E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TV INTERVIEW
SKY SUNDAY AGENDA
SUNDAY, 31 MAY 2020
SUBJECT: Jobs for tradies in the building sector; Labour market; JobKeeper; Industrial relations; State borders; Robodebt; National Accounts.
KIERAN GILBERT, HOST: Joining me now is the most senior Federal Labor figure in Queensland, Jim Chalmers, the Shadow Treasurer. Mr Chalmers. We'll talk about that polling a bit later, but first on this homeowner grants proposal that Josh Frydenberg and Michael Sukkar, the Assistant Treasurer, will introduce as early as this week. According to Andrew's report, residential construction is to be the focus, and housing grants across the board not just for first home buyers. What do you make of that? Does that sound like a good move to you?
JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: Let's see what they announce during the week, Kieran. Anthony Albanese and Jason Clare have been saying for more than a month now that residential construction has the capacity to play a really important role in this recovery. Already, before the crisis, construction was relatively weak and homeownership was at 60-year lows, so we had a challenge there. That challenge has been exacerbated by this Coronavirus crisis. In two or three months, we are very worried that construction will fall off a cliff and that's why we have been making very constructive suggestions about what the Government might do. We want to make sure that their plan is comprehensive, and we hope that they pick up and run with some of the ideas that Anthony and Jason have put on the table.
GILBERT: With a 30 to 50 per cent drop in residential construction possible, are grants enough, or does it have to be broader than that?
CHALMERS: We've made a range of suggestions, Kieran. We're very worried about jobs for tradespeople, in particular in the building industry. We've said that social housing should play a part; repair and maintenance has a role to play; a program to try and house our essential workers closer to where they work. We said we've got an open mind on grants and as recently as yesterday we put an idea on the table to lift the cap on the loan deposit scheme to try and incentivise new builds as well. What we really care about here is jobs for tradies in the building industry. We’re worried that when the current pipeline runs out there will be a cliff there. We need to address that. Let's see what the Government proposes during the week to do that and we'll respond to the detail then.
GILBERT: The PM's industrial relations approach is obviously about trying to build consensus. He's got five working groups in conjunction with Sally McManus and the ACTU, and the business community. Why isn't Labor getting on board with that approach? Why are you critical of it?
CHALMERS: Kieran, we want the process to work. If this process that the Prime Minister has announced ends up with some sensible steps being taken and some common ground being found then we would support that. Anthony Albanese has been saying for a year now, that there is an appetite in the community to try and find some common ground, to try and find outcomes rather than arguments, and this is consistent with that. Let's see what the process throws up.
The reason there is deep scepticism in the community about what the Prime Minister is now talking about is because these are the same characters who for seven years have been dividing the community, they’ve been demonising people on social security payments; they’ve been trying to diminish the role of unions; they’ve been cutting penalty rates; they’re responsible for stagnant wages and insecure work. Let's go beyond the spin, the slogans, and the strategy of this from the Prime Minister's point of view. If it ends up that there are good outcomes, sensible outcomes, to deal with some of these issues then we'll support it. But the answer to seven years of insecure work and stagnant wages isn't more insecurity at work or more downward pressure on wages. We want to make sure that workers have a voice in the industrial relations system, and that we get better outcomes going forward than we've had in the recent past.
GILBERT: But is it a risky approach from Labor to say on the one hand, you're happy if some good outcomes come of it, but at the same time put the boot in in a political criticism of the Government over its management of these issues over recent years?
CHALMERS: I think it's entirely appropriate that we point out that for seven years now the Government has behaved in a way that has resulted in more insecure work and more stagnant wages. That is a historical fact of the last seven years. If the Government now says that they want to try and find some common ground, that's a good thing. It shouldn't have taken a once in a century pandemic for the Government to come to the view that maybe workers, unions, businesses and Government should try to find that common ground. If progress is made we will welcome it, and we'll support it if it's sensible and good for workers, good for business, and good for the economy.
GILBERT: The State and Federal Treasurers are going to be meeting fortnightly as part of that National Cabinet approach. The RBA Governor was very blunt at a Senate committee this week. He apparently had a similar message to the Treasurer's as well about the need for fiscal support in the economy, and he raised the prospect that JobKeeper, that wage subsidy, might have to continue for longer than currently scheduled. Do you think that that will be the reality? And if so, how much longer should it be in place for some sectors?
CHALMERS: I think the Reserve Bank Governor made a really important contribution during the week in reminding us that even in the most optimistic scenario here we're still talking about hundreds of thousands of job losses, and unemployment being higher for longer. In that context, it's absolutely mad for the Government to proceed down their current path, to pull all of the support out of the economy on the last Monday in September. There's very little support for that outside the Morrison Cabinet. Most of the informed commentators, the economic experts, the Reserve Bank, Labor and others have all been saying for some time now that not all parts of the economy will snap back at the end of September. There will be a need in some parts of the economy for targeted and tapered support to make sure that we don't cruel the recovery before it even gathers pace. That's the point the Reserve Bank was making. Let's see what the Government's review proposes when they do that next month.
We've made our view very, very clear; the Government got into JobKeeper too slowly and too narrowly, and the risk is that they withdraw it too quickly, and too bluntly. We need to avoid that at all costs because if the Government continues to get these big calls wrong, whether it be the bungles with JobKeeper or the bungles with Robodebt and the like, then that will cost jobs in the Australian community, it will mean the downturn is deeper than it needs to be, and the recovery will be that much harder.
GILBERT: But do you accept that there's a risk of keeping, in some areas, the subsidy too long because it will basically put in an artificial component to the economy, where we need to free it up? I'm thinking, in that context, about tourism in your home state of Queensland. Now, if numbers are very low around the nation, why shouldn't we be opening up the economy as much as possible, and therefore be able to remove subsidies like JobKeeper?
