E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
SEVEN NEWS
TUESDAY, 6 OCTOBER 2020
 
SUBJECT: Federal Budget.
 
MARK RILEY, HOST: Jim Chalmers thanks for joining us.
 
JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: Thanks Mark.
 
RILEY: What would you do differently?
 
CHALMERS: I think the problem with the budget is they have racked up a trillion in debt and still no plan for the future, still too many people left behind and still unemployment too high for too long. One of the big concerns we have, and we wouldn't have done it this way, is the hiring subsidies, 928,000 Australians on unemployment benefits can’t even access the hiring subsidies that the Treasurer just trumpeted.
 
RILEY: So it will put in disincentives for employers for people who are over 35?
 
CHALMERS: We need to make sure we are not leaving people behind in this recovery like the people that have been left behind by the Government in the recession. It’s a remarkable feat that the Government has racked up a trillion in debt and still hasn't done anything for workers, hasn't done anything for childcare and hasn't done anything meaningful for cleaner and cheaper energy. Too many things have been left out and too many people left behind.
 
RILEY: So what can't you support in this?  
 
CHALMERS: We will be going through it in some detail. There will be a lot of measures we can support. We support the bringing forwards of the tax cuts. We have been calling for that for some time now as you know. We are inclined to support the business tax changes too but there is extraordinary amount of money attached to those so we’ll go through the detail, but we want to be able support some of those measures as well.
 
RILEY: You mentioned childcare. Would Labor offer free childcare? 
 
CHALMERS: We will work through all our options between now and the election but clearly one of the glaring deficiencies in this budget, when you think about what has been left out is childcare, and who has been left out, those workers I mentioned but also women. There is a job to do for any future Labor Government to try and fill the gaps that the Government has left.
 
RILEY: Do you agree with economists that the best way to get women back into the workforce is to provide universal free childcare?
 
CHALMERS: Childcare is a massive part of the puzzle obviously, but it is not the only thing. I mean when you look across this budget, some things we can support but a trillion dollars in debt, with all the gaps that we can see around clearly women and clearly childcare are among those.
 
RILEY: Should we really be worried about debt and deficit at a time like this?
 
CHALMERS: We should, but at a time like this it’s not the highest priority. Right now, the highest priority is to support people, their jobs, their small businesses and their communities. If we do that, we give ourselves a chance to fix the budget.
 
RILEY: The tax cuts, are they big enough?
 
CHALMERS: It remains to be seen. Some of the forecasts remain to be tested but we support the tax cuts. One of the concerns we have though is JobKeeper is being withdrawn at the same time. If you are an average worker you will get about $50 a fortnight in tax cuts at the same time as millions of workers lose $300 a fortnight in JobKeeper. So they’re clearly $250 in the hole and that's a problem.
 
RILEY: So the stage 3 tax cuts are not being brought forward, that's for higher income earners. You must be happy about that?
 
CHALMERS: We’re not big fans of stage 3 of the tax cuts. We think that they are the least affordable and least responsible.
 
RILEY: So they should be ditched?
 
CHALMERS: We will come to a view on that closer to their implementation. They don't come in for some years down the track. We have some nearer term priorities. But we have said for some time now we will review them. We are not big fans of them. We do support tax relief for low and middle income earners. They need the help and they are more likely to spend it in the economy.
 
RILEY: Is the Government spending enough or too much?
 
CHALMERS: It remains to be seen. Our issue is that we don't think the Government is spending money effectively given all the rorts and pork barrelling. We saw a Liberal Party donor get paid $30 million for a $3 million parcel of land and then there has been a debacle at the NBN. We think there has been waste and mismanagement. We want the Government to spend the money effectively. We want their policies to succeed because if they fail that means unemployment queues are even longer than they need to be.
 
RILEY: Jim Chalmers, thanks for your time.
 
CHALMERS: Thank you, Mark.
 
ENDS