JIM CHALMERS MP
SHADOW TREASURER
MEMBER FOR RANKIN
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
PODCAST INTERVIEW
THE GUARDIAN AUSTRALIAN POLITICS
SATURDAY, 27 NOVEMBER 2021
SUBJECTS: Guardian Essential poll on economic management; Costs of living rising as real wages go backwards; Labor is the only party with policies addressing real issues in the economy; Scott Morrison’s biggest lie is the Coalition is better economic managers; Labor would prioritise wages growth; Australians deserve better than Scott Morrison’s dumpster fire of disunity, dishonesty and desperation; Coalition failing its own economic tests; Labor Budget would end the rorts and boost growth; Clive Palmer and Craig Kelly the marriage of unlimited money with unlimited stupidity; Cheaper and cleaner energy means more jobs and opportunities for more Australians; Queensland and climate change.
KATHARINE MURPHY, HOST: Hello people of pods, welcome to the show. You're with Katharine Murphy, the host and Political Editor of Guardian Australia, and it's been a bruising week in politics if you've tuned into the parliament this week. I'm with Jim Chalmers, the Shadow Treasurer, and before we started recording this conversation we both acknowledge we're barely alive.
(LAUGHTER)
JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: It's good to be barely alive.
(LAUGHTER)
MURPHY: Let's just see how this conversation goes, anyway it'll be a doozy. Now, I've invited Jim in because obviously, the Government is limbering up for - well, actually, it's been hard to say what the Government's limbering up for in terms of what the election narrative is - but certainly one of the election narratives is the economy. And I want to start this week, with our Guardian Essential poll. If you are a regular reader, you will have already seen it, but the short version of this is that Labor - according to that poll - was in a level pegging position with the Government in terms of voter trust on economic management. Does that seem right to you, Jim?
CHALMERS: First of all Katharine, you said the Government's limbering up but it feels like they're limping more than limbering. I think one of the reasons for that is because out there in voter land, in our real communities, real people are finding it hard to make ends meet. That's because the cost of living, particularly petrol prices, are going through the roof, at the same time as real wages are going backwards. So working families are being left behind under this Government and on this Government's watch. I don't know about those polls, I don't obsess over them, but I think one of the key conclusions that it made was that when the economy is about how real people are faring in real communities, then we are the only big party in the parliament that's actually talking to those needs, and those pressures, and those concerns that people have. You can't walk down the street of any community in Australia right now without people raising petrol prices - and in many cases wages - and that's the crunch that I think middle Australia is feeling. The Government more or less talks past that, they see the economy in political terms, they see it in abstract terms, rather than what it means for real people. One of the things that we have been very disciplined about under Anthony's leadership and in this job that I get to do, is to remember that the economy is about people. We want to run the economy in the interests of the people again, and I think that's what's been missing for much of this last wasted decade of missed opportunities.
MURPHY: Yeah, it's sort of interesting because there were two metrics in that poll - there was the trust on economic management more generally, and there was another one which was trust about which party would manage the economy in the interests of people, which has been a traditional Labor strength. The second one is a sort of - it's not a social policy metric, but you know what I mean - you've generally had the advantage there. It's just in the point of economic management - and I know we don't want to get stuck on the polls, and I agree - the point of me asking the question is not really to be a smart arse, the point is do you feel like there is a sea change out there, in terms of people's attitudes to Labor as economic managers?
CHALMERS: I certainly feel like people are more receptive to us as they feel this pressure and as it dawns on them that we've had this Government now for almost a decade, they're asking effectively for the beginnings of a second decade in office, and people are going backwards - wages, and petrol prices, and all the things I mentioned. But even if you take the parts of the economy that the Government itself has asked to be judged on - debt, growth, employment, all the rest of it.
MURPHY: Yeah.
