JIM CHALMERS MP
SHADOW TREASURER
MEMBER FOR RANKIN
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
MONEY NEWS BUDGET SPECIAL
TUESDAY, 11 MAY 2021
SUBJECTS: Budget 2021
BROOKE CORTE, HOST: Jim Chalmers, welcome to the show.
JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: How are you Brooke?
CORTE: Yeah, great. Billions for aged care, childcare, health care, for women, tax cuts. You're in Opposition, what is there to oppose?
CHALMERS: Well, it's a Budget of marketing, mismanagement and missed opportunities. There's a whole series of cobbled together political fixes but it's not really a genuine comprehensive plan to get more people into good, secure, well paid jobs. The evidence for that is of all that money that's spraying around, something like almost $100 billion in new spending, despite all of that the Budget still says that people's real wages will go backwards. They still haven't implemented the recommendations of the Aged Care Royal Commission and they haven't undone a lot of the damage that they've done over the last eight long years of Government in areas like skills and apprenticeships. So I think there is a lot of money spraying around but whether or not that money has a lasting benefit, or whether it's just a bit of a political plan to get them through an election, I think the Australian people will judge that and judge it harshly.
CORTE: So there seems to be a very heroic assumption in this Budget that most of the country will be vaccinated by the end of this year. Is that your understanding? That's what I'm understanding from the Budget.
CHALMERS: There's more weasel words in that, Brooke. It does refer to the end of this year but it is basically a plan to have a plan. It says that this will likely happen. You'll know from following this closely that the Government first of all said that everyone would be vaccinated this year, and they've sort of walked back from that. The assumption is it will take a bit longer. So, I think it's a bit of a missed opportunity in the budget to come clean on the costs and consequences of that vaccinations debacle from the Prime Minister. That obviously has economic consequences in terms of more lockdowns and a later opening up for the economy and that means there are consequences for jobs as well. So when the Government's talking about the economy recovering, it is and that's a good thing, but the economy would be recovering much quicker if there wasn't such a mess made of vaccines and quarantine, and some of the other important areas
CORTE: Isn't the job creation we've had a very good indication of how well things have been managed, though? I'm just looking, you know, if we consider our unemployment rate has fallen to 5.6 per cent. The Government's got decent plans for it to go below 5 per cent and I see, you know, private sector economist saying absolutely, well, we'll have sub 5 per cent by the end of this year. If we consider that that is the most important goal of this budget, surely no opportunity has been necessarily missed on that?
CHALMERS: You know who deserves the credit for that, Brooke? Your listeners. The Australian people deserve the credit for the fact that the economy is recovering, and the jobs market is recovering a bit, not as much as we would like but the credit for that belongs to the Australian people. They did the right thing by each other to limit the spread of the virus. Josh Frydenberg and Scott Morrison will try and pretend that it's all they're doing but I think Australians know, and certainly we know, that limiting the spread of the virus has been the key to that. There's been some difficult decisions made by State Premiers but overwhelmingly, it's about what Australians have done for each other to get ourselves in this position. We don't want to see the Government squander that momentum that the Australian people have achieved by stuffing up the vaccine and getting other things wrong. And so that's why this Budget is a bit of a missed opportunity. They're spending so much money, they've racked up a trillion dollars in debt but we can't have a first rate recovery with a third rate vaccine rollout. That's the responsibility of the Government and that's the part that's going wrong.
CORTE: We want, well, Labor and Liberal State Governments on board this recovery to, don't we? I mean, we see no promises from State Governments that they're going to keep this recovery on track by keeping borders open, you know, allowing people in to freely move around our country. We can point at the Federal Government but state government is a big conversation here too, isn't it?
CHALMERS: Well, I think the key to the state borders remaining open is getting vaccines right, getting quarantine right. These are the things that are Federal Government responsibilities as much as Scott Morrison would like to wash his hands of it. We are hostage in lots of ways to those things. The economy is recovering, that's good, but it would be recovering more strongly if he was getting those things right.
CORTE: Well, I reckon if domestic borders stay open, that's a pretty good start. Thank you so much for joining us, Jim Chalmers. We appreciate it. You've got a lot of coverage to do tonight as well. Shadow Treasurer, thank you for your time here on our budget special
CHALMERS: Thanks for your time, Brooke.
ENDS
