E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
NINE NEWS
TUESDAY, 6 OCTOBER 2020
 
SUBJECT: Federal budget.
 
CHRIS UHLMANN, NINE NEWS: Jim Chalmers, what's your headline on this budget?
 
JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: Well they've racked up a trillion dollars in debt and still unemployment is too high for too long. A trillion dollars in debt and still no comprehensive plan for the future of the economy or plan to kickstart the recovery. Still too many people left out and left behind, and nothing for childcare. 928,000 unemployment benefit recipients can't even access the hiring subsidy, so I think it's disappointing, it's a missed opportunity that all of this money has been borrowed and sprayed around and yet so many people are still left out and left behind.

UHLMANN: The question that will fall to you immediately is will you pass the tax cut package? Will you?
 
CHALMERS: We’ve said we’re keen on the income tax cuts. Stage two plus the extra help for low and middle-income earners. We've said all along, we've been calling for that outcome, so obviously we'll be supportive of that. Some of the business tax measures we've only seen for the first time a few hours ago. We're inclined to support those as well. But I think your viewers would understand that when we're talking about one measure costing $27 billion alone, we'll work through the detail and make sure it's the right way to spend that.
 
UHLMANN: Politically, what the Government's likely to do is to bundle all this stuff together and then hand it to you and say, pass the lot. Now, would that be difficult for you to do?
 
CHALMERS: They're always looking for a political outcome, rather than an economic outcome. We're looking for the right economic outcome. We're inclined to support it all, but we'll take a little bit of time, having only seen a lot of it a few hours ago, to make sure that it's the right and responsible way to spend the money.
 
UHLMANN: Does anything stand out to you in this budget, which you would not have done?
 
CHALMERS: We’re concerned about the superannuation measures. Unfortunately, this Government has form in trying to diminish the superannuation system, which is so important for people's retirement incomes. So we'll have a good look at that, but they do have some form playing ideological politics with superannuation. That's one of the things that leapt out at me. There are some other measures that we look forward to supporting in mental health and in other areas, but overall, I think the issue for us is are we getting maximum bang for buck for this trillion dollars that the Government's borrowing?
 
UHLMANN: One of the big elements of this is the $200 billion, essentially, which will flow from the Government's coffers through businesses by way of an instant asset write-off. Now is that not a reasonable way of trying to get business to invest?
 
CHALMERS: There's certainly a role for using the tax system to encourage business to invest. We actually had a business investment problem even before COVID-19, so there is a role to play there. We’re inclined to support those measures. We'll have a look at them overnight and until the legislation is presented. But obviously, investment is a big problem in the economy. It's partly a story about a no energy policy certainty, but there are other issues at play too and we should seek to address them.
 
UHLMANN: In talking about certainty, one of the things that rings through this budget is substantial uncertainty, pretty much about everything, and a whole lot of assumptions are built into this, including that we get a vaccine.
 
CHALMERS:  Not just that we discover a vaccine next year, but that it's deployed to the population by the end of next year. We hope that's the case. We hope it can be as soon as possible because the fate of our economy does rest on subsequent local outbreaks, global outbreaks, and how we deploy that vaccine. We hope that that's the case. If it's not, then a lot of these assumptions will prove to be wildly optimistic
 
UHLMANN: The Government, what it’s doing essentially is adding a whole lot of measures and then at the bottom draws a line and says that will add up to 950,000 jobs. Is that credible?
 
CHALMERS: It remains to be seen. Hopefully all of this spending, this trillion dollars gets some return, but we’re concerned not enough of a return. Think about it this way, if we're still talking about another 160,000 people losing their job between now and the end of the year we're still talking about unemployment being higher at the end of the four-year forward estimates than it was before COVID-19. So the budget is not doing the job it needs to do in terms of supporting jobs and supporting employment in the economy.
 
UHLMANN: Now you were part of a government that fought the Global Financial Crisis. On the back of that, because the deficit I think was $54 billion, debt was around about $200 billion. Now we're looking at gross debt peaking at $1.7 trillion in 2031. How does it feel to have been pinged for having a debt and deficit disaster and the Liberals have left you in the shade?
 
CHALMERS: That's for them to explain the inconsistency. When debt was a tiny fraction of what it is they said it was a disaster. Now debt north of a trillion dollars is all of a sudden manageable. We've been consistent, we've always wanted the right outcome. When the economy is weak that means government needs to support people and their jobs. They've been wildly inconsistent, they've been sprung running a campaign for a decade or so, which has turned out to be entirely fraudulent.  But that’s not the most important thing from my point of view, the most important thing is we support people in their jobs,
 
UHLMANN: Then the question falls to you, what would you do differently? And of course, we will hear some of that on Thursday night in the budget reply speech but some thoughts on that? 
 
CHALMERS: We’re worried about the targeting of this money. A trillion dollars in debt not getting the effectiveness that we need it to. For example, all of those people excluded from hiring subsidies. We probably wouldn't have gone down that path leaving almost a million people in the lurch. Clearly there are big gaps in the budget and what they're proposing. Nothing for the care economy, nothing substantial for social housing, or cleaner and cheaper sources of energy, no local jobs programs. All of the sorts of things that most people would consider to be a reasonable part of a comprehensive forward-looking jobs plan to kick-start the recovery.
 
UHLMANN: Jim Chalmers, thank you. 
 
CHALMERS: Thank you Chris.
 
ENDS