CHALMERS: Record debt. We know all the stats. Record debt. Eight deficits. This is the first Government to deliver eight consecutive deficits since the 1920s. I think the economy is about people, but if you take the Government's tests, the test that they asked to be judged on, they're failing those tests too. We've had weak growth for much of the eight years, the labour market's got two million people unemployed or underemployed at the same time as we've got skill shortages throughout the economy. So even on the measures that they've asked to be judged on they are failing, and I think that there is a sense out there in the community that if the Government can't manage the economy then what's the point of them? The other thing I've noticed - which draws a straight line between the Prime Minister's lies and economic management - is it might be that the biggest lie that Scott Morrison tells is that they've done a good job managing the economy. The real experience of real people in real communities is very different.
MURPHY: Well, let's get to that because inflation's back. I mean, I'm not laughing, you know, I'm a consumer like everybody else, but I just sort of feel in this permanent time warp. It's taken me several years to adjust to a no inflation environment.
CHALMERS: Yeah.
MURPHY: Sort of just conceptually, I feel like I've just adjusted to it. And now inflation's back. So we've got rising prices, which was another theme in the poll and you've touched on the rising prices that people are concerned about - petrol and other things - but it seems, at least at the moment, we run the risk of being in an environment of rising prices, but wages aren't rising along with it because employers are very conservative, they're coming out of the post-COVID period. I don't know that employers are lining up to give their staff massive wage increases, so we understand the environment and the squeeze that you're talking about, but what can Labor do about it?
CHALMERS: First of all, the thing about inflation and wages that really matters is the combination of those two things. Real wages are going backwards and the Government's own Budget says that they will go backwards over the next four years. So this is the thanks that people get for getting Australia through the pandemic. There are meaningful things that we can do about wages. Wages growth, at the overall level, is about productivity, it's about investment, it's about economic growth. It's about the labour market being right. But at the micro level, it's about turning insecure work into secure work, and we've got a policy there. It's about skilling people up for opportunities, and we've got a range of policies there. It's about childcare and making sure that people can return to work, particularly women. There are a whole range of things that we can do at the macro level, and at the micro level, which can shift the dial on wages. This Government actually said - Mathias Cormann, and you've spoken to him probably hundreds of times in the course of his time here, the most senior economic Minister that they had - said low wages growth was a ‘deliberate design feature’ of their economic policy. And that's the difference. Our policy is geared towards getting real wages growing again, so that people aren't falling behind, so if they work hard they can get ahead. The Government has a very different approach to that, they pretend differently from time to time, but their goal is to get the profit share up and the wages share down as the economy recovers.
MURPHY: Of course you can influence wages if you have a wages policy. Of course you can. But I suppose the point I'm trying to get to is, and again just to go back to the poll briefly, 86% of respondents think that governments have an influence over cost of living pressures, but we don't live in a highly-regulated economy. We don't live in an economy where governments set prices. We have lived in, you know, we're at the end of a deregulated economy. Governments have less power now than they have, you know, in in the last several decades. So isn't that a trap, in a way, for Labor? I mean, you're sort of taking an empathetic position - in the sense of understand your pain, understand precisely the pressures you're facing, we have strategies to try and shift things - but these strategies only impact things at the margins don't they?
CHALMERS: I don't accept that. I do accept that government is not the sole determinant of prices in the economy and nor should it be. But if you think about childcare, the biggest commitment that we've made in this parliamentary term is to make childcare more affordable for 97% of Australian families. There is a big role for government there to ease the cost of living pressures. We've got a role to play in wages. And we've got a wages policy out there, which recognises that the main determinant of eight years of stagnant wages is insecure work, and casualisation, and underemployment, which have been the defining features of the labour market for much of the last decade. So there are things that governments can do. We don't want to overpromise and underdeliver like the other mob do, but there are things we can do - in childcare, in wages, and in other areas. Also, don't forget, right now the Government's policy is to give most of the workforce a tax hike next year, when the LMITO - which is the fancy term for the tax offset - comes off. So you've got rising petrol prices, declining real wages, you've got a tax hike coming after the election, and this shouldn't be the thanks that people get for everything that we've done together during the course of this pandemic, we get out of it, we get to the other side, the Government doesn't have a plan to grow the economy the right way. They want to take credit for the recovery, but not responsibly for the fact that we've been bleeding billions of dollars out of the economy very recently - and we'll see that in the National Accounts - as a consequence of their failures on vaccines and quarantine. We think that the Australian people deserve much better than that. Cost of living, I think, is where the battle is joined.
