JIM CHALMERS MP
SHADOW TREASURER
MEMBER FOR RANKIN
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
TODAY SHOW
SUNDAY, 23 JANUARY 2022
SUBJECTS: WA border decision; Australia Day; The Morrison Government mustn’t make the same mistakes they made with vaccines, boosters and RATs with masks and other PPE for workers; Australian parents worried about getting kids back to school safely.
CHARLES CROUCHER, HOST: One of the most divisive issues in the country right now, is Mark McGowan protecting Western Australians, or is he being cruel and unfair by keeping the strict border in place, or is it both? Joining us for more is Finance Minister Simon Birmingham and Shadow Treasurer Jim Chalmers. Good morning to you both. Simon, it's a decision that has a huge emotional ramification plus economic ramifications. How do you feel about it?
SIMON BIRMINGHAM, FINANCE MINISTER: Morning, Charles. All Australians have made so many sacrifices throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and for West Australians those sacrifices have particularly been a result of being cut off from the rest of the country, from loved ones, from business opportunities, a range of different challenges there. But Western Australians have done well, they've shown great resilience, they've kept themselves safe, they've got themselves vaccinated. I urge them to get out and get their booster doses and of course, particularly, to get their kids vaccinated as well. It's understandable that many of them would be saying now, if not now when will those borders reopen? And that's a matter for West Australians to debate and to resolve amongst themselves. Their economy has continued to perform strongly but so too has the rest of Australia's economy. You know, this week we saw the unemployment rate go down to 4.2%. Now, at the depths of this crisis of COVID-19, Jim Chalmers and the Labor Party was saying that the test for the Government was how the unemployment rate performed, how the jobs market performed. We've now got 1.7 million more Australians in jobs than were the case when our government was elected. We've got 1 million more Australian women in jobs. And we're seeing that strength of our economy, which is something that has shown such resilience through each of the different crisis points, and no doubt will as we move through these omicron challenges right now too.
CROUCHER: Jim, Wayne Swan was on the program on Friday and he backed Mark McGowan, do you?
JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: I do, Charles. I think right throughout this crisis, whether it's been a Liberal Premier or a Labor Premier, we've tried not to second guess them if they've made these difficult decisions based on the best advice available to them, and that's the case here again. I think Mark McGowan has looked east and seen the costs and consequences of Scott Morrison's failures on rapid tests, and boosters, and the rest of it, and decided now is not the time. It's a difficult decision. I know Mark wouldn't have taken it lightly. He would have taken a lot of advice and would have considered it very carefully, and it won't be unanimously supported, but I think it is the right decision given what's happened on the East Coast. To pick up on what Simon said, unfortunately we've got a government where at a time when some people are finding it hard to find groceries, people can't find rapid tests, workers are finding it hard to work safely, we've got shortages in our aged care homes and elsewhere, these guys want to pretend that everything is perfect in the economy. That's clearly not the case. We want the unemployment rate to be as low as possible, obviously, but we need to be attentive to some of these big economic challenges, which are brought to us directly as a consequence of the federal government not doing its job on rapid testing, and boosters, and all the rest of it.
CROUCHER: There's a great piece from Nine's Jerrie Demasi who's from Perth but lives in the US, and she had a great piece she wrote up on ninenews.com.au that's worth a look for everyone at home as well.
JAYNE AZZOPARDI, HOST: Good morning to you, Simon and Jim. Jayne here. We also want to talk to you about January 26 because obviously it's fast approaching and annually that means that the change the date debate has reignited. Simon, I'll start with you. There's a new poll that's found most people want Australia Day to stay on January 26, but I've got to say it is a slim majority. Do you think we're going to see the date changed?
