E&OE Transcript
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
TODAY, CHANNEL NINE
Thursday, 14 July 2022

SUBJECTS: Coronavirus recovery, national economy, Solomon Islands, China.

KARL STEFANOVIC: As the COVID situation across the country goes from bad to worse, there’s mounting pressure on the Federal Government to reinstate COVID isolation payments. For more, we’re joined by Treasurer and the man in charge of the Government’s chequebook Jim Chalmers in Logan in Queensland. Jim, good morning to you. Nice to see you this morning. You were Acting PM yesterday and what a time it was for a Queenslander, huh?

JIM CHALMERS: Yeah, that particular golden era in Australian political history was over in the blink of an eye yesterday, Karl, but it was a great day. When you work out what you’re going to do in the day, it was a pretty standard day actually, except I got to have a good yack with Cameron Smith at that last run that the guys have in Brisbane there, which was a real highlight for me. Cameron Smith is from Logan City like I am. He’s an institution, as you know, in this part of the world and we had a good yack in advance of the game yesterday. I haven’t spent a lot of time around those guys on Origin day before. You could tell they were pretty relaxed and ready but I’m not sure they would have been ready for that absolute brutality that was Origin III last night.

STEFANOVIC: I could talk to you all day about it but nonetheless there are other things to talk about. We spoke to a young woman on the show yesterday who was off sick with COVID. She’s really struggling without pay and she’s one of thousands of casual workers facing this. What would you say to the Prime Minister?

SPEAKER: I just think – I think he should reconsider and see that this is affecting so many people worse than me and I just, yeah, I think that they need help.

STEFANOVIC: Really hardworking young Australian. When we asked the PM about this this morning, he shifted the blame to the previous Government, but surely there is something we could do just for perhaps the duration of winter?

CHALMERS: Well, obviously, it’s incredibly tough and I did see that clip and I did see you asking Anthony about this this morning, and we don’t pretend it’s not tough for people. COVID has been diabolical for a lot of people, and we’ve tried to do the best that we can to make sure that we’re supporting people. The reality is we’ve inherited this Budget, which is heaving with a trillion dollars in Liberal debt.

The Liberals were out there yesterday saying, “give us a reason why we can’t extend it.” Well, they left us with a trillion reasons, which is that trillion dollar debt. So, we’ve got to be responsible. We’ve got to be up‑front with people about what we can and can’t do. We kicked in almost $800 million in that agreement that we made with the states to make sure that the hospital system can keep up with this wave of coronavirus, and obviously, again as the Prime Minister said, I think to you or to Ali earlier today, we’ll obviously keep everything closely monitored. We’ll follow the health advice and we’ll do what we can but there’s no use pretending to anyone that we can continue all of these programs indefinitely given the pretty severe budget constraints that we’ve got.

STEFANOVIC: I get it and I think every Australian gets that it needs to be reeled in, but this is a particularly nasty period of time for people like Kirrily – 21, she’s supporting her 13‑year‑old sister. I mean, there’s got to be some net for people like that, casual workers like that, doesn’t there, Jim?

CHALMERS: Well, we provide support where we can, whether it’s in the health system or otherwise, and it should be said as well that a lot of really great employers are stepping up and stepping in in this case. There are some agreements that unions have made with employers and there are other employers who are doing it off their own bat. That’s not always possible but that is happening in some places and we applaud that. We will continue to monitor the situation obviously and we’ll do what we can, but we’re not going to lie to people like Kirrily and pretend that there’s this endless source of money where we can continue these programs which were designed to end around now. We can’t continue them forever.

STEFANOVIC: All right. Watch that space. The AMA said this morning the Government’s wilful neglect of this ongoing and escalating crisis will result in some kind of catastrophic outcome for a significant number of Australians. How do you respond to the AMA this morning?

CHALMERS: I don’t think that kind of language is helpful, obviously. As I said before, one of the big things that we’ve done – we’ve only been in office for seven weeks, but one of the big things that Prime Minister Albanese did, to his great credit - was to sit down with the Premiers and Chief Ministers and work out a big extension, an almost $800 million extension to the national partnership agreement around hospitals for COVID because we know that the hospitals are and will continue to be under pressure for a little while longer; and there are other kinds of support in the system. We’re doing the best that we can within the constraints of the Budget that we inherited and so we’ll continue to do that. And we want to work with the AMA. We want to work with states and territories. We want to work with Australians everywhere to get through what will be another difficult period.

STEFANOVIC: Finally, and quickly, the Solomon Islands Prime Minister says we’re family. Are we, though, and are there any guarantees that they won’t allow China to build some kind of base there? I don’t think there are.

CHALMERS: We are family, and I think we have a genuine affinity with our sisters and brothers in the Pacific, and I think we’re seeing that now with Prime Minister Albanese at the Pacific Islands Forum. We want to engage respectfully, consistently, over a long period of time, to make sure that Pacific Island friends are – that we are partners of choice for them. They make their own decisions. They’re all sovereign nations but we engage respectfully and consistently. That’s what we’re doing now. It’s what we’ll continue to do to try to prevent the kinds of outcomes that you are concerned about.

STEFANOVIC: Good to talk to you, Treasurer. Thanks for your time today. Great win last night. Appreciate it.

Ends