MURPHY:And the point of, sort of touching again on the poll, and the concern about cost of living, is to make just the obvious point that this is salient, that this is genuine, people are very engaged on it. I mean, they are every election cycle, but they certainly are at the moment. So then it depends how, you know, that can cut either ways. But again, I mean, you've answered the question, but I'll put it to you slightly differently, right. We're not in normal conditions in the economy at the moment. Anybody who's building a house understands that there are still major supply issues in the economy.
CHALMERS: Yes.
MURPHY:Like, significant supply issues, that drives up the cost of goods and services. We're not out of the pandemic. It's not over. And it's not going to be over for quite a period of time. So again, it's sort of, you say we're not going to overpromise and underdeliver, but I saw pictures around this week of, I think it was fourteen years since Kevin 07, and there's a bunch of you in your Kevin t-shirts.
(LAUGHTER)
MURPHY: And I just remember that period very clearly.
CHALMERS: Yeah.
MURPHY: Obviously, you know, Rudd - the first term of Rudd - hit a major economic, seismic, global economic...
CHALMERS: That's ringing a bell Katharine, yes.
(LAUGHTER)
MURPHY: Yes, I know it is Jim. But anyway, there it is. You know Rudd, for example, said we'll have fuel watch, or we'll have this other bloody thing. I mean, it's sort of, it's a trap, is what I’m trying to say. I think it's a bit of a trap.
CHALMERS: I understand your point. I do genuinely understand your point, and we have to level with people about what we can change and what we can't change. That's why we said childcare, wages, and some of the other areas around skills, and all the rest of it - these are the things that we can make a meaningful difference to. One of the reasons why I think people are so disappointed in the Government right now is because they look at Canberra, and they look at the Morrison Government, and they see this dumpster fire of dishonesty, and disunity, and desperation - right - and they know that for as long as these characters are in office fighting with each other, and playing footsie with extremists making violent threats, and chasing Clive Palmer's preferences - middle Australia is not getting a look in. We are the only ones talking about these cost of living pressures - Labor - at the federal level. And I think people are attentive to that. I don't know if the poll's right. Polls have been wrong in the past, they’ve been right in the past. I don't know. I genuinely don't obsess about it. But I do think this is where the battle is joined when it comes to the election. I do think we have a superior economic story to tell, partly because of this, but for other reasons as well. So when the Prime Minister says he wants to have an election on the economy, it warms my heart.
MURPHY:Okay, and just to catch listeners up - we're going to get into fiscal discipline in a minute - but I should bring to your attention that Jim made a speech this week, which flew bit under the radar given the parliament was a slightly turbulent environment.
CHALMERS: That's Katharine's charitable way of saying she didn't write about it!
(LAUGHTER)
MURPHY: I didn't actually, I didn't write it.
(LAUGHTER)
MURPHY: Anyway, there are reports around about it if you want to chase them up and the speech is on Jim's website. He did set out some tenants of a productivity strategy - which were fixing the energy debacle, investments in human capital, bumping up the NBN, childcare, other things. Go and have a look at the speech. And he's obviously referenced them in this conversation as well. Now. Fiscal discipline. The Government is basically not going to reimpose its own fiscal rules until the other side of the election.
(LAUGHTER)
CHALMERS: Don't you think that'll ring alarm bells in the community? They say there will be cuts, but we won't tell you what they'll be until after you re-elect us.
