JIM CHALMERS MP
SHADOW TREASURER
MEMBER FOR RANKIN
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
NINE NEWS BUDGET SPECIAL
TUESDAY, 29 MARCH 2022
SUBJECT: Federal Budget.
CHRIS UHLMANN, HOST: Jim Chalmers, what would you have done differently this Budget?
JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: The big missing piece out of this Budget is a plan for the future. It's a Budget that can't see beyond May. It's a panicked, desperate, tapped out Budget from a panicked, desperate, tapped out Government. It has nothing to say about the future beyond May. We've got a plan to grow the economy the right way so the recovery works for everyone, the Government doesn’t.
UHLMANN: Is there any of this spending that you wouldn't have done?
CHALMERS: I think some of the cost of living pressures that are in the economy right now deserve some attention, and so we will be supporting the cost of living relief through the parliament this week. We'd have a different view of childcare, for example. We'd be more ambitious on cleaner and cheaper energy. There's no funding for the National Anti-Corruption Commission, which is the big omission in this Budget. So we would do things differently and we've laid out our policies and plans over the last couple of years now. We'll have more to say.
UHLMANN: Would you be spending more or less, because there is a risk in what we're seeing tonight that it drives up inflation?
CHALMERS: There is that risk, but the issue there is not just the quantity of spending but the quality of spending. What's been missing now for the best part of a decade is genuine investment in families, and communities, and in the future of the economy. Instead, we've had all these rorts, and waste, and corruption. If you want to end that - all that waste and all of those rorts - you've got to end the Government.
UHLMANN: In September 2020 when it looked like we were heading into a depression, you said the measure of this Government will be what happened on jobs. Well, unemployment is going to be 3.75%. Can't do much better than that?
CHALMERS: After I said that hundreds of thousands of jobs were shed from the economy because the Government stuffed-up vaccines. We expect there to be more jobs in the recovery than there were in the recession. We have said we want that unemployment rate to be as low as possible. When it comes to skill shortages, when it comes to what I think is the defining feature of this Budget - which is a fall in real wages, as well as a trillion dollars of debt with nothing to show for it – there’s nothing that's in this Budget that makes up for a decade now of attacks on wages, job security, pensions, and Medicare. It's just designed to make the Prime Minister look like he cares about cost of living pressures. If he cared about cost of living pressures, he wouldn't be spending.
UHLMANN: But you said it was the most important measure. So by your measure this Government has done well.
CHALMERS: I said that during the recession what mattered most was what happened in the labour market. Hundreds of thousands of jobs were lost then. Even towards the end of last year in the Delta downtown - we had that big downturn in the September quarter - hundreds of thousands of jobs were lost then. I was pointing to the human cost of the Government's mistakes. We want the unemployment rate to be as low as possible. Of course there are going to be more jobs now than there were in the teeth of the recession. The risk in the economy is skyrocketing costs of living combined with falling real wages. That's why ordinary working families are finding it harder and harder to make ends meet. Today's Budget won't make up for that.
UHLMANN: When we look at the cutting of the petrol excise, it's for six months. Now you run the risk that you're going to be Treasurer in six months’ time and you have to put that back. Is the Government putting some poison pills in this Budget?
CHALMERS: I think one of their motivations, frankly, is to take a lot of the problems that exist on this side of the election and push them to the other side of the election. I think that's the most obvious example of that but it’s not the only example. This is a Government which can see six or seven weeks ahead, but not beyond the May election. They’re pushing all of these issues to beyond the election, and that petrol price increase that will happen at the end of September 2022, I think, is one of their motivations.
UHLMANN: Do you think one of the problems that we've got with governments now is that they're raising people's expectations about what governments can do for them? Isn't it a risk for you to say that people were going to increase your real wages? Can you promise that?
