JIM CHALMERS MP
SHADOW TREASURER
MEMBER FOR RANKIN

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
CHRIS SMITH TONIGHT
SUNDAY, 17 OCTOBER 2021

SUBJECTS: 2019 election; Friendship with Paul Keating; Appearing as an extra on ‘Rake’; Question Time; Rudd and Gillard Governments; Cleaner and cheaper energy means more jobs and opportunities; IBAC; International borders; Growing the economy so we recover the right way; Daisy Hill Forest.

CHRIS SMITH, HOST: The current political polls tell us that Labor is in a pretty good position to win the next federal election. Now for those who care about the country, we need to scrutinise who might have their hands on the levers of government. The man on the brink of controlling Australia's economy, and without much doubt the next Labor leader somewhere down the track, is Jim Chalmers. Brisbane born, highly-educated, and a Paul Keating devotee, Jim Chalmers is the party's next big thing. His timing might just be impeccable. He's on the virtual couch tonight. Jim Chalmers, welcome to the program.

JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: Thanks for having me on your show, Chris.

SMITH: You may well have taken the leadership after the last election. You failed to nominate at that time, allowing Albo a clean run. Did you get cold feet?

CHALMERS: I had a think about it Chris, but I think at the time I was looking forward to either being the Finance Minister, ideally, had we won that election, or some other role. I wasn't ready to go from that point of view, but what made the decision quite easy, and the reason why I don't second-guess it, is because I thought then and I think now, that Anthony will make a great Prime Minister. And so I want to be a Treasurer in an Albanese Government. Not just any Labor Government, I want it to be a really good one, so that's what I focus on.

SMITH: At university you wrote your thesis on the Prime Ministership of Paul Keating. You're close to him still. He didn't hesitate to challenge for the leadership. Are you instilled with the same kind of bare knuckle courage if the time came?

CHALMERS: Well, that's not the lesson I draw from my friendship with Paul, that's not what we typically talk about. We talk about the economy, we talk about the future of the place. We talk about our place in Asia, all those sorts of things. That's the inspiration I draw from Paul. I actually turned 18 the day that Paul Keating lost office in 1996, the second of March. And really, he was one of the reasons why I got interested in politics in the first place. I was so fascinated with what he'd done with the economy, talking about the Republic, talking about our place in Asia. And for some earlier generations maybe Gough was this figure in their life, but for me I saw him and I just really wanted to be a part of it. I've heard him say before that, you know, he was watching Churchill when he was a teenager and he said if Churchill's in that game, that's the game I want to be in. Well, I had the same sort of experience with Paul.

SMITH: It's interesting, a little birdy has told me that you are actually an extra once on the ABC series Rake. Was this a temptation to get into the thespian world or was politics always for you?

CHALMERS: I don't know if it was always for me, but I had a really fun day on the set of Rake. I was very grateful, there's a whole scene when it comes to the extras, and I met some terrific people. And got to play the most minor possible role in a couple of episodes of Rake, which is one of my favourite shows. I had a blast and I'm pleased I did it.

SMITH: Some might say that you're all still acting down in Canberra anyway, it's just a non-fiction drama for both of you. There are theatrics in that place are there not?

CHALMERS: I think Question Time can get a bit theatrical from time to time, but there's real substance there too. If you think about another Paul Keating quote, you know, he said, public life is combing through the fairy floss looking for the value. And that's what I try and do. There's a lot of show business when it comes to politics, but really we're looking for the value. And whether that's at the national level or representing your community effectively, there is a lot of good that can be done and some of the other parts of the job are necessary, but not the most important bits.

SMITH: You worked for Kim Beazley. He's a fellow that didn't go all the way, he was very unlucky. He would have made an excellent Prime Minister, I think?

CHALMERS: For sure, I still talk to Kim a lot. I mean, he is, you know, arguably the finest leader that didn't become the Prime Minister. He's just an extraordinary human being. A big, kind, gentle human being, who knows a lot about the world and he would have been a terrific Prime Minister, but couldn't get over the line and he's found other ways to contribute.

SMITH: I love the idea how eight years ago you decided to get married. Jim and Laura getting married in 2013 but there'd been a leadership spill and Julia Gillard convened a council of war during your reception. How did that go down?

