Interview with Peter Van Onselen, Ten News, Channel 10
PETER VAN ONSELEN:
Treasurer, thanks very much for your time. Congratulations on your first budget. As an Opposition, you guys promised that you'd put real wages up. That's not going to happen for a number of years, hopefully. You also said you bring power prices down. They're going up at extraordinary levels. Are they broken promises?
JIM CHALMERS:
We do have an inflation challenge in our economy and the primary influence on the Budget that I handed down tonight was inflation. It guided what we did on the cost‑of‑living front. It guided our targeted investments.
VAN ONSELEN:
You knew about inflation at the election. So you made those promises at the election. Are they broken promises?
CHALMERS:
No, I don't think that they are. And this is why: we said that we would get cleaner and cheaper energy into the system. That remains our goal. Since that modelling was released about energy prices, we've had a war in Europe and that's playing havoc with global energy markets. And the fact that we've had a decade of energy policy chaos in Australia hasn't helped us deal with that. So we're making our policy more stable, more certain. We're getting more renewable energy into the system, which will pay off, but there's no use pretending that there hasn't been a war in Ukraine. On the wages front, wages are moving again, and that's a good thing. And that's because we've got a wages policy, starting with the minimum wage ‑
VAN ONSELEN:
Not real wages, they're going down.
CHALMERS:
And that's because we've got inflation higher than we would like, for longer than we would like. But wages are growing again. You're right that we expect real wages growth in 2024. We'd like to do a bit better than that. But that's the current forecast. And what we tried to do today is to paint an accurate picture of these challenges in our economy. The key reason why the Budget tonight was responsible, why there was spending restraint, is because we do have this inflation problem and we don't want to make it worse.
VAN ONSELEN:
There's a big debate between the two major parties about who takes ownership of the NDIS. You guys started it, they've been in charge of it for a while. It looks like a Labor policy. It's ballooning in costs. It's unsustainable, isn't it?
CHALMERS:
I think it's pretty clear that the costs of the NDIS are going up. One of the fastest growing areas of government spending, but not the fastest. The fastest area is the interest rates that we're paying on the trillion dollars of debt that we inherited. And so that's the fastest growing, NDIS is up there. And that's why ‑
VAN ONSELEN:
Does that means you're going to have to cut into it somehow in the years to come?
CHALMERS:
It means we have to look at it. Minister Shorten has begun a review with two very eminent reviewers to see if we can get better value for money. We want to make sure people with a disability are at the centre of the NDIS. It is an important creation, it is doing a lot of good. We're going to need to make sure we're getting maximum value for money.
VAN ONSELEN:
You've spent your lifetime advocating for Labor causes, but JobSeeker, it's not increasing in real terms. Other people are winning out of this Budget with some handouts here and there to help with cost of living. How can you not help all those people who really need it, frankly, more than anyone else?
CHALMERS:
Because our primary responsibility to people on low income and fixed incomes is to not make this inflation problem worse. We need to be very careful.
VAN ONSELEN:
Does it make that worse if you give people who are literally unemployed just a little bit extra? A few bucks a week?
CHALMERS:
There's about $10 billion in extra JobSeeker payments in the Budget. And I'm not trying to claim credit for that, I'm just saying that when inflation is high, indexation is high. Again, that's automatic. That's not a new policy decision, but about $10 billion worth of extra JobSeeker payments. I know that people would like us to do better than that, but we only promise what we can afford to do. And in this Budget, the premium is on what's responsible, what's affordable and what's sustainable. There are a lot of good ideas that we would like to do in more normal times. These aren't normal times.
VAN ONSELEN:
Last question. I want to give you a chance right now to rule out doing anything to change the stage three tax cuts going forward. You promised at the election that you wouldn't adjust them. Here's your chance. No changes going forward, is that right?
CHALMERS:
That's not something we're working on. We've got more pressing challenges ‑
VAN ONSELEN:
Ever?
CHALMERS:
We've got more pressing challenges in the economy, cost‑of‑living relief ‑
VAN ONSELEN:
So they won't be in the Budget in May. There's no chance that there will be a change to stage three in May?
CHALMERS:
There will be tax cuts in 2024 on the current legislated time frame ‑
VAN ONSELEN:
Exactly as they are?
CHALMERS:
We're not proposing to change them and we don't have any proposals to change them. We haven't changed our position. We've got more pressing issues. I want to start a broader conversation about how we make the Budget more sustainable. We started tonight with some really important steps in the right direction. We've got more to do.
VAN ONSELEN:
Treasurer, I appreciate your time.
CHALMERS:
Thanks very much.