MURPHY: Sure, sure, I understand that about the cuts campaign, Jim.
(LAUGHTER)
MURPHY: I'm just talking about the environment actually. It was problematic, you and I have discussed this in the past. It was problematic for Labor in 2019 that there were very large expenditures bowled up to the Australian public in your very fleshed out program, and as a consequence your predecessor Chris Bowen chased a number of revenue measures, which became unpopular and were weaponised. Right. So they've got no fiscal discipline, the Government, what does this portend for this campaign? Does it mean Labor has just says aw stuff it, we've got no fiscal discipline either? Or how are you going to approach this?
CHALMERS: No, of course not. We will be more responsible than the Government, which won't be hard given they've got tens of billions of dollars in waste. All that rorting, all that waste, all that mismanagement - the most wasteful government since Federation. We will define responsibility by what it means for the economy and what it means for real people.
MURPHY: But what does that mean? Sorry.
CHALMERS: No problem.
MURPHY: I don't want to disrupt your flow.
CHALMERS: It's your show Katharine, you can disrupt my flow!
MURPHY: No, no, it's important to hear your out, but I hear that line a lot from Labor. Right. There's lots of ways there's all these discretionary grant programs that are being rorted, et cetera, et cetera. What does that mean? Does it mean that an incoming Labor administration would get rid of all discretionary grants programs? What does it mean?
CHALMERS: It obviously means that where we find the sort of rorting that we've been uncovering the last couple of years, obviously we will address it. We can't have more than half a billion dollars for car park rots - in many cases in the Treasurer's own electorate, that aren't getting built - we can't have that. We can't have sports rorts and all these sorts of things. Of course we will tighten up the arrangements around some of these funds. Of course we will.
MURPHY: Again, sorry, I'm not turning this into...
CHALMERS: No worries.
MURPHY: Tighten up you're saying, not abolish those programs. I'm asking the question because obviously if did cut a swathe through the discretionary grants programs in the Commonwealth, you would have a significant war chest sitting there that would fund alternative measures.
CHALMERS: Yeah.
MURPHY: But you're not saying that.
CHALMERS: We're not looking for a war chest, we're looking for a more responsible way to spend taxpayer money, right? I think one of the problems with the way that we think about the kind of alternative budget contest in elections, is we accept that - we being, broadly - we accept that the Government's got it right and so the Opposition's proposals are measured against the benchmark that the Government set. What I've tried to say in that speech, and what I'm trying to say now, is that responsible spending means are we getting bang for buck? We're not getting it from rorts and waste, but are we getting bang for buck from childcare, or a National Reconstruction Fund, or investments in human capital - well, yes. So judge our fiscal position by what it means for the economy, what it means for people, what it means for growth, and productivity, and investment - rather than necessarily comparing it with the Government's Budget, which changes wildly depending on the political cycle, which has got all that waste in it. We think we can spend taxpayers’ money more effectively and that's what we ask to be judged on.
MURPHY: And it's entirely reasonable to talk about the value proposition with a spend rather than just a quantum.
CHALMERS: Yeah.
MURPHY: And that's the point you're making.
CHALMERS: Exactly.
MURPHY: But a lot of the measures that Labor has proposed to date, off budget measures. There will be an expectation among your supporters, for example, that given you know, the university sector, for example, that is Australia's, I think, third-largest export earner, has been, you know, well, there's no words for what's happened in the university sector.
CHALMERS: I sit next to Tanya Plibersek in the parliament, so I get this for an hour and five minutes every day.
MURPHY: Well, it is extraordinary.
CHALMERS: Yeah it is.
MURPHY: It is, right.
CHALMERS: It is.
MURPHY: And that's a huge job to turn that ship around, particularly in an environment where universities can't rely on foreign students. You know, also social policy spending. The Premiers during the pandemic - I guess you'd say, well of course they would - but a number of them have said, we need a proper conversation about hospitals funding, like there's just not enough to cope with the extra surge in demand. There are on-budget spending pressures everywhere you look, so what should people expect from Labor?
