E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
SKY NEWS FIRST EDITION WITH LAURA JAYES
MONDAY, 3 FEBRUARY 2020

SUBJECTS: Bridget McKenzie sports rorts scandal; the state of the Australian economy.

LAURA JAYES, HOST: Live back to Canberra now. The Shadow Treasurer, Jim Chalmers joins us now. Jim Chalmers, thank you for your time. Labor has been calling for Bridget McKenzie's resignation or sacking for weeks now, is this what you wanted?

JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: It doesn't end with Bridget McKenzie's resignation yesterday. The process that the Prime Minister has led the last couple of weeks has been a farce, it's been a sham, it's been a cover up from the beginning. We had the independent auditors at the Australian National Audit Office say that this process and the outcomes of that process have been dodgy and deficient. The Prime Minister wants us to believe that some sort of cover up that he's arranged with his former adviser puts an end to the matter. I think this issue has a long, long way to run. Bridget McKenzie's resignation now only shines a harsher and sharper light on Prime Minister Morrison and his office. For that reason I think that there's more that we'll learn about this scandal and more that we'll learn about the Prime Minister's role in it.

JAYES: That's a big claim, a cover up. Do you have any evidence of that so far?

CHALMERS: He won't release the findings of the PM&C report, for starters. I think that speaks volumes about the approach here. We've got a serious Audit Office which has come down with a very serious set of conclusions, very damning of the Government and the way they went about trying to buy marginal seats during the last election. The Prime Minister wants us to believe that some kind of process that is cooked up after that is the final word on the issue. It’s not the final word. It's been a farce. It's been a sham. It has been a cover up. The Australian people deserve to know more about the role of the Prime Minister, other Ministers and their offices in what's gone on here.

JAYES: So Labor and the Crossbench in the Senate will continue with that Senate inquiry, I take it?

CHALMERS: I think it's more important than ever, Laura, that we get to the bottom of these issues. We did call for Bridget McKenzie to resign and she's done that. I think it's remarkable that the Prime Minister wants to pretend that the one issue that Senator McKenzie resigned over was the whole issue. When you look at the findings of the Audit Office, that's just one of many issues. He hasn't dealt with all of the other issues and all the other corruptions of process here. Whether it's the inquiry by the Parliament, journalistic inquiries and others, we need to get to the bottom of what's happened here because this is only the beginning it's not the end.

JAYES: The Auditor-General did say there was evidence of distribution bias in the awarding of these grants but do you accept that Ministers still need discretionary power? Can a clear line be drawn there?

CHALMERS: It needs to be consistent with the guidelines and consistent with basic standards of the proper management of the public's money.

JAYES: What does that actually mean because there are grey area areas in any guidelines? Wouldn't you accept that? So where does advice from a Department start and Ministerial discretion end? That seems a question that politicians on both sides are unable to answer at this point.

CHALMERS: There's not a lot of grey area in the conclusions of the Auditor General's report. The basic standards have been breached here. The basic guidelines have been breached here. It's a Government program. It's about allocating $100 million of taxpayer money and the Audit Office didn't mince words. I don't think in this case there is a substantial grey area, it's pretty black and white, when you read the report. The Government did the wrong thing. They funnelled $100 million towards their own base, political interests in an election campaign. You saw the leaking of the spreadsheet which proved that money was allocated on the basis of how marginal seat was and who held it. These are very serious matters and we're just getting into them now. Bridget McKenzie's resignation doesn't end the matter.

JAYES: The RBA will hand down its latest rate decision tomorrow. As you read the situation, what is the state of our economy at the moment and how much can you blame the bushfire crisis and the Coronavirus?

CHALMERS: Josh Frydenberg is desperately trying to pretend that the weakness in the Australian economy just showed up over the summer in the form of the fires and now the Coronavirus. But the truth is that the economy had already deteriorated markedly since the re-election of the Morrison Government. We've had slowing growth, weak wages, weak consumption, very weak business investment, really right across the board. Whether it be fires or the virus we enter this period of difficulty from a position of weakness rather than strength. That's because the Government hasn't had a plan to deal with the weakness in the economy. They had a plan to throw money at marginal seats in an election. They didn't have a plan to actually boost wages or grow the economy in an inclusive way and the price that we pay for that is when there are difficulties which emerge like the ones that we're dealing with now we don't enter them from a position of strength. The economy was weak before this summer's bushfires. The Government shouldn't be using the fires and the Coronavirus as an excuse for what has been a far longer period of economic inaction, ineptitude and incompetence which has delivered an economy which is weaker than it should be, even going into these difficulties.

JAYES: You're very pessimistic, Mr Chalmers. Isn't that the last thing we need at the moment? Talking down the economy?

CHALMERS: It's not pessimism, Laura, to point out that the last National Accounts were extraordinarily weak across the board. It's not pessimistic to remind the Government that in their own mid-year budget update in December they said that growth would be slower, wages growth would be slower and unemployment would be higher. We can't pretend away these challenges in our economy, Laura. We do acknowledge that the Coronavirus and the fires will have an impact on the economy and that impact remains to be seen. But it is equally true, and we can't pretend away that for some time now, really since Morrison and Frydenberg got into their current roles, the economy has been weaker than it should be. That's because they don't have a plan for the economy. We've been saying for some months before the fires even started to threaten communities around Australia, we've been saying for some time the economy is weaker than it should be. The Government needs to come up with a plan to boost wages in particular, but boost growth more broadly. They haven't done that and we're paying the price for that as a nation.

JAYES: You've called for bigger tax cuts in the latter part of 2019. Is it still the right economic environment to do that more quickly? Or do you see at least with the bushfire crisis, there could be a natural stimulus?

CHALMERS: We’ve presented a range of constructive ideas on tax, on business investment incentives, on infrastructure. Right across the board we've said to the Government here are some constructive ideas and if you pick up and run with them in the right way then we will support you. We've been doing that since about August, so for a long time now. Clearly the challenges in the economy around the fires and the Coronavirus mean that the environment is more difficult, not less difficult. It's not just us calling for the Government to have some kind of plan to boost the economy. Business groups, the broader business community, ACOSS and others have all said that now is the time to do something responsible, measured and proportionate to try and get the economy going again because it isn't growing fast enough to create the kind of opportunities in our society that we want to see created.

JAYES: Okay, a busy first week of Parliament for 2020 and the focus I've got to say, is on the other side at the moment. Jim Chalmers, appreciate your time, we'll speak soon.

CHALMERS: Thank you.

ENDS