CHALMERS: I think that there is an issue when it comes to wages. The Government has been overpromising and underdelivering. They've made 55 wages forecasts before tonight but have been wrong 52 times. They're notorious for overpromising and underdelivering. We've been careful not to do that. We said that wages - which grew at 3.6% under Labor on average, now 2.1%, under the liberals, on average - we will always do better for average working people. We've got a policy to get wages moving again, the Government doesn't. The Government has said before that stagnant wages are a deliberate design feature of their economic policy. We've seen that now for the best part of a decade.
UHLMANN: What we've seen after two crises – and you went through one in the Treasurer's office, you his Chief Of Staff and went through the Global Financial Crisis – you were criticised of course, that was called a debt and deficit disaster. We've seen the size of government rise after that, and after this crisis rise again. As an incoming Treasurer, do you think you can get that structural cost under control?
CHALMERS: I think it will be a job for whoever is Treasurer after the election. This Government has borrowed more, taxed more, spent more, and delivered less than its Labor predecessor, and they did go around - when debt was a fraction of what it is now – talking about a debt and deficit disaster. They've doubled the debt even before the pandemic, now we've got a trillion dollars in debt with nowhere near enough to show for it. We do have structural problems in the Budget, which flow from a decade now of rorts, and waste, and mismanagement. Every dollar wasted by the most wasteful government since Federation is a dollar that can't be invested in the productive capacity, economy, or providing that cost of living relief.
UHLMANN: But you’ve put a figure out what about $10 billion. When you're talking about the structural problem, the Budget that goes to things like the NDIS, defence. Essentially, we are spending beyond our means?
CHALMERS: I think it's more like more than $30 billion have been wasted by this Government. They've made $70 billion in commitments just since the December Mid-Year Budget Update, so there's money spraying in all directions. The other thing which is important for your viewers to understand, is hidden in the Budget tonight is more than $3 billion in secret cuts, which they won't reveal until after the election. So a cash splash before the election, secret cuts after the election. We don't know if it's Medicare, or pensions, or what those secret cuts are. We've been upfront with people, and we've said part of the job is growing the economy. There’s also a role for multinational tax reform, also a role for trimming spending on contractors and consultants. A whole range of examples where we want to shift the quality of the spending in the Budget so that it can go where it's needed most.
UHLMANN: At some stage though, as an incoming Treasurer, you may have to make the decision that with the two things that Treasurer's do – you raise taxes or you cut services. Everyone always says grow the economy, but at some point you've got to address things in the Budget that you don't think should be there.
CHALMERS: I've said all along that there is a role for things like multinational tax reform, there might be a role for state tax reform if the states are up for it, but we're not taking a big tax agenda to this election like we took the previous election, we've made that incredibly clear. Part of that is multinational tax reform, also trimming spending where there's been the most egregious waste, also reprioritising spending from low quality to high quality investment, and also growing the economy the right way so that more people can benefit from the recovery
UHLMANN: Does it grieve you that some of the things that you took to the last election were a good idea – for example, changing the tax system so it didn't favour housing investors over people who wanted housing - and now you've been beaten out of that position.
CHALMERS: I don't see it that way, Chris. We've got a different set of priorities for this election. We've been through a lot together as a country and the thanks that Australians get for all the sacrifices they've made for each other is falling real wages, and a trillion dollars in debt, and people falling further and further behind. Our priorities are as I've stated – to get energy costs down, child care costs down, invest in skills so we can deal with the skills shortage, digital economy, advanced manufacturing, the care economy - those are our priorities.
UHLMANN: A Budget is a social contract. So to finish, you have children, what sort of country would you like to leave for them if you become the Treasurer?
CHALMERS: I want the economy to represent the best of Australia. Upward climbing, outward facing, forward looking. I want our Budget to reflect the confidence that we should have as a people. We've been there for each other during the most difficult times in the last couple of years and the federal government should be there for people as well. That means giving them something more than an election pamphlet, it means giving them a genuine plan for the future.
UHLMANN: Jim Chalmers, thank you.
CHALMERS: Thanks Chris.
ENDS
