Interview with David Campbell, Today Show, 9 Network
DAVID CAMPBELL:
I want to bring in the Treasurer Jim Chalmers. Now he's been listening to Corey and Sarah. Treasurer. What is your response to them? I mean, it's a pretty impassioned plea that people are struggling.
JIM CHALMERS:
Good morning, David. I think unfortunately the story told by Corey and Sarah is a common one around Australia. We have had these interest rate rises from the independent Reserve Bank since before the election, 8 in a row. And I think the big challenge is that the impact of these rate rises are felt immediately by people with a mortgage but the impact on the economy takes a little while to be felt. And so the decisions taken by the Reserve Bank, independent of government, have an immediate impact on people like Sarah and Corey, but a longer term impact on the economy. And so they've got a series of fine judgments to make. I do understand people's frustration. We do have an inflation problem in our economy, which the Reserve Bank is trying to get on top of. And that means prices for essentials are higher than what we want them to be. That's why the Budget showed such restraint. It's why we are working to build more rental properties, for example, it is why we're working around the clock to try and take the sting out of some of these energy price rises as well. But we get it, we do understand that the pressures that Corey and Sarah described are being felt right around Australia and our economic plan is designed to deal with them.
CAMPBELL:
Do you think the Reserve Bank has lost touch? It feels to me like this is all numbers on a page for them, that they're looking at the inflation rates, and we talk about that, and that is very important to our economy. But we're talking about people's livelihoods here, people's families, should they have seen that the inflation was doing a little bit better in the last few weeks in that last report we had, and maybe looked at this time going into Christmas, saying `let's pause here, let's come back after a 2 month break and look at it again'. But instead, they've gone to the eighth interest rate hike, it's higher than it was in 2012. Should they have actually had a look at what's happening not on paper, but to real life, to Aussies out there?
CHALMERS:
They can explain their own decisions and to some extent, they've tried to do that. What I try to do as the country's Treasurer is to not take shots at the Reserve Bank, to recognise they have an independent role to play and that I have a job to do as well and I've described some of my priorities on that front. Clearly when they make these decisions, they try and weigh up everything that's happening in the economy. You're right that there's no meeting next month, and so the next decision is a couple of months away, and no doubt they will weigh up what's happening with inflation, what's happening with wages, what's happening in the economy more broadly. We'll get a bit of a snapshot of that from the September quarter later today when the National Accounts come out. We're dealing with a lot of global uncertainty, we're dealing with a lot of inflation and price pressures brought about by the war in Ukraine and some of these other factors which are beyond our control but there are some things that we can do. For us, that means energy policy, it means housing policy, it means cheaper early childhood education, cheaper medicines, doing what we can to provide some responsible cost-of-living relief without adding to these inflationary pressures in the economy. That's my job. The Reserve Bank's got a separate job to do independently.
CAMPBELL:
The states have been up in arms this week, opposing the price caps on coal, particularly if you look at Queensland. Annastacia Palaszczuk has just found $2.3 billion in the coffers now because of coal. The Federal Government will help compensate for any lost profits. Is this going to be enough to get them on side? Do we have billions to help compensate Queensland?
CHALMERS:
It's more complex than that. There are more complexities and more moving parts in what we need to do in the energy market. We've got these high prices because of the war in Ukraine. We've had 9 months of Russian aggression, we've had 9 years of policy chaos, and Australians are paying a really hefty price for that. And so we're trying to work out a way, working respectfully and constructively with the states, with the regulators, with the various industries to see if we can take some of the sting out of these energy price rises. And it's not an easy task, we are untangling a whole bunch of factors, including some international factors. We're acting with some urgency but we're putting a lot of thought into it because there's some complexity as well.
CAMPBELL:
Are you confident that the states are going to come to the table on this?
CHALMERS:
We're still having discussions with the Queenslanders, with New South Wales and with others, the Prime Minister with his counterparts, and the Energy Minister with his counterparts as well. Those discussions are still happening. There's a big meeting tomorrow of energy ministers and Friday of the National Cabinet. And so we'll see what progress we can make but we come to those discussions in a responsible way, in a respectful way, in a reasonable way, and seeing if we can find a way through here. We said we'll try and find a way through between now and Christmas, and the discussions that we're having now are part of that.
CAMPBELL:
Jim Chalmers, thank you for your time.