CHALMERS: Certainly some parts of the economy will recover more quickly than others. That's obvious. But the recovery will be patchy, and the experience for many if not most people in the economy will be much more difficult than the Prime Minister's assumptions about snap back imply. The point that we've made throughout this is that some sectors will be hit harder by what's going on, and I think tourism is in that category. We need to be smart about this support, not just pull the rug out from under people before the recovery gathers pace.
When it comes to the borders, we need to continue, as the State Premiers have been, relying on expert medical advice. When it comes to tourism in Queensland, there is no bigger champion of tourism in my home state than the Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk. She understands that it would be devastating for our local industries if there was a second spike in infections. She's taking the advice and she's acting on that. She's also made the point that we need to stay flexible about this, so that if the advice changes or the circumstances change then we have the ability to open things up earlier. We all want to see businesses in Queensland, and indeed right around Australia, prospering. We want to see them employing people, serving customers, and being successful again. But to do that, we need to be smart about it, we need to be careful about it. That's what Annastacia Palaszczuk is doing.
GILBERT: Andrew earlier in the program reported that within the state she's going to start by freeing up travel, announcing that I believe mid-morning in Brisbane, and then a review in a month from now about potentially opening up interstate travel for the July school holidays. But that's probably too late in terms of the notice prior to those school holidays, isn't it? There'd be many in the tourism industry that want her to move on that now?
CHALMERS: There are a range of views, Kieran, amongst industries here and also amongst the various decision makers. One of the important points to make here is that even the mayor of the Gold Coast, one of the tourism Mecca's in this state, is saying that he supports the approach that Annastacia Palaszczuk is taking - he’s not a Labor mayor - and other mayors around the state similarly. People do want our businesses reopened. Our tourism sector employs something like every 10th Queenslander. It's important we get it open when it's appropriate and responsible to do that. Premier Palaszczuk has said she'll keep it under review and stay flexible about it, and I think that's important and warranted.
GILBERT: The March National Accounts are out this week. Are you expecting it to be in negative territory already, or would your expectation be that consumer spending via that panic buying that we saw in the early stages of this crisis might at least prop it up in a numbers sense for this set of GDP numbers?
CHALMERS: The numbers that we'll get on Wednesday will be a snapshot of the economy in the first three months of the year. They'll be a reminder in some ways that growth was not especially strong even before the worst of this crisis. Most of the professional forecasters think that economic growth will be somewhere between flat and a small negative. I think as Andrew rightly pointed out a moment ago, even if the March quarter was not negative, the idea that we're not in a recession right now is fanciful. Most economists, the Government, the Reserve Bank, and certainly Labor expect that the June quarter will be much worse than the March quarter. What really matters here Kieran is jobs. We don't want to see this ongoing bungling of the JobKeeper payment and other areas of government policy, which will mean that those unemployment queues which are already going to be unacceptably long are even longer, that the downturn will be deeper than it needs to be, and that the recovery will be jeopardised by some of the botching and bungling that we've seen in the last few months.
GILBERT: Earlier in the interview you mentioned the Robodebt issue. The Government on Friday afternoon in a very late announcement in a Gold Coast park by Stuart Robert said that they're going to be paying upwards of $700 million back to hundreds of thousands of Australians because of false debt acquisition by the Government. In your sense of this debacle, is this going to be enough now, or will more compensation be forthcoming via the class action in the courts?
CHALMERS: This still has a long way to run, Kieran. There's every chance that the Ministers will still need to be in the dock. What we're talking about here is the illegal thieving of people's money, which has ruined lives and in some cases cost lives. As recently as yesterday we had a senior Cabinet Minister saying the Government has nothing to apologise for. This case has a long way to run yet; there'll be more developments here. Labor has been saying for some time now, for some years, that this Robodebt debacle has been unfair. It’s a tribute I think to Bill Shorten who helped pursue a legal course of action here, and because of that legal course of action we're seeing Ministers who are terrified of showing up and being accountable in the legal system all of a sudden trying to settle some of these debts. But it won't be enough. Some of the victims of what's happened here still haven't got an apology and many of them will see that they haven't been adequately compensated, so the process has a bit longer to run yet.
I think in terms of what you said about the cynical way, the sneaky way that the Government makes these announcements; two Fridays ago they announced the biggest budget blunder in the history of the Commonwealth when JobKeeper became a JobShambles. Last Friday they 'fessed up to this massive debacle when it comes to Robodebt. That shows that this is a Government which is desperate to evade the accountability that should flow from historic blunders like these two which have been made and 'fessed up to in the last couple of weeks.
GILBERT: On the polling just to finish before I let you go, the numbers are terrible still for Labor, according to the last Newspoll in Queensland behind 56 to 44. What do you need to do to turn that around, when if you look at state level you've held Government there by Annastacia Palaszczuk, Peter Beattie, and Anna Bligh. Federally it's a totally different story. How do you turn that around?
CHALMERS: We do need to do better in Queensland, Kieran. We won't win office nationally unless and until we do. That's recognised. Even in that poll though that you and Andrew referred to, we're actually performing better under that poll than we were at the last election, so we've made some ground up. But the more important point Kieran, and with due respect, I mean who cares right now? We're talking about hundreds of thousands of job losses. Polls have arguably never been less relevant. They couldn't pick the outcome of an election 18 hours before the last election so why would we assume during the teeth of a crisis that they can pick the outcome of an election 18 months down the track? I don't think anybody's poring over those polls. The most important thing right now when it comes to numbers is jobs and that's what our focus is.
GILBERT: Shadow Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, appreciate it. Thanks.
CHALMERS: Thanks, Kieran.
ENDS