BIRMINGHAM: Jayne, no I don't, and I would urge all Australians, especially those who may want to see a change of date, to not ruin Australia Day for everybody. That it's important, this day we seek to be one that we can unite around as Australians, acknowledging that not everything has gone perfectly throughout history, that there are things we need to do better as a country, particularly taking the effort to acknowledge the First Australians, Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander peoples across our country. But let's not have an endless, divisive debate that simply means it's hard to celebrate all that we have achieved as a country, or makes it harder to look to the future with the type of confidence and optimism that our nation should have given our many successes. So, I really would urge people to back in the work the National Australia Council has done, they're supporting more than 550 different community organisations across the country to have Australians tell their unique, their different, stories. The stories of our First Australians, the stories about different waves of migrants, to recognise all of those different things that make Australia what we are today - with our strengths, with our weaknesses - and to really look to the future with that confidence. Let's do it in a positive way, not one that simply tears or divides us apart.
AZZOPARDI: I think it is problematic that we're having this discussion and none of us have Indigenous heritage ourselves, but Jim, where do you stand on this issue?
CHALMERS: I think, even for those of us Jayne, who don't support a change in the date, we should be up for a respectful conversation about it. I thought that there was a characteristically thoughtful piece written by my friend and colleague Linda Burney in the Nine papers today about how it obviously matters when we mark this day but it also matters how we mark it, and whether we have the capacity as a country to acknowledge the hurt, to understand the hurt, and to have these respectful conversations. We're not calling for the date to be changed, that's not our policy, but we do need to have the capacity to change how we mark the day and how we acknowledge the historical hurt which has happened.
RICHARD WILKINS, HOST: Gentlemen, good morning to you. It's Richard here. We spoke with Professor Sanjaya Senanayake earlier about the importance of N95 masks. Simon, the United States is stockpiling them to give them away for free. We were slow off the mark with vaccines and RATs. How are we doing with masks? We got em?
BIRMINGHAM: Richard, we've supplied more than 100 million masks across Australia from the National Medical Stockpile during the pandemic to support aged care providers, to support GP and health practices around the nation, and we continue to do that. There's around 2 million N95 masks on their way out to different aged care providers right at present, and we continue to replenish that National Medical Stockpile to make sure it is able to deliver be it masks, be it gowns, be it face shields, the different things that are needed, particularly in those higher-risk environments. So, it's been a crucial pillar there. But it is important to acknowledge that the health advisors to Australia - the state and federal government health advisors, Labor and Liberal - have also been clear that in terms of the types of masks Australians use going about their everyday lives, the surgical masks that many people use, the double-layered cloth masks that many people use, are also highly-beneficial, that they're not advocating that everyone needs to be using an N95 mask. We continue to follow that clear health advice, in making them available in those high-risk settings, but also urging Australians, where they can, to follow all of the other recommendations - wear a mask, socially distance, practice hand hygiene, do all of the things that can keep you and your family as safe as possible.
WILKINS: So, we have enough? We've got it covered?
BIRMINGHAM: We have a big National Medical Stockpile, as I said. We've deployed more than 100 million masks alone, many other things in support of that too, and that's what we continue to do.
WILKINS: Jim, finally, are you a surgical or cloth mask kind of guy?
CHALMERS: I use those paper masks for now, occasionally a cloth one. I think, clearly, we should listen to the health advice on these N95 ones. We want people to be able to work safely and if the advice evolves and changes then we can't see the same mistakes made with masks that we've seen the federal government make on the boosters, and the testing, and all of the rest of it. If it looks like the advice might change, then let's make sure that we're ready for it. I think in aged care, there's a lot of anxious, very vulnerable workers. Aged care is a mess right now and so we need to make sure that they have the equipment, but more broadly too, and that's before we even get to back to school. A lot of parents, I'm in this situation myself, are very anxious about the return to school. We need to make sure that the tests are available. We need to make sure that kids can actually access the vaccines, there's been a lot of cancelled appointments. Right across the board, what we've seen for some time now is the government ignoring a lot of these warnings. We can see where a lot of this advice is heading in lots of cases. We want to make sure we're ready for it. Right now, I think the main thing that a lot of Australian parents are worried about is the return to school and we want to make sure there's the supply of the vaccines, that we've learned from the mistakes that the government made in earlier months about this, so that kids can get back to school safely, people can work in aged care safely, they can do their jobs safely, no matter where they are in Australia.
WILKINS: A whole new ballgame when schools opened up, isn't it? Gentlemen, thank you for your time today. We appreciate it.
ENDS
