JIM CHALMERS MP
SHADOW TREASURER
MEMBER FOR RANKIN
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
SKY NEWS AM AGENDA
TUESDAY, 31 AUGUST 2021
SUBJECTS: Tomorrow’s National Accounts; Economic consequences of Scott Morrison’s failures on vaccines and quarantine; NSW businesses waiting ten weeks for help; Scott Morrison picking fights over National Plan.
LAURA JAYES, HOST: Someone lucky enough to be in Queensland is Jim Chalmers, it is of course where he lives. Is this a bit of a double standard? How do you feel about seeing these headlines, Jim?
JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: I haven't spoken to the State Government about it today but my understanding is, as your reporter just indicated, that these places don't come at the expense of people returning. The Premier explained her reasoning behind the pause in the returning traveller program because demand was outstripping supply. Part of the reason for that was some of the Federal Government's failures on quarantine and on vaccines more broadly. And so I think Premier Palaszczuk explained her position and at the end of the day it's a matter for them.
JAYES: Well, vaccine failures and quarantine failures aside, every leader gets to make choices. Is this the right one?
CHALMERS: No one's pretending that these are easy choices. I think that demand was outstripping supply. These travellers that you're talking about in this report have made their own privately funded arrangements. So I'm sure that it's all carefully controlled and consistent with the health advice that the Premier is receiving. Our focus, my focus as a federal Member of Parliament, is on the federal failures.
JAYES: That's the point though, isn't it? We're meant to all be in this together as we hear many leaders say from state and federal levels, but it's just not true.
CHALMERS: It needs to be more than a slogan, obviously. As I said, my focus federally is on making sure that the Federal Government does its job. I think we're in this position because of the Prime Minister's twin failures on vaccines and quarantine. That's bringing not just all of the social dislocation, not just all of the exhaustion in our community, people are well and truly over these lockdowns, and we don't want them to go for even a day longer than is necessary. I've heard you speak about this on your program many times in recent weeks and months. The issue here is that the Federal Government's failures on vaccines and quarantine is causing these lockdowns and making some of these hard decisions necessary, and also bringing a whole raft of economic consequences as well.
JAYES: Well tell us about the economic consequences. National Accounts are out tomorrow. There's talk of a double-dip recession. The two biggest economies in Australia are in lockdown. Where do you see this all going?
CHALMERS: For too many Australians this already feels like a recession. Whether the numbers tomorrow are a small positive or a small negative I think people right around Australia, but particularly in locked-down communities, understand that they're only in this position because the Prime Minister and his Government haven't done their job. That's why the economy is bleeding hundreds of millions of dollars a day and billions of dollars a week. We already know that, regardless of what the numbers tomorrow tell us. So we are in this position because of those twin failures. The Government has misjudged the recovery and, as a consequence of that, working families and small businesses are paying the price.
JAYES: Okay let's look in Sydney in particular, it's a joint effort by the New South Wales Government and the Federal Government on supporting businesses. I'm about to speak to one business who is a restaurant, hospitality, no brainer they should be getting these payments. Ten weeks on and they're still not getting it. And I guess the other side of this, Mr Chalmers, is that ten weeks in do they need to look at the payments again? Seeing as we're probably only at the halfway mark here in New South Wales?
CHALMERS: Yeah it beggars belief that small businesses are still being left in a lurch this far into such a devastating lockdown. If the feedback from your guest is anything like the feedback that I've been getting from businesses in Sydney but also around the country, they can't quite understand why the Prime Minister and the Treasurer pop up and they make these big announcements and then they don't follow through. And the people who wear the costs and consequences of that are small businesses and the people that they employ.
It's unforgivable, as Chris Minns has said in New South Wales, that so many businesses are still being left in a lurch weeks and weeks into this lockdown. What we need to see is not just the announcement made by Prime Ministers and Premiers but the actual follow through because the costs of getting that wrong are diabolical for too many people in Sydney and further afield.
JAYES: What about the plan to open up? Whether you look at the Doherty Institute modelling or not, and you can always argue about case numbers, if we don't open up at 80% and start getting our borders internally down, start getting international students back. When do we?
CHALMERS: As I said before Laura, I think people are exhausted and they're well and truly over it and we don't want the lockdowns to go longer than is necessary. We actually support the national plan; the question mark over the national plan is not over our support for it it's over the Prime Minister's capacity to deliver it given the form he has on those failures on quarantine, and vaccinations, and also economic support as we were just discussing a moment ago.
JAYES: So your support is 80%, no question, stick to the plan?
CHALMERS: We support the plan. Mark Butler, Anthony Albanese, all of our colleagues have been saying that for some time now. We support the plan. We want to see the Prime Minister actually implement it. We want to see the Prime Minister make it clear to Australian parents where our kids fit into that plan. The 12 to 15-year-olds in particular, we need a plan for them. I think even parents of younger kids, like yourself Laura, like me, and like many of our peers and our contemporaries, we want to know where kids fit into this plan as well. What we want to see from the Prime Minister is less picking fights over the national plan, and more effort to actually implement it and to find a place for our kids in that plan so that we can emerge from these lockdowns with confidence.
JAYES: Perhaps you need to have a quiet word to the Queensland Premier as well about that then?
CHALMERS: Well what we've wanted to see all along, and our own behaviour has reflected this, is we want to see a constructive conversation. The Queenslanders, the West Australians, more or less every State and Territory is engaged in this conversation. The Prime Minister has been very divisive with language about cave dwellers, which has upset the Queenslanders and the Western Australians, for good reason in my view. He should spend less time dividing people over the plan and more time actually working out how to implement it.
JAYES: Okay, well we'll see. We just need those vaccination rates up. Jim Chalmers, we'll have to leave it there. Thanks for your time.
CHALMERS: For sure. Thanks very much, Laura.
ENDS
