JIM CHALMERS MP
SHADOW TREASURER
MEMBER FOR RANKIN

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW

RN BREAKFAST

TUESDAY, 29 JUNE 2021

SUBJECTS: Scott Morrison’s vaccine and quarantine failures risking lives, livelihoods and more lockdowns; Intergenerational Report 2021 reveals a smaller, slower more stagnant economy; Resources portfolio dropped from Cabinet.  

FRAN KELLY, HOST: The latest Intergenerational Report has sparked renewed calls for urgent economic reform to try and head off a looming decline in Australia's living standards. The Intergenerational Report forecasts average incomes will be $32,000 lower by 2060 unless there's a sharp turnaround in productivity. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg is urging Labor to work with the Government to boost labour productivity, which he's describing as a national imperative. Jim Chalmers is the Shadow Treasurer, he joins us from Brisbane. Jim Chalmers, welcome back.

JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: Thanks Fran, good morning.

KELLY: Before we come to productivity, can I ask you about the announcements from National Cabinet last night. Some key changes to the vaccine rollout, vaccines will be compulsory for aged care workers, under 40-year-olds will now be able to get the AstraZeneca shot, there will be a national indemnity scheme for doctors to allow that. Do you think this is enough to accelerate the rollout and give us a better chance against the Delta variant?

CHALMERS: That has to be the objective, Fran. I think a lot of people who were watching the Prime Minister last night would have been scratching their head and wondering why a lot of this wasn't happening already. And the reason why it hasn't been happening. the reason why we're playing catch up, the reason why cities and states and territories are going into lockdown once again, is because the Prime Minister's first instinct is always to avoid responsibility rather than take responsibility. That’s why we're in this position. That's why these lockdowns have Scott Morrison's name stamped on them.

KELLY: Joe Biden has set a July 4th deadline to reopen the US, the UK is aiming for July the 19th, what's the best-case scenario do you think for Australia to open its borders?

CHALMERS: I think we're hopelessly behind some of those other countries when it comes to vaccines in particular.

KELLY: I mean we were very much ahead of them in terms of controlling the spread and the death toll of the virus.

CHALMERS: Well, that's why it's so disappointing, Fran. This absence of leadership, this failure from the Prime Minister to take responsibility, is costly in terms of people's livelihoods, in terms of people's small businesses, their jobs. We wouldn't be in this position if the Government had lived up to its own rhetoric on vaccinations or even done a bigger fraction of what other countries are doing, and that's before we even get to the debacle which is quarantine.

We had the Treasurer last night on another program saying hotel quarantine has been largely effective, well that's news to all those Australians who are waking up in locked-down cities today. So much of what we've seen in the last little while has been a consequence of the Government's failures on quarantine. So what we need to see is the Government urgently fix vaccines, fix quarantine, have a proper national public information campaign, and get to work manufacturing some of these vaccines. If we don't do that then we'll continue to be behind and we'll have more lockdowns for longer.

KELLY: Well that's the very immediate scenario, looking long term the Intergenerational Report found that lifting productivity is the biggest long-term challenge facing our economy. Will Labor accept the Treasurer's call to work with the Government on structural reform?

CHALMERS: I think it's galling frankly, Fran, that the Treasurer all of a sudden wants to work together. This is the Government that engages in divisive language all of the time. This is the Government that's come after people's wages, their job security, their superannuation, they want to use this Intergenerational Report as an excuse for harsher cuts to the NDIS and Medicare.

What we've said all along, Fran, is we do have a big challenge in this country. The IGR really laid that bare yesterday, it painted a really bleak picture of an economy smaller, slower, and more stagnant. This is the long shadow cast by the Treasurer's failure to manage the economy in the interest of working Australians. Productivity is a big part of the story here. We won't fix the Budget unless we fix the economy, we won't fix the economy unless we turn around what has been a pretty woeful performance on productivity, and we won't do justice to the sacrifices that Australians have made throughout this pandemic if they don't get a slice of the action in this recovery.

