E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TV INTERVIEW
SKY AFTERNOON AGENDA
TUESDAY, 14 APRIL

SUBJECTS: Treasury’s unemployment forecasts; JobKeeper eligibility; Josh Frydenberg’s JobKeeper powers; Timeline for easing restrictions.

KIERAN GILBERT: Joining me now is the Shadow Treasurer, Jim Chalmers via Skype. Jim Chalmers, first of all, the numbers as you see them from Treasury, this expectation of unemployment to hit 10 per cent, does it stack up in your view?

JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: It remains to be seen, Kieran, but it's certainly a very sober reminder of the kind of economic devastation that this health crisis will bring, unfortunately. It's a reminder that hundreds of thousands of Australians will lose their job over the next little while. Whether or not the Treasury has got it bang-on or not still remains to be seen. The key point is that if it is right that 700,000 or so jobs will be saved by the JobKeeper package, then that really vindicates Labor's calls for wage subsidies in the first place and our support for them in the Parliament. But what's been missed so far, Kieran, is that the Treasurer has the power to include some of those workers who have been excluded from the JobKeeper scheme. In choosing not to exercise that power he's actually choosing for the unemployment queues to be longer. If the Treasurer picked up his pen and included some of those casual workers in particular, but other workers too, in the scheme then we could avoid even more job losses in this country and in this economy.

GILBERT: The Deputy Prime Minister certainly did not rule out broadening the scheme when I spoke to him over the weekend. Are you're saying that that is within their remit, within that legislation, to do just that?

CHALMERS: Absolutely and the Treasurer has confirmed that the legislation gives him the power to determine who's included and who's excluded from the scheme. Right now more than a million casuals are excluded from the scheme. We want to see as many as possible included because every person that the Treasurer excludes from the JobKeeper package is another person who joins unemployment queues which are already unacceptably long. He has that power. He should use it. If he has a change of heart like he did on the original wage subsidies themselves, then we would welcome that. We'd be constructive and responsible about it.

GILBERT: The other element that's been put to the Government is where they cut the support. In terms of businesses with a turnover of a billion dollars or more, they have to have a 50 per cent downturn, but it's done on turnover, not profits. So if a big business is running on a small profit they could be slashing thousands of jobs right now.

CHALMERS: We're getting some of the same feedback, Kieran, about businesses who might have those particular circumstances. Our advice to them is to register for the scheme in any case. The Tax Commissioner does have some discretion to deal with special cases but obviously there are gaps in the scheme. Our primary concern is for those casuals and other workers who can't access the payments. Everyone who can't access a payment goes to the unemployment queue unfort. So this double digit unemployment that the Treasury is now forecasting will be higher than would be the case than if the Treasurer did the right thing.

GILBERT: You've said you want to see the Government broaden it to get the one million casual workers you referred to. What about those workers who just because they work for a larger company are now more vulnerable because the support is different? It's not a level playing field?

CHALMERS: The Treasurer should take that kind of feedback on board. I've spent a lot of time on the phone with a lot of CEOs and Chairs in the last few weeks as you'd expect, as the Treasurer would have. He'd be receiving the same kind of feedback. Part of it can be dealt with by the discretion which can be exercised by the Tax Commissioner. But the Treasurer makes the rules on who can access this scheme. If that feedback is warranted, if there's something that he can consider there, then he should.

GILBERT: When we're talking about a five per cent improvement on what the unemployment rate would have been, do you think the Treasury's being conservative there or could things be much, much worse than they're actually expecting right now?

CHALMERS: It would be good to get much more detail from the Treasury and from the Treasurer about what their expectations are. We welcome the fact that the Treasury has put a couple of these numbers out in the public domain so that people can hold them up to the light and work out what they think about them. But it’s no substitute for a more comprehensive update on the state of the Budget and the state of the economy. Some more figures, some more forecasts, would help people determine just how realistic these expectations are. But the point that I'd make about them more broadly is that even unemployment at double digits is devastating for hundreds of thousands of Australian families. Unemployment hasn't been that high for some decades. It will be devastating even if it gets to that 10 per cent figure. Remembering on top of that there are heaps more people who are underemployed, and people who've got very insecure and precarious work. Not even that 10 per cent figure would capture everybody doing it tough. The job losses which would be averted by the JobKeeper package, they're obviously welcome. That's why we voted for the thing, that's why we called for wage subsidies for some time. We welcomed the Government's change of heart when it came to wage subsidies and we would welcome another change of heart when it comes to who's included in the scheme as well.

GILBERT: We're already seeing some calls for the social restrictions to start to be eased given we're seeing such an encouraging flattening of the infection rate. What is your view on it? Should people take a deep breath when it comes to some of those suggestions?

CHALMERS: I think so, Kieran. It's been very welcome and extremely encouraging to see what Australians have been able to achieve together by largely doing the right thing by staying apart from each other, social distancing and all of the other steps that the country has taken. That's a very, very good thing. But the health challenge and the economic challenges are really closely intertwined and I think if we jump the gun on relaxing some of the measures, then that would lead to poor health outcomes obviously, but also poor economic outcomes as well. We need to be very careful, very cautious, and very understanding. I think the Prime Minister's right, frankly, to say that we can't be complacent about some of the good numbers that we've seen because if we did jump the gun that would be damaging on all fronts.

GILBERT: Shadow Treasurer Jim Chalmers joining me via Skype. I appreciate your time, as always. Thanks. 

CHALMERS: Thank you, Kieran. 

ENDS