E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
SKY NEWS AM AGENDA
THURSDAY, 16 AUGUST 2018
 
SUBJECT/S: Parliament united against racism; Liberals’ big business tax handout; Turnbull Government energy crisis and division
 
KIERAN GILBERT: With me now is the Shadow Finance Minister, Jim Chalmers. I want to ask you about company tax and the latest on the energy guarantee and Labor's thinking on that. But first, yesterday the Parliament, the Lower House, came together. You've been around the Parliament a long time; it doesn't happen all the time that you see scenes like yesterday.
 
JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW MINISTER FOR FINANCE: Yeah, that was a really important day yesterday. I'm really proud of my colleagues, not just on our side of the House, but on the other side as well. It was one of those defining moments, I think, for the Parliament. What I thought was incredibly special was actually Ed Husic's contribution. I've heard probably thousands of speeches as you have in the House of Reps chamber and that's one of the best that I've heard. Not just the personal anecdotes, which were wonderful, the immigrant story, the story about growing up in Australia with a different faith but still having all of the opportunities provided to you. But really what he said about this needs to be a foundation, not just for words, but for actions. I thought that was a really important point that Ed made. That was a symbol, really, of the Parliament stepping up to say that we don't want to cop the kind of bigotry and ignorance and racism which spewed out of Senator Anning's mouth on Tuesday night.
 
GILBERT: Yeah, it's a measure of the man in terms of Ed being so generous as he is to the Prime Minister, to Josh Frydenberg, and I agree with you, it was an amazing speech.
 
CHALMERS: Terrific.
 
GILBERT: Let's move on to some other issues now, and company tax first, because the Government, there is a lot of speculation now, and I think it's well placed, talking to senior members in the Government, that there's a very strong view in the Cabinet now that they've got to try once more in the Senate and then shelve the rest. But what they could likely do is expedite the reduction in the company rate to 25 per cent for businesses with a turnover of up to 25 million. If they did that, Labor has to make the call. What do you do? Do you back it? Or do you try to block that additional 2.5 per cent reduction?
 
CHALMERS: I think they're having another fight about it. Just like they're fighting over energy internally, I think they're fighting over the company tax cuts. But when you listen to Turnbull or Morrison in the Parliament, it's very clear that they haven't listened or they haven't learned from that humiliation that they got in Longman and in Braddon, which was fundamentally a referendum on those tax cuts for big business and the four big banks in particular. So they haven't learned from that, they haven't decided I think what they want to do. I think the Australian people know that Turnbull will always bend over backwards to give a tax cut for the top end of town. So what we would say to the Australian people, is the only way to kill this off - the only way to prevent $17 billion of your money going to fatten the profits of the big banks - is for Turnbull to take it to the election and to vote Labor.
 
GILBERT: But the up to $50 million, if they get that legislated...
 
CHALMERS: 50's legislated, yep.
 
GILBERT: Yeah, but that further 2.5 per cent reduction, if they get that through and get it legislated down to 25 per cent, that means Labor's got the decision. What do you do? Do you allow that through?
 
CHALMERS: That's a hypothetical down the track. I mean they haven't sorted out themselves what they want to do, so it's not for us to work out every scenario and every hypothetical. We've made our position on company tax really clear. The Government has had all week to make their position on it clear and have been unable to do it.
 
GILBERT: Apologies, I have to interrupt you there, Jim Chalmers, we're going to go live to the Prime Minister speaking just now. Let's have a listen in...
 
[Turnbull doorstop]
 
GILBERT: The Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull there and says it's time for Bill Shorten to say whether he stands for higher electricity prices or lower prices. We've only got 30 seconds left, apologies, but your reactions to that?
 
CHALMERS: Malcolm Turnbull's got ministers threatening to resign, backbenchers threatening to cross the floor of Parliament, and all he wants to do is talk about Bill Shorten. If he wants Labor's support, he will have to negotiate with us. We've said that we want more ambitious targets for emissions reduction. We want more renewables because that's how you get genuine downward pressure on prices.
 
GILBERT: But you can always toughen them up down the track - allow this legislation through and toughen up down the track. Why not just do that? Get something across the line?
 
CHALMERS: We haven't seen the legislation yet. We said we'd be constructive. We want less emissions and more renewables.
 
GILBERT: Jim Chalmers, thanks for your time.
 
ENDS