CHALMERS: Well, there's a few important things about that. First of all, on universities. The carnage in universities has been one of, I think, the underappreciated parts of the pandemic. And that's because the Government doesn't focus on it. You're a Quarterly Essay author and so I know you would have read George Megalogenis's Quarterly Essay, and there's a quote in there from a senior Liberal saying we hate universities.
MURPHY: Yeah, I know.
CHALMERS: So the universities problem is well acknowledged and obviously I'm in conversation with Tanya and our team aout what we might be able to meaningfully do there, that would come as no surprise to your listeners. But more broadly, there's at least two other points. First of all, we shouldn't assume that all of the misguided priorities in the Budget, or all the pressures in the Budget, or all these issues, are solely a consequence of a pandemic. In lots of these cases we've had eight years of problems, which have been building in the Budget, which have been more or less neglected. If you look at the Intergenerational Report, the Government expects many of them to continue for forty years. So there's that issue. The second issue is this, and it's about expectations of a Labor Government. We cannot undo all of the damage in one Budget that's been done over eight previous Budgets. There are so many worthy things that we are asked to do - and people have higher expectations of us, and that's a good thing - but we cannot undo all the damage of eight or nine years in one year or one Budget. We need to weigh up our priorities, and we need to work out what we want to do first, what we would like to do at some stage, we can't do everything at once. I think really that's one of the lessons from 2019 and 2007, is that we need to be as ambitious but we need to be more focused, and more sequenced, and give the Australian people a sense of our initial priorities.
MURPHY: So just one more question quickly before we move on. In terms of how you present these things fiscally, are you proposing during the government to do the traditional thing, which is any expenditure that you announce is offset by savings? Or no, the Government's not doing that so why should we.
CHALMERS: Look, we'll make that clear between now and the election. Already some of the proposals that we put forward have got savings attached and some don't. But I think - and I think your question goes to this in one way or another - the idea that we have to offset every dollar when the Government offsets almost none of it, is pretty absurd. There was one week where the Government spent, I think, $9 billion in one announcement, and one journalist asked where the money was coming from. If I popped up and announced a $9 billion announcement...
(LAUGHTER)
MURPHY: No, it's a fair point to make. And in a way, the point of the environment changing, is the environment has changed. Therefore, we can look at the value of the spend because we're in different circumstances, but it's like your point that you can't fix everything in one Budget. Somebody is going to have to track the Budget back to normalcy though.
CHALMERS: Yeah.
MURPHY: So it's not an irrelevant question, but anyway, I think you've answered sufficiently.
CHALMERS: Just to say, it will not be a free for all in the Budget. We are very careful about what we commit. We know that growing the economy is part of it, bang for buck's part of it, addressing the rorts and waste is a part of it. There's an agenda on multinational taxes, which I think is going on around the world which is important when it comes to budget repair, but we will be more responsible than the other guys.
MURPHY: And taxes. You did utter the magic word. You know, new taxes? Any new taxes?
CHALMERS: We haven't concluded a view on the tax reform agenda, partly because we have said that we want to do something on multinationals. Multinationals are our priority in tax reform. There's all these international developments - President Biden, Secretary Yellen, the OECD - talking about minimum tax rates for multinationals. We think that's important and welcome, and we'll have something to say about that. So there will be a tax reform agenda and it'll be focused on multinationals.
MURPHY: What about a Buffett tax?
CHALMERS: Unlikely to be part of our agenda. I think that the steps that have been taken by the OECD, and the Americans, and others, I think is the most important place for us to focus.
MURPHY: Okay, watch that space. Now, I want to end with climate in a tick, because there's a pretty important decision looming for the Labor Party.
CHALMERS: Yep.
