Interview with Sarah Abo, Today Show, Channel Nine

SARAH ABO:

Treasurer Jim Chalmers, thanks so much for your time this morning. This is a bad call.

JIM CHALMERS:

I don't think so Sarah, this is a good opportunity. I think a comprehensive opportunity to work out where the Commonwealth can do better anticipating another pandemic or another crisis like the one that we've just all been through. It's a good opportunity to learn from the past, to do things better into the future, it will be comprehensive, it will pull in all of the inquiries and reviews that have happened to date, it will give people an opportunity to make a contribution, and it will set the path forward when it comes to dealing with these sorts of things in the years ahead.

ABO:

I think we can all agree that a comprehensive review is absolutely needed. But what is also needed, Treasurer, are deep findings about where we went wrong. State leaders, they called the shots on lockdowns and restrictions. It doesn't make any sense, does it to leave them out of this inquiry?

CHALMERS:

I don't agree with you obviously, Sarah. I think that this is a really good way of getting to the bottom of what we learned during COVID.

ABO:

But how can we when the premiers were the ones making the decisions, and we're not hearing from them?

CHALMERS:

There'll be an opportunity for the states to make contributions to this, but our primary focus – and you're right about this – our primary focus is what the Commonwealth can do better. Our job is to take responsibility for learning from what happened in the years just gone by and apply that to the potential pandemics and crises of the year ahead. I think we've given ourselves a good way to do that. We will learn a lot from the recent past, we will do things better in the future and this review will help us work out how.

ABO:

I think pandemic preparedness is key here and that's what's important because we've had royal commissions in this country for lesser things. If we go back to 1904, there was an inquiry into butter, in 1927 the moving picture industry was put under the spotlight in a royal commission, in 2013 the home insulation scheme, and interestingly back in 1920 a royal commission into the Spanish flu epidemic. So why when more than 22,000 Australians died because of COVID would we not introduce a royal commission into something of this scale?

CHALMERS:

First of all, and most obviously, we don't do everything the same way that we did more than 100 years ago. I think that's self-evident. When it comes to this, you try and work out what gives us the best opportunity –

ABO:

Treasurer, a royal commission gives us the best opportunity, doesn't it? I mean this is a toothless tiger at the end of the day. There is nothing that can come from this inquiry that will actually change the course of any decision making going forward. There is nothing to compel it. A royal commission is headed by somebody who's independent who will be able to oversee this with a more forensic analysis.

CHALMERS:

I don't share your views, Sarah. I think that's pretty clear to your viewers by now from your first few questions. We've got a different view about this respectfully. I think this will give us the opportunity to get to the bottom of what's happened.

ABO:

But what about the public? This is about the public at the end of the day. Do they not deserve answers? We were looking at playgrounds being shut down in Victoria, but not New South Wales. Should we not find out which state made the right call? We're talking about the public who were forced to say goodbye to loved ones over FaceTime, loved ones that they couldn't even see at their funeral, they couldn't say goodbye to properly. It's about them at the end of the day, rather than playing politics, you can't deny that everyone has come out and put you guys under the spotlight here, because it seems as though the decision is wrong when you're looking at it from the public perspective.

CHALMERS:

First of all, I agree with you and a bunch of what you just said. It is about the people and we have gone through a really difficult period. Very difficult decisions were taken at the Commonwealth level and at other levels of government as well. I understand that, I appreciate that. What we're trying to do here is to come up with the best set of arrangements. You rightly said it shouldn't be a political thing or a partisan thing. Half the premiers were Liberal Party premiers during the pandemic. It's not about politics. It's about Commonwealth responsibilities. It's about how we as a Commonwealth government can do things better in the future, learning from the past, including learning from some of those difficult things that we all went through, that our people all went through in what was a really difficult period in the history of our country.

ABO:

I think it will be difficult for the government to convince the population of this country that an inquiry is more important than a royal commission. Alright, we will disagree on that one. Obviously, Treasurer, it's a bit difficult to get your good news through when all of this is happening. You've got a major surplus to talk about.

CHALMERS:

It's a really important day, Sarah. This is the first surplus in 15 years. It's not an end in itself and it hasn't prevented us from rolling out billions of dollars in cost-of-living relief for people who are doing it tough. But it's a really important demonstration of the way that we are managing our Budget and our economy responsibly. We're getting the Budget in much better nick, getting it in a stronger position at the same time as we roll out that cost-of-living help. And that will put us in good stead as we confront another period of global economic uncertainty.

ABO: Alright Treasurer, thanks for joining us this morning.