CHALMERS: I think she might have reshuffled the cabinet during the reception. From memory, it was a couple of days after one of those challenges, which kind of didn't cover anyone in glory. By the Saturday, I think she was reshuffling the cabinet, so her and Wayne Swan and a couple of their colleagues went and found a quiet place to reshuffle the cabinet after the events of the week.

SMITH: At your wedding! At your wedding!

CHALMERS: Yeah, I think everyone involved in politics has got stories like that. Unfortunately, politics doesn't really kind of wait for anyone. But it was great that they were there, we had a great day.

SMITH: Tell us about the courtyard group, and your faith in using experienced progressives to talk and flesh out policy positions. The courtyard group?

CHALMERS: I get a lot of value out of this, a lot of joy out of consulting widely with people. There's a lot of really smart people who want to have some kind of input or some kind of contribution to our agenda for the country. And so the courtyard group was a group that I put together with Andrew Charlton, who's a former colleague of mine, and a friend of mine. And we would just use that as the opportunity to spend two or three hours at a time to get some of Australia's sharpest minds in to have a yarn with us about their area of expertise, to see if we could take anything from that in terms of our agenda and our policy work. And it was a really terrific group. We haven't got together for a while because it's best in person, but it was terrific.

SMITH: Alright, I want to talk about some big ticket issues and find out where you stand. Net zero. If the coalition fails to commit to net zero in Glasgow - or doesn't even front in Glasgow - it is over for the Government, surely?

CHALMERS: It's hard to believe really, when you think about it. I mean, the big employers, the miners, the farmers, all the states and territories of both political persuasions, all the countries we compare ourselves with, the Labor Opposition in Canberra - everybody knows that net zero is the minimum that we should be talking about. And that's because if we go for cleaner and cheaper energy, we get more jobs and opportunities right around Australia. So it's a no-brainer from our point of view, but yet he's been dragging his feet, he's waiting for the little permission slip from the National Party about whether or not he can go to Glasgow, and what his policy might be. And I think that means that the opportunities of cleaner and cheaper energy just go begging, because we've had these eight years of inaction.

SMITH: You once said though, we need to make Australia a clean energy superpower without abandoning our traditional strengths. Does that mean gas and coal stay part of the mix for a while?

CHALMERS: Yeah, I think there's a role for gas and for coal for the time being. And that's what all the economists and all the investors tell us. I mean, that's not a view that's kind of pulled out of the air. It's self-evident that there will be a role for traditional sources of energy, but what we're talking about is trying to add new sources of energy. We can do that because Australians are practical, and problem-solving, and pragmatic people. They know that we can get those new jobs and those new opportunities that come from new sources of energy, whether it be hydrogen, or renewable energy in all its different forms, without abandoning those traditional strengths. And most importantly, from my point of view as a Queenslander, without abandoning mining communities.

SMITH: And you can't go along the Green path, where you have this absolutist attitude to this, where you just ditch coal, ditch gas, tomorrow and rely on renewables, because we'll be working and living in the dark.

CHALMERS: Yeah, I think we need to be pragmatic about it. Australians have got a view about this, they've come to a view, which is a sensible view, that we can take meaningful action on climate change, get our emissions down. If we have cleaner and cheaper new sources of energy, we can do that without flicking the switch off on traditional industries. And I think Australians understand, we don't have to choose between Glasgow and Gladstone. We don't have to choose between doing the right thing in the global community and doing the right thing in Central Queensland. We can do the right thing by both. The BCA, the biggest employers in this country, have come to the conclusion that there's actually more economic growth and more job opportunities that come from doing that rather than fewer. And that means that doing nothing means that all these opportunities go begging. And that would be a tragedy for our country at large, but also for the communities that we care about right around the place.

SMITH: Another big ticket item, Labor branch stacking in Victoria. If you were federal leader would you allow Anthony Byrne to stay right where he is? Because you know what they say, the standard you walk past is the standard you accept?

CHALMERS: Yeah, I think it's really concerning what we're hearing out of the IBAC process in Victoria. What Anthony said, I think is fair, which is the best time to come to a concluded view on this pretty remarkable evidence is when the process has concluded not when it's halfway through. And I think that's a reasonable position to take.

