JIM CHALMERS MP
SHADOW TREASURER
MEMBER FOR RANKIN
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
ABC SKY AM AGENDA
WEDNESDAY, 12 MAY 2021
SUBJECTS: Budget; Election timing; Wages growth; Government failures on quarantine and vaccinations.
LAURA JAYES, HOST: Let’s go live now to the Shadow Treasurer Jim Chalmers. He joins me here now. First let’s talk about the assumptions. I think people are conditioned not to believe that Treasury can forecast quite accurately in the outer years, but we started the show by talking about wages growth and in the Budget papers, the Government’s own assumptions, wages growth not only will not improve it will go backwards, not keeping up with inflation. So what is Labor’s plan? Do you see this as an opening for Labor going into an election?
JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: First of all, I mean the real wages cut in the Budget is an admission of failure. Even after spending $100 billion racking up a trillion dollars in debt, Australian working people still go backwards in the Government's Budget which is a pretty extraordinary admission of failure. If you think about everything Australian workers have been through together, the thanks they get from the Morrison Government is a cut to their real wages and I think that is a stunning outcome from the Budget. We've said all along that part of the task here is getting unemployment down but also underemployment. People can't find the hours that they need to support their loved ones. Until that's addressed, we won't get that wages growth. But there are also other issues which are preventing people from getting good secure well-paid jobs. The industrial relations system, the childcare system, skills and training, concentrated disadvantage, a whole range of issues which haven't just been ignored over the last eight long years of this Government, but actively made worse.
JAYES: Okay, so is there a choice between more people in work and higher wages? Can you do both?
CHALMERS: We need to do both.
JAYES: How?
CHALMERS: One of the ways that we need to get the economy growing in a way that creates jobs, creates hours for people to work and gets upward pressure on wages, is to make sure that we get investment in energy, to make sure that the skills and training system's right. You know we've got a proposal for a national reconstruction fund which is about jobs in advanced manufacturing so that we can diversify our economy and revitalise our regions. There are a whole range of things that could be done here and one of the big take outs from the Budget last night was, having racked up all of that debt and spent all that money, it's still a massive missed opportunity to set the economy up for the future in a way where working people actually get a slice of the action when it comes to this economic recovery. It's not a recovery if Australian workers are worse off at the end of it than they were at the beginning.
JAYES: In many ways the closed borders is helping people get into employment, but they haven't seen that wage rise. What do you say about this massive skill shortage in aged care, in childcare, in many other sectors of the economy? Do you think there should be a special type of visa? I mean, health care, and aged care for one. How long are people going to have to live in aged care without the adequate level of staffing?
CHALMERS: I think it's pretty amazing when you consider that we've got almost 2 million people who are either unemployed or underemployed, we've had an underemployment problem in the economy so much of the last eight years, the Government still hasn't got the skills and training match up right that we can fill some of the vacancies when they pop up. Now the Treasurer last night was talking about the economy as an engine but what he doesn't understand is that engine's got a number of gears and too many Australians are in reverse. And what I mean by a number of gears is it depends what sector you're in. Some parts of the economy are having trouble finding workers, some parts of the economy and having trouble finding work, and it shouldn't be beyond the Government, particularly if they're prepared to spray $100 billion around, to solve some of these problems that have been piling up for right years.
JAYES: What will you do?
CHALMERS: We've already made some announcements around apprenticeships for big government projects. We've already made a far more substantial policy proposal when it comes to childcare, making sure that people can participate in work. It's absolutely astonishing in the Budget - you would have seen that despite the Government's package, $1.7 billion - workforce participation actually goes down once that's introduced in the Government's Budget. So, there are a range of things. Among the many deficits in the Budget last night was a deficit of vision, about how we create an economy which is stronger after COVID than it was before and, importantly, where people can actually grab the opportunities in a recovering economy.
JAYES: Let's talk about the assumptions when it comes to COVID - opening the borders, the vaccine rollout - I think it's clear as mud, to be frank. We don't have any of those assumptions in the Budget. It's a vague timeline at the end of this year and then opening up to international students. Dominic Perrottet in New South Wales - I mean, the closed borders internationally are costing his economy $1.5 billion a month, so he's motivated by that, but what is Labor calling for? Going into an election, no one expects the Government to say when, because there are too many unknowns about this pandemic and the virus is what it is. But could you at least tell us how? Do you have a clearer pathway than the Government?
CHALMERS: Yes. But first of all the Budget was an opportunity to say to Australians 'this is what the vaccination rollout looks like, this is where we were going to get everyone vaccinated by, this is what it means for the economy, and these are the costs and consequences of getting it so badly and shambolically wrong to this point', but they didn't do that. We've said for some time there's an issue around quarantine. It needs Federal Government action. That was missing from the Budget. We've said for some time we need clarity on the vaccination rollout. The lack of clarity, as Dominic Perrottet has pointed out, is compromising the recovery and costing jobs. We need to get some clarity. Unfortunately, even in the space of the last 24 hours the Treasurer and the Prime Minister are singing from a completely different song sheet when it comes to this. It's more confusing after the Budget than it was before. What the Government intends to do to fix up this mess they've made of vaccinations and quarantine.
JAYES: Indeed. So will you promise - we're close to an election apparently - when are you going to start making promises? Building new quarantine facilities, more funding for that, how will you open the borders?
CHALMERS: We've already been speaking about quarantine facilities, personal protective equipment in quarantine. We've been talking about building a manufacturing capacity for vaccines. We've already made a number of positive suggestions and obviously we'll have more to say between now and the election, whenever the election is.
JAYES: I think we're going to hear that line a fair few times between now and whenever that may be. Jim Chalmers thanks so much.
CHALMERS: Thank you, Laura.
ENDS
