JIM CHALMERS MP
SHADOW TREASURER
MEMBER FOR RANKIN
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
RN BREAKFAST
TUESDAY, 9 NOVEMBER 2021
SUBJECTS: Labor would welcome an election on the economy and eight years of wage stagnation and insecure work; Labor won’t be lectured by the most wasteful Government since Federation; JobKeeeper was a good idea that got ‘Frydenberged’; Scott Morrison’s climate pamphlet when Australians need a plan; Labor’s policies for cleaner and cheaper energy.
FRAN KELLY, HOST: Well, the Prime Minister has declared that the economy is powering its way out of the COVID pandemic in a way that's unmatched by most other countries. A surge in job vacancies and new figures showing small businesses have avoided the much-feared tidal wave of closures have emboldened the federal government to place the economy at the very centre of its re-election campaign. It's started road-testing and key campaign light line yesterday, claiming that only the Coalition can keep the economy strong. Jim Chalmers is the Shadow Treasurer. It will be his job, in part, to try and refute that claim - or rebut that claim - as we move towards an election sometime before next May. He joins us from Brisbane. Jim Chalmers, welcome back to Breakfast.
JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: Thanks very much, Fran.
KELLY: Josh Frydenberg is already asking voters who can you trust to keep the economy strong, taxes low and unemployment down. It's worked for the Coalition Government before won't it work again this time for Scott Morrison?
CHALMERS: I'd welcome an election on the economy Fran, because an election on the economy is an election about eight long years of wage stagnation, and flat living standards, and weak business investment. And if the Government is re-elected, there'll be more attacks on wages, and super, and Medicare, and renewables, and all of those other things which have led to this wasted decade of missed opportunities in the economy, which has meant that so many jobs and so many opportunities have gone begging.
So the election will be about the economy, but more fundamentally it'll be about whether the economy can be better for working people after COVID-19 than it was before. The Government's got arguably the worst record on the economy in my lifetime, certainly the most wasteful government in terms of the rorts and mismanagement in the Budget in our lifetime. And so we're happy to have that argument in the lead up to the election, and during the election.
KELLY: Well, the Government says already that the economy is on track to be better after the pandemic than before. Job ads are up, retail is booming, insolvencies are down, more small businesses opened than closed during COVID-19, and there's $340 billion in accumulated household and business savings ready to be unleashed. I mean, it looks as though the stars are aligning for strong economic recovery. That's what the RBA is tipping too, the Government's claiming it as its own?
CHALMERS: Well, the economy should recover strongly, we want it to recover strongly, but it's recovering despite the Morison Government not because of the Government. We've had now a recession in 2020. We've had another horrible September Quarter this year, which was brought about because of the Government's mistakes and failures on vaccines and quarantine and economic support. And this Government, having not taken responsibility when the economy was bleeding billions of dollars a week because of their mistakes, it's a bit rich for them to take credit now. The credit belongs to the Australian people who've done the right thing by each other, and the thanks they get can't be another three years of stagnant wages, which is all the Government is offering.
KELLY: Well, I mean, is stagnant wages the future? The Reserve Bank last week has looked at economic growth of five and a half per cent as I mentioned, and a fall in unemployment to as low as 4 per cent over the next 18 months. Some economists saying unemployment will start with a three. With unemployment that low they're tipping wages will rise?
CHALMERS: I think most people understand Fran, that the unemployment rate tells some of the story of the labour market but not the full story. It includes people who are working zero hours, or one hour, in the economy. So it doesn't tell the story of underemployment, and insecure work, and stagnant wages, and all of the other really important parts of the labour market and the economy when it comes to the people-facing part of our economy.
And don't forget Fran, in the most recent jobs figures - and Josh Frydenberg doesn't like to talk about this - 138,000 Australians lost their job in the September data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. 129,000 more gave up looking for work. So there is still weakness in the labour market. I know the Government's in a big rush to give themselves a big pat on the back and take credit for this recovery, even though they didn't take responsibility when times were tough. But it's a much more mixed bag for people out there in real communities and they shouldn't be forgotten.
KELLY: The Government's already road-testing its lines as I say, the Treasurer yesterday saying Labor will always want to spend more. You wanted JobKeeper to be expanded and extended. You wanted JobSeeker to be higher. You promised $6 billion to pay people who've already had the jab.
CHALMERS: (LAUGHTER) Fran, give me a break!
KELLY: That's their lines, not my lines. What are your policies to convince people that the economy would be better off under Anthony Albanese than Scott Morrison?
CHALMERS: I mean Fran, give me a break. We are not going to be taking lectures about fiscal responsibility from a Treasurer and the Government that wasted $38 billion on a JobKeeper payment to companies that didn't need it. JobKeeper was a very good idea, which got Frydenberged - by which I mean, it got horribly implemented by the butterfingers of Australian politics.
What that meant is that tens-of-billions of dollars that could have gone to supporting small businesses who were doing it tough, or could have gone to any one of a number of other more productive purposes, has been wasted by the most wasteful government in the history of this Federation in a Budget riddled with rorts, and waste, and mismanagement.