SMITH: But it's not an investigation into him. He's put his hands up, Jim. It's not an investigation into him, he's actually put his hands up.

CHALMERS: Yeah, anyone who follows it closely, and I don't consider myself to have followed every sentence of all of the evidence, but it's very clear that the process has a little way to run yet. And so we should make a judgement about all of it once it's all on the table.

SMITH: Okay, another big ticket item. We notice that New South Wales has been the first state to say no hotel quarantine, not even home quarantine. If you're double vaccinated and you are a tourist or an Australian citizen, you want to come back home, get the appropriate tests as well as your double vaccination certificate, and you can come in to New South Wales. Is that the end of this silly talk about boutique quarantine facilities, Jim?

CHALMERS: I think there still will be a need for purpose-built quarantine. I think that's very clear. That should still be built, for this pandemic...

SMITH: How?

CHALMERS: Well, for example, near the Toowoomba airport at Wellcamp there, the State Government and the private sector are building some purpose-built quarantine. There's still plans in Victoria as far as I'm aware, and elsewhere. This might not be the only pandemic we have.

SMITH: But who for? Another pandemic?

CHALMERS: Well, there are still travellers for whom there'll be a need to quarantine and they won't have a home to quarantine in. I mean, that's clear. Hotel quarantine has been a disaster. So many of these cases have come from hotel quarantine, we should have moved over to purpose-built quarantine like Howard Spring, but more of it around Australia, before now. And that's because, even if you take into consideration what the New South Wales Government has said, and we hope that that's based on robust health advice, not everybody will have a home to quarantine in who's coming to Australia. There will still be an ongoing need for purpose-built quarantine.

SMITH: If you were to become Treasurer of the country, how do we get rid of this multi-generational debt?

CHALMERS: First of all, stop spraying money around on rorts and waste. That's the first thing. Something like $20 billion in JobKeeper for businesses whose profits went up and didn't need help, at the same time as other small businesses went begging. A good idea very badly implemented, there's a lot of waste there. A lot of rorting. $660 million in car park rorts, you got dodgy land deals, you got sports rorts, they spent a billion dollars on government advertising. So the first port of call is to end the kind of rorting of taxpayer funds for political purposes, which is what we've seen for much of the last eight years. There might be more movement that we can take on multinational taxes, the whole world is moving in a direction on making sure multinationals pay their fair share of tax where they make their profits, particularly when it comes to the big digital platforms. I think there's an area there, which could help fix the budget. But the first priority for the time being is to support the economy through a difficult period. There will become a time for budget repair, but I think the first priority has to be to get the place growing and recovering the right way, where ordinary working families get a slice of the action, they're not left behind like they were before the pandemic hit.

SMITH: Final question for you, where is the place that Jim Chalmers goes to get away from the political madness? You couldn't even get away from it when you got married. Is it a place, as I understand, called Daisy Hill?

CHALMERS: Yeah, I live next door to Daisy Hill Forest near Springwood in South East Queensland, in Logan City. I basically grew up in there. I've lived in the same neighbourhood most of my life. I live about a kilometre now from where I grew up, and that's right near Daisy Hill Forest. And for me getting up there early in the morning for a run, or taking any or all of my three kids up there to ride their bikes and look for koalas and all that sort of thing - it's a magical, magical place. And one of the upsides of the pandemic, if there are any, is more and more people in my local community are discovering Daisy Hill Forest and just how wonderful it is. The heart rate comes down. The blood pressure comes down. And you get to spend your time amongst nature, which is just for me really restorative.

SMITH: Do you have to learn to turn your phone off? Or is that a given?

CHALMERS: I'm hopeless at that, Chris. I'm an absolute shocker when it comes to that. I should. And I try to. If I'm reading the kids a book I try to be good on that front, but I can do much, much better if I'm honest.

SMITH: It's good to have you on the program. You've got so much ahead of you in terms of politics and the parliamentary life that you've chosen, and I thank you very much for your time this evening.

CHALMERS: Thanks for the chat, Chris. I appreciate it.

ENDS