JIM CHALMERS MP
SHADOW TREASURER
MEMBER FOR RANKIN
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DOORSTOP INTERVIEW
PARLIAMENT HOUSE, CANBERRA
TUESDAY, 15 FEBRUARY 2022
SUBJECTS: Josh Frydenberg’s desperate and dishonest scare campaign on death taxes has been blown out of the water; The only major party proposing a death tax is the Liberals; Foreign interference; Peter Dutton trashing national security for cheap political points; Government wants a fight not a fix with deportation laws; Alan Tudge investigation; Albo’s university economics essay.
JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: Josh Frydenberg's desperate, unhinged and dishonest scare campaign on tax has fallen down all around him today. We open up the front page of the Financial Review today under the headline "Liberal MP backs inheritance tax rise". It's got Jason Falinski, the Liberal-appointed Chair of the Economics Committee, saying that the problem with the tax system is inheritances.
Josh Frydenberg is going to have a very bad morning. His scare campaign - which has always been desperate, and unhinged, and ridiculous - is falling down all around him. He is the Butterfingers of Australian politics and Butterfingers is at it again. This is a guy who can't even organise a decent scare campaign, let alone manage the economy in the interests of ordinary working families. If he can't even organise a scare campaign that lasts more than a few days, no wonder he can't deal with skyrocketing costs of living, and real wages going backwards, or a trillion dollars of debt in his Budget full of rorts.
As we get closer to the election there will be more of these ridiculous scare campaigns as Josh Frydenberg, and Peter Dutton, and Scott Morrison - who are totally bereft of their own ideas about the economy or national security into the future - we'll hear more of these ridiculous campaigns scare campaigns, about the economy in particular.
Josh Frydenberg's absurd, and ridiculous, and unhinged scare campaign on the economy is falling down all around him. As we hear today, the only party proposing a death tax is the Liberal Party. The only major party who says that the problem that needs to be dealt with here with a death tax is the Liberal Party.
Jason Falinski has belled the cat. Josh Frydenberg's ridiculous scare campaign has fallen down all around him.
We need a Treasurer that doesn't spend all of his time trawling through the Greens website, or going through other people's transcripts, or rifling through the rubbish bins of a share house that Albo lived in more than 30 years ago. Enough of these ridiculous scare campaigns. Josh Frydenberg spends all of his time talking about a speech that Albo may or may not have given 31 years ago, this is a Liberal - in the last 31 hours - who says there should be a death tax. The only major party who is suggesting a death tax is the Liberal Party, and Josh Frydenberg's scare campaign has fallen down all around him.
JOURNALIST: Given the sensitivity of ASIO's annual threat assessment, was it appropriate for Kimberley Kitching to name the alleged puppeteer in the plot to influence an Australian election?
CHALMERS: I haven't seen the full exchange from that committee hearing but my understanding is that the head of our security agencies said that the issues that have been raised in this parliament the last couple of weeks or so are issues that apply to all sides of parliament - not one or the other - and if he had concerns that those concerns would be raised in the usual way. Beyond that, I'm not prepared to comment. I haven't seen the full exchange.
We do know when it comes to these issues more broadly, that Peter Dutton in particular, is prepared to trash our national security in the interest of petty political point-scoring. That makes us less safe, it does the bidding of people who want to do us ill.
What we need to see when it comes to national security is, where possible, a bipartisan consensus about the very real challenges and issues that we face. Some of the unhinged and ridiculous commentary engaged in by Peter Dutton trashes our national security and makes Australians less safe. Beyond that, I'm not prepared to comment.
JOURNALIST: Should she have named him though, the ASIO boss seemed pretty unhappy that she did?
CHALMERS: I haven't seen the exchange and I'm not prepared to go into it much more than that.
JOURNALIST: Are concerned about, though, the potential implications? Even if you haven't seen the exchange, are you concerned about the implications of naming this man?
CHALMERS: Clearly, foreign interference is a major issue that applies to all parties and all political actors. That's an issue that Mr Burgess has raised a number of times now, not specific to any one political party or another. There are processes and conventions which we should take seriously. The Government - and Peter Dutton in particular - has been prepared to trash those conventions, and trash those institutions, in the interests of petty political point-scoring. That makes Australians less safe and trashes our national security. I haven't seen the exchange, I'm not prepared to go into it.
JOURNALIST: The Prime Minister's had the report into the Alan Tudge investigation for about a month now. Would you like to see that process sorted out before the election?
CHALMERS: It's disappointing but not especially surprising to learn that the Prime Minister has been sitting on this report for some weeks. We've seen this in other instances, where he's announced a review to try and take the political heat out of what are very serious issues, and obviously that's not good enough,
JOURNALIST: Back on foreign interference and elections. Do you think Australia needs more resources in languages other than English to counter potential foreign interference in our elections?
CHALMERS: Obviously, we should be doing all we can to counter what is a serious challenge to our democracy - and not just our democracy, but around the world. It's been clear for some time now that this is a challenge that we need to take seriously. We would take the advice of our agencies and our departments, and if that is their strong recommendation, then obviously we'd act on it.
JOURNALIST: Have you read Albo's 1981 university essay?
CHALMERS: I read some of it in Question Time yesterday, he gave me a look at it. Very sharp essay, very neatly written.
(LAUGHTER)
JOURNALIST: You're the Shadow Treasurer, does it still hold up?
CHALMERS: I think so, yeah. It was very impressive. The point that he was making is that you we've got a Government - at a time of skyrocketing costs of living, declining real wages, a trillion dollars of debt and a Budget full of rorts - and the Government's trawling through things that he may or may not have said more than 30 years ago. I think the point that Albo was making was well made, which is judge him on the policies that we take to the election and not on these ridiculous scare campaigns, which have been torpedoed today by the Liberal Party's calls for a death tax.
JOURNALIST: Just on another issue. The Government's bill to speed-up the deportation of foreign criminals will be put forward today. Do you support this?
CHALMERS: It's not clear that it will be put forward today. I think it's been on the papers for a little while now. We've made our position really clear. These sorts of matters are best dealt with in a constructive, and collaborative, and ideally bipartisan way. We've been trying now, I think for the last three Immigration Ministers, to understand the issues that are to be addressed by this legislation. The Immigration Minister already has the power to throw people out, we saw that with the Novak Djokovic debacle. So it's not clear to us what powers the Immigration Minister is seeking that he doesn't already have. We've tried to work with the Government to understand what they're trying to do here. We all know what's happening here. They are not interested in a fix, they’re interested in a fight. They want to play these divisive and dangerous political games with our national security, and that makes Australians less safe. We're seeing it - whether it's issues around foreign interference, we're seeing it with issues around visa cancellations - and we'll see more of it unfortunately between now and the next election.
JOURNALIST: Do you think the current laws are tough enough as they stand?
CHALMERS: I'm in favour of the Immigration Minister being able to kick people out of the country if they do the wrong thing. As I understand it, he has that power already. We saw that with the Novak Djokovic debacle. I think everybody knows what's going on here, they're trying to come up with legislation to create some kind of political wedge for political purposes. We would rather focus on the national interest, and national security, and keeping Australians safe, and making sure that we have a robust migration system. If only the Government was interested in the same thing, that would be better. Thanks very much everyone.
ENDS
