it again?
CHALMERS: I would have thought so.
(LAUGHTER)
CHALMERS: I think this is part of the Government's motivations, to be frank. The legislation that the Government put before the parliament says that petrol prices will go down over the next couple of weeks and they'll go up again in September, that's how the Government designed it. I've been upfront with people since Tuesday night about this. I think it would be hard for a government of either political persuasion to extend that fuel excise relief indefinitely. Obviously we don't pre-empt the specific Budget conditions or economic conditions that might exist in September when it's scheduled to increase, but the Government's designed this in a certain way. They've designed it in a way that takes a big problem from one side of the election and puts it on the other side of the election. That's how they roll. They've done that elsewhere in the Budget as well. This is a Budget which takes the big challenges in our economy and leaves it for somebody else to deal with.
JOURNALIST: Just on that Jim, is what you're saying that you think that the cut to the fuel excise was irresponsible?
CHALMERS: No, I think that there is a role for cost of living relief in the context of Australian workers who are copping real wage cuts.
(SENATOR HUME WALKS PAST)
CHALMERS: Good morning Jane. What we've tried to do is to say there is a role for cost of living relief, but there's also a role for a longer term plan in the economy. This Budget has a shelf life of six or seven weeks. It's motivated entirely by politics. The Government is temperamentally incapable of seeing beyond May, and that's how they've approached this Budget. We take our responsibility as the alternative government seriously, to set out a plan for a better future, which goes beyond the May election. The Budget didn't do that.
JOURNALIST: What did you make of Scott Morrison yesterday? You've already said that you're going to deliver another Budget if you were to win government. He said 'what does that mean? What does that matter?'?
CHALMERS: Yeah, I found the Prime Minister's performance yesterday to be panicked, desperate, dishonest, unhinged, frankly. Scott Morrison is shrinking in the role of Prime Minister. The idea that you can't ask the Prime Minister a simple question about $3 billion in secret cuts without getting that kind of performance, I think is deeply troubling. We want, in uncertain times, a Prime Minister capable of calm and competence. Instead, we get this panicked, desperate act from the Prime Minister who too easily drops his bundle. That's what we saw in the parliament.
The other thing I would say is this. One way to judge the Morrison Government's Budgets is how quickly they flick the switch from talking about their Budget to talking about the Labor Party. This Budget didn't even last 24 hours before the Government started talking about the Labor Party. You think about that for a moment. They spent - I think $40 billion dollars, $9 billion cost of living package - and before the Budget was even 24 hours old they were talking about the Labor Party. This Government is running on empty. This government has gotten to the point where they can't even defend their own Budget for a full day before they start talking about Labor.
JOURNALIST: What do you think of the decision by the Government to withdraw the Character Test legislation from the Senate. They spent most of the start of this year trying to wedge Labor on the issue and now it seems like it's dead again?
CHALMERS: It's pretty revealing, isn't it? The Government is running out of time when it comes to a lot of their legislation. So much of what they want to do in this place is politically motivated rather than motivated by good outcomes, economic or otherwise. As the Senate closes up before the election, and the House later tonight, there will be a lot of unfinished business. The big piece of unfinished business from our point of view, we still don't have a National Anti-Corruption Commission. We know why that is, it's because the Budget is absolutely riddled with rorts and the Government has never wanted them properly looked at. So there'll be a lot of unfinished business in this parliament.
This has been a wasted decade of missed opportunities and as the parliament finishes up for another term, the legacy of this government - the parliamentary legacy of this government after almost a decade now - is a trillion dollars in debt with not enough to show for it, falling real wages, petrol prices going up in September, interest rates going up at some point, the end of the Low and Middle Income Tax Offset. This is the legacy of the Government. This Government's delivered more consecutive deficits than any other government since the 1920s. These are the characters who were wandering around here - Jane Hume was wandering around – brandishing a Back in Black mug before the last election. The Treasurer wants to talk about delivery, that's what was delivered - all of those things that I just ran through. So Australians deserve something better than that. They can't risk and they can't afford another three years of real wage cuts, or attacks on job security or pensions or Medicare.
What you'll see tonight is a better plan for a better future, and people can compare that with the plan for the election that they got on Tuesday night. Thanks very much.
ENDS