We will not be taking lectures from these characters when it comes to the useful spending of public money. We will spend money more effectively, in more productive areas. Whether it's childcare or other areas like skills development, the country and the economy will get much better bang for buck from a Labor Government.
KELLY: A couple of listeners writing in as we speak to talk about - I mentioned there that, you know, the official figures are insolvencies are down, more small businesses opened than closed during COVID-19 - yet a few people pointing out, you know, check the streets of our inner-city areas in Sydney and Melbourne - and I think it's probably around the country too - heaps and heaps of shopfronts empty, businesses closed. How can these two both be true? What is the story there?
CHALMERS: Well, that's exactly right, Fran. COVID has been the acceleration of a whole bunch of trends in our economy and some businesses and some parts of Australia have done relatively well, and some parts have struggled. I'm on my way to Mount Isa in North West Queensland today which has done reasonably well, but tomorrow I'll be in Cairns in Tropical Far North Queensland which has found things very difficult. That’s because different parts of the country, different businesses, are exposed to international traffic differently, and other important factors. So it is a mixed bag. It is a bit of a patchwork quilt around Australia. So the point that we've been making, is if we want to make the economy stronger coming out of COVID than it was before we need to support working families, we need secure jobs, and we need a future made in Australia. And that means broadening our economy, diversifying our economy, creating new jobs, and making sure that the regions share in the benefits.
KELLY: Okay, on that front, in terms of creating new jobs, the Government's released its future fuel strategy today, which is its electric vehicle strategy and includes 50,000 charging stations in Australian homes for EVs. Is this the end of the war on the weekend?
CHALMERS: (LAUGHTER) How humiliating Fran, for a Prime Minister who said that electric vehicles would end the weekend now trying to pretend all of a sudden because we're on the eve of an election that he cares about electric vehicles. I think people will see right through this just like they saw right through his little pamphlet on climate change, which was designed to get him through the election. It shows why they are such a joke when it comes to cleaner and cheaper energy. If Australians want genuine action on cleaner and cheaper energy, and all the jobs and opportunities that will flow from that, their only option is to elect an Albanese Labor Government.
KELLY: What's the difference there in terms of your EV policy? The Government's policy release today does not include tax incentives or minimum fuel emissions standards. Instead, you know, aligning with the Government's technology not taxes approach to climate policy, it just will allow technology. Essentially, they'll put in the infrastructure and then let the market forces do the work. What will Labor promise people in terms of trying to get higher uptake of EVs?
CHALMERS: Well, first of all, we've been long-standing supporters of charging infrastructure. So we believe that that should happen; we’ve had a lot to say about that in the past. But we've got additional policies on EVs that we've already announced. Our policies are tax cuts for electric vehicles. When it comes to the fringe benefits tax and when it comes to the import taxes on electric vehicles, we know that a few thousand dollars off the price of an EV will make a material difference to people being prepared to buy EVs. They're a little bit too expensive right now for a lot of working families, and so we want to put them within reach of more people and that's an important part of making sure that people have that choice. So you can do that, and can be in favour of charging stations, and that’s our position.
KELLY: Okay, just finally, you mentioned you're heading out on a visit to Mount Isa today. Has the Government done enough perhaps do you think on climate change policy to make sure it can hang on to those Queensland seats at the election - Dawson, Flynn and Capricornia, in particular? Agreeing to net-zero by 2050 but not going too and too hard, I think is an understatement. Is that going to be enough do you think to keep those mining seats away from Labor?
CHALMERS: I don't think people take the Government seriously on cleaner and cheaper energy, whether it's in regional Queensland or other parts of Australia. We needed a plan from them for climate change and energy, and instead we got a little pamphlet. I've spent a lot of time in regional Queensland for a long period now, but especially the last few years, and what I know is that people understand that there are new jobs and new opportunities and new investment in cleaner and cheaper energy in the regions. The Business Council of Australia has shown that the regions stand to be the biggest beneficiaries of doing something meaningful.
KELLY: But that's the Government's policy too, that's the heart of their policy?
CHALMERS: The Government has been dragged to a half-hearted commitment to net-zero by 2050. But what the BCA and others have shown, is you need an interim target as well and you need the policies to get there. And I think people understand right around Australia, including in regional Queensland where I spend a lot of time, that we can do something meaningful about climate change without abandoning our traditional strengths. In lots of cases, we're talking about turbocharging some of those areas of our economy which have been very good earners for Australia and very good job creators.
KELLY: And when will we see Labor's interim target?
CHALMERS: Well, what we've said for some time Fran, is that we need to see the outcomes of Glasgow...
KELLY: We've got that.
CHALMERS: …and we need to see the Government's modelling. And we need to know what kind of system we would inherit. The Government hasn't yet released their modelling. We are, as you would expect, doing a lot of work behind the scenes on our final package of climate change policies, but we've got a lot out there already - our rewiring the nation policy, which is all about transmitting cleaner and cheaper energy, that's one important part of it. EVs, and some other policies too.
KELLY: Jim Chalmers. Thanks very much for joining us.
CHALMERS: Thank you, Fran.
KELLY: Jim Chalmers is the Shadow Treasurer.
ENDS