MURPHY: I think over the next couple of weeks. But just before we move on, Morrison said this week, Labor can't win an election by whinging. Of course, he would say that, but he's right. You can't win an election by whinging. You need, and this conversation is sort of orbiting around that sort of - difficulty is the wrong word, but that tension. You're saying to me very clearly, and Albanese has also said it, that we did too much in 2019. We can't be the government in exile. We're going to sequence things, we're going to have, you know, priorities that unfold over a period of time. Right. You're not going to, you know, come in with a fully fleshed out agenda. But at the moment, there's certainly some policy out there, for sure, there is. And more than people think, actually. But then at some point this offering needs to be expanded, and significantly. And a story has to be brought together. And it's not really clear what that story is, because at the moment you guys are fully intent on branding the Prime Minister in a certain way. That is your overwhelming objective, your objective is not to present an alternative at this point, although you'll dispute that, I know. But predominantly, this is your objective at the moment, right. But it's sort of like, you know, a character assassination of the Prime Minister is necessary but not sufficient. You do need to tell people what you're about. You know, I think Josh Frydenberg in the parliament called you - what did he call you, the 12th man or something? I can't remember, anyway.
CHALMERS: He'll be devastated that you can't remember.
(LAUGHTER)
CHALMERS: Your phone is probably already ringing.
MURPHY: It's true, it's true. No. You and he have this well-established big dog / little dog routine, which I'm going to leave the both of you to. But anyway, again, you know, if the economy is the central issue, Labor's economic narrative needs to actually reach people rather than have people scratch their heads and think well what the hell are they on about, right?
CHALMERS: Agreed.
MURPHY: So what's the plan?
CHALMERS: First of all, the Prime Minister's assassinating his own character. Every single time he jumps up in the parliament he shows that he is temperamentally incapable of leadership, and that's because he's temperamentally incapable of taking responsibility for anything. Right? That is part of the election. I'm not pretending that it's not. That is a big part of the election. Whether or not you want a Prime Minister who takes responsibility and not just credit, that's a big part of the choice that people will make. We don't shy away from that, that is part of the story. But you're right, that the alternative is important as well. And I think we have been clear. We think that our economy and our society can be stronger after COVID than it was before, but it requires a plan, and it requires ambition, and it requires an understanding of people's real lives. All of these things are missing at the moment in the Government. We have got a hell of a lot of policy out there, it's focused on three things - supporting working families, secure jobs, and a future made in Australia. And there's a heap of policy hanging off that. But our story is, can we do better after COVID than before? Can we tap the togetherness that we saw during the pandemic to do something remarkable, and end this wasted decade of missed opportunities, and actually grab the opportunities and make them accessible to more people in more parts of Australia? That's our story, right? I think it's a compelling story. And I think Anthony Albanese's doing a terrific job telling that story. But it will always be the case that a Prime Minister which is shrinking before our very eyes will be of interest to people. So it should.
MURPHY: Yeah, yeah. And I said a minute ago, there is more policy out there than people realise. I think that that's true. There is more. And I hear the story that you tell because obviously, I watch everything.
CHALMERS: You're paid to.
(LAUGHTER)
MURPHY: I don't think Labor has been reclining on the banana lounge over this term. I think you've been showing up to work every day. The problem is bandwidth. It's a bit like how we were talking about with prices, that things are not things are not in your control. What's not in your control is how much your opponents occupy the consciousness. And in a way, it's sort of funny isn't it, because this was a strategic decision Labor made, to step back and put the focus on the Government, right. That was a very early call that Anthony Albanese made - we are going to step back, and you're going to look at the Government guys for the next three years. And that has certainly happened. And the difficulty is then how you inject yourself, without having Clive Palmer's advertising budgets.
CHALMERS: Clive Palmer and Craig Kelly is the marriage of unlimited money with unlimited stupidity.
(LAUGHTER)
MURPHY: It's a thing.