So that's the challenge which has been laid down by the IGR. Productivity is a big part of that. The best way to boost productivity is to get that cleaner and cheaper energy into the system, teach and train our people to keep up with technological change, turn Australian ideas into Australian jobs. That's the challenge before us. We won't get that productivity growth or that economic growth which is broad and sustainable, if we continue down the path that Josh Frydenberg has us on.

KELLY: Reform needs to be broad too, and you are the Opposition that opposed the Government's superannuation reforms, IR reforms, stage three tax cuts, and yesterday, leading economist Chris Richardson said governments don't determine what happens in Australia, oppositions do and both sides of politics have brilliantly weaponised whinging. I guess he's referring to you? Do you accept it's just too easy to carp from the sidelines?

CHALMERS: Fran, I don't think any objective observer of the last 12 or 18 months in Australian politics could describe Labor as anything but constructive when it comes to the management of the pandemic, but also in terms of engaging in this really important discussion about the future. 

We can't have all of this generational debt without a generational dividend. We have been putting forward constructive, positive ideas. Anthony Albanese has, his whole team has, when it comes to how we get that cleaner and cheaper energy, or better match the fact that we've got 1.7 million Australians without work or looking for more hours at the same time as we've got skill shortages, which points to issues in the training system.

Really, right across the board, we've tried to propose constructive ideas so that we can have the next 40 years stronger than the last 40. Unfortunately, on the current path that the Government has us on, the IGR said yesterday that the next 40 years will be weaker than the last 40. 

We refuse to accept the conclusion that Australia has peaked. We can and must do better than this to do justice to the sacrifices that Australians have made for each other over the last little while.

KELLY: Okay, yesterday the Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, conceded there's no quote 'big bang' reforms left to be done, like floating the dollar or deregulating the financial sector - we usually call it the low-hanging fruit - he's eyeing-off instead micro reforms including mutual recognition of professional qualifications and changes to superannuation. But is that going to cut it? Do we have to bite the bullet and go, for instance, for broader tax reform, which is what many economists and business leaders are calling for. That might mean lifting the GST, maybe even a carbon tax, higher taxes and lower spending part of the path to, well the path really, to lifting living standards sustainably?

CHALMERS: Well there are a whole range of things, Fran, that the country should be contemplating in response to the pretty bleak picture painted by the Intergenerational Report. I think the Treasurer more or less threw in the towel yesterday when it came to the future, he was looking for excuses to explain away this bleak future rather than actually take it head on.

When it comes to tax reform, one of the big conclusions was that Australians will be paying a bigger proportion of the tax burden - Australian workers - whereas Australian businesses will be paying a lesser share. I think that that points to some work that needs to be done on the multinational tax front, in particular. There is an opportunity for tax reform in that area and I think we should be engaged in it.

When it comes to productivity more broadly, there is a need for reform. I've already talked about energy, I've talked about skills, I've talked about innovation and commercialisation. All of those are really important, but as the Productivity Commission says, there are big opportunities in the care economy and in the services economy to make that more productive. I think it is true that the task for boosting productivity is not exactly the same as it was in the 80s and 90s. It's different but it's no less important.

KELLY: And just very briefly, we're almost at the news, but the IGR also says that the Budget will rely heavily over coming years on two sectors - banking and mining. What about the politics of the Government's decision to drop the key Resources portfolio from Cabinet?

CHALMERS: Well those are crucial parts of the economy. You can only imagine what the Government would say if Labour said that Resources didn't have a place in the Cabinet. We will have a Resources Minister in the Cabinet under an Anthony Albanese-led Labor Government. And that's because it's a crucial part of the economy. It beggars belief that this Government, after all its rhetoric, doesn't understand that.

KELLY: Jim Chalmers, thanks very much for joining us.

CHALMERS: Thank you, Fran.

KELLY: Jim Chalmers is the Shadow Treasurer.

ENDS