CHALMERS: It's a thing, yeah.
MURPHY: It's an issue.
CHALMERS: Yeah, of course.
MURPHY: How do you get your head above the parapet?
CHALMERS: I agree with you that there is a certain amount of space in the public conversation and we play some role in deciding how that space is filled. But, you know, to be brutal about it, if the Prime Minister's gonna get up and lie about going to Hawaii or something like that, we don't have that much control over that. That is interesting to people because it does go to his temperament. It does go to the core of the Prime Minister. You've written about him at length - yourself, Sean Kelly, Annika Smethurst - the picture that emerges of this guy, is that there's nothing to him. He is built to take credit when things go well, but not built to take responsibility when things are tough. Take the personalities out of it, take the party labels out of it, just think of the Prime Ministership of one of the best countries on the planet, if not the best – Australians deserve something more in their Prime Minister than what they are getting. So that will be part of it. I don't apologise for us talking about that, because it matters who the leader is.
MURPHY: I think it is necessary. I mean, it's part of any political campaign, but the point is necessary but not sufficient. Anyway, you've addressed that. Let's move on to climate, that easy subject.
(LAUGHTER)
MURPHY: As we've said, I think it's likely that Labor will resolve its position over the next week or so. I don't know when that will be announced, whether it will be before the parliament rises or not.
CHALMERS: Katharine's looking at me with hopeful eyes.
(LAUGHTER)
MURPHY: Oh look, it'd be nice to get a scoop. I gather the options under consideration - we're talking about 2030 - a 35% emissions reduction target, which mirrors the Government's projections. 35% plus, which basically builds in what the states are doing plus your own projected abatement from policy mechanisms - as yet on announced - so that sort of takes you closer to 40%. Or a 45% landing point, where you would basically engage the Government's safeguard mechanism and use that as a baseline and credit scheme, or something close to that. So which one?
(LAUGHTER)
MURPHY: Where's it going to land?
CHALMERS: I think people are broadly aware of the options. Obviously, Chris Bowen's in charge here and Anthony Albanese. We've been having discussions for much of this parliamentary term, and in the coming weeks we'll make clear our position. From my point of view, I see climate policy as absolutely central to economic policy. If we get cleaner and cheaper energy into the system, we'll take the handbrake off investment, we'll get that productivity growth, we'll get that economic growth. I've done hundreds of boardroom meetings this parliamentary term, and the one thing that comes up more than anything is energy policy certainty, and a bit of ambition, and some interim targets on the way to net-zero by 2050. I am really confident that we can strike the right level of ambition in our policy and if or when we get the opportunity to implement that policy, I think it will really shift the dial in this country and its economy. Because for too long, the kind of twenty two or twenty three energy policies, and signing international agreements that the Deputy Prime Minister then bags the day after, and Nats versus Libs, and Modern Libs versus the rest, and all of that kind of stuff, that has genuinely held back investment, as you know, you follow this as closely as anyone in the country. I think in doing the right thing, striking the right level of ambition, it will make a meaningful difference to our economy and we can grab some of those opportunities which have been going begging.
MURPHY: You say the right level of ambition, I'm not actually asking you to deliver a Shadow Cabinet decision that hasn't been made yet. I'm genuinely not. But what's the right level of ambition?
(LAUGHTER)
MURPHY: No, no, I don't mean that like give me a target. I mean, what does that look like? What's the right level of ambition, Jim?
CHALMERS: I'll make my contribution at the Shadow Cabinet, I have been making my contribution, and I genuinely don't want to traduce that collective decision making process, but let me put it another way - and I say this as a Queenslander too, as you know.
MURPHY: I was going to ask you as a Queenslander actually.
CHALMERS: I really firmly believe that when it comes to climate we are underestimating people, and particularly Queenslanders. I've had a gutful of the kind of caricaturing of Queenslanders. Queenslanders are practical, problem solving, pragmatic people. I spend a lot of time in mining communities. I spend a lot of time in regional Queensland. They want to talk about hydrogen, they want to talk about solar energy, they want to talk about how they get their input costs down, they want to talk about how mining is going to be producing some of the key components for EVs, and mobile phones, and batteries, and energy-efficient white goods. So I think that Queenslanders, and Australians, they want to do the right thing here. They're not stupid, they don't want to be talked down to, they know that there's an issue here and a challenge here. And they know that we can turn it into an opportunity, but only if we get a settled policy that ends the climate was for the last ten or fifteen years or whatever it's been, and we move forward in a way that recognises we can do something meaningful here without abandoning some of our traditional strengths.
MURPHY: But do you think that Queensland, like in terms of the resistance to ambition, obviously, regional Queensland is one headquarters of that. Electorally, the Hunter Valley is another headquarters of that, potentially. Do you think that Queenslanders - because they weren't in 2019 - are ready to hear the case for higher ambition? Do you think they are ready now to hear the case for higher ambition?
CHALMERS: I think inevitably, when you're thinking about big changes in the economy imposed on us by the world, people are anxious about that. And that's why we need to level with people and say that there is a big future for mining - there is, genuinely, a very big future for mining in this country. And we can do something about energy costs without going over the top, without abandoning communities, without abandoning traditional strengths. Most of the conversations I have in regional Queensland are with traditional industries who are trying to get their energy, and their costs, and their emissions down. You meet with a port in North Queensland, I was at a power station in Mount Isa, where they showed me where they're going to build kilometres of solar panels. I just feel like people are being kind of underestimated. Yes, the National Party is going to lie about the impacts of our climate policy, no matter what it is. I made the mistake of flicking over onto one of those late night news commentary shows the other night, and the thing down the bottom was about how Labor's 2030 interim targets would ruin the economy, when we haven't announced them yet. So we know that the scare campaign's coming. The scare campaign on this, and petrol, and all the other discredited scare campaigns. I just think people are ready for a government which doesn't try and divide them on this issue, and says here's something meaningful we can do - without going over the top, without abandoning traditional communities - that will make a real difference, get cleaner and cheaper energy into the system, more jobs and more opportunities for more people around Australia. I think people are ready for that.
MURPHY: Does it require some sort of jobs compact? Is it sort of something at the front end and something at the back end? Because that's sort of been the missing element, I guess. Do you think what regional Queenslanders - and to be clear, I do not think that regional Queenslanders are a monolith or a uni-brain.
CHALMERS: Yeah, no, I didn't mean you.
MURPHY: No, no, I know. I'm not saying that defensively, I'm talking to the listeners. I'm talking to people listening to this conversation. Obviously, I'm not caricaturing you. I'm just talking about electoral data. Is that the way to deal with this problem, because in the past we've been talking about just transition, which is obviously now poison in the, you know, in the lexicon. There is a way to sort of marry ambition with some sort of secure path for, you know, economic participation. Is that what it looks like?
CHALMERS: Yeah, whatever you call it, I think that there's an opportunity for us to invest in new jobs and new industries in some of these communities - additional jobs, additional industries. If you look at the Palaszczuk Government, they've made some really quite remarkable investments. In Gladstone, in hydrogen. In Townsville, in other minerals. Cameron Dick and Annastacia Palaszczuk have done quite a remarkable job showing people that we can build this new capacity. New jobs, new industries in the clean energy economy, which people can see. They are tangible opportunities in regional communities, and I take my cues from that. I think that is the way forward here. The Queensland Government's shown us the way and other governments, no doubt, are thinking along similar lines. I think that's the way through this issue.
MURPHY: Okay, well watch that space - again over the next week, or week and a half, or two week - I reckon. Thank you Jim for your time, I appreciate it's been a long week and a really tough one. So thank you, appreciate the conversation.
CHALMERS: Thanks, Katharine.
ENDS
