THE HON JIM CHALMERS MP
TREASURER
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
SKY NEWS AFTERNOON AGENDA
TUESDAY, 31 May 2022
SUBJECTS: Jobs Summit; National Accounts; Budget Commitments; Climate Change; New Labor MPs; Meeting with Indonesian Finance Minister; G20 Finance Ministers Meeting.
KIERAN GILBERT, HOST: Welcome back to the program. Joining me live now in the studio is the Treasurer Jim Chalmers. Congratulations, first time we’ve spoken since the election win.
JIM CHALMERS, TREASURER: Thanks very much Kieran, good to be here.
GILBERT: And you’ve been busy with briefings. I know today you’ve been talking with the Business Council and with the union movement.
CHALMERS: Yes.
GILBERT: Are you optimistic of getting a deal at the Jobs Summit?
CHALMERS: I think we’ve got a big opportunity under Anthony Albanese’s Prime Ministership to genuinely try to bring people together around some of these massive economic challenges that we’re inheriting - whether it’s the cost of living crisis, whether it’s real wages going backwards, a trillion dollars in debt in the Budget with not enough to show for it. There is a big opportunity here - and really from the Sunday after the election all the way through to today and beyond today - I’ve now spoken with the Treasurers of every state and territory, I’ve spoken to the heads of all the major business peak groups. I’ve spent today with the BCA and with the ACTU, I’ve met with all the regulators, and there is a real appetite around the country to see where we can find common ground and start to address these big economic issues. There’s no switch that we can flick to make a trillion dollars in debt disappear, or to turn around the cost of living crisis overnight, or to get real wages moving by the end of the week, but we need to start that hard work. It needs to be collaborative, and I’ve been really heartened so far.
GILBERT: Do we know when that Jobs Summit is?
CHALMERS: That will be subject to a cabinet decision.
GILBERT: Right.
CHALMERS: But certainly, we’re thinking through the ideal timing of that. There’s the Summit of course - which we want to be broad and inclusive – and from that will flow a White Paper on employment as well, which the Treasury will lead, but working really closely with Tony Burke and with other colleagues to make sure that we get that exactly right. There’s a lot of work to do on that. The Reserve Bank review will be underway before too much longer.
GILBERT: So, it’s not just a talkfest and then you shelve it?
CHALMERS: Of course not.
GILBERT: This will be leading to proper reform?
CHALMERS: Yes, our intention of this Summit is to tap that genuine appetite that people have to work together. Obviously, not every part of the economy or every group will agree with one another on every issue, but there are areas for common ground. It’s been a pretty divisive decade and we want to put an end to that. We want to begin a new spirit of cooperation and collaboration, and the Summit will be about that.
GILBERT: The first big set of data tomorrow with the National Accounts, what are you expecting there? Is it going to be softer than what we’d anticipated?
CHALMERS: That’s the expectation amongst the economists. They think that it will be relatively weak, certainly weaker than what they might have anticipated a month ago. Remember, these National Accounts are for the first three months of the year, and that the year began with an absolute debacle over rapid testing, which led to all those supply chain issues and grocery shortages. We had some floods in there as well. But the economy more broadly has been softer than we would like, and even since those National Accounts, inflation has spiralled, real wages have gone backwards further. So, there’s no shortage of economic challenges. That’s why Katy Gallagher and I were sworn in immediately upon the Government being elected. We’ve been working hard already. We’re looking forward to being joined by other colleagues in the cabinet tomorrow to continue this work.
GILBERT: And will you still be providing that economic statement when parliament returns, so late July? That’s your schedule?
CHALMERS: Absolutely, and I think that will be an important opportunity…
GILBERT: Is that like a mini-budget?
CHALMERS: No, the statement will be a ministerial statement to the parliament.
GILBERT: Yep.
CHALMERS: Which will be an opportunity to speak, I think, bluntly - not tip toe around these big economic challenges, but to lay out the challenges before the parliament - because we want to…
GILBERT: Will you be providing sort of the parameters - the big numbers, like GDP, wages and so on - at that point?
CHALMERS: I’ll certainly be giving a sense of our expectations for the economy, working from then until the Budget in October. The Budget will be most likely in the second half of October. What I want to use that Ministerial Statement to do, is to let people in on our thinking - bluntly, plainly - the challenges that we are up against, the sorts of challenges that we will be dealing with in the Budget in October.
GILBERT: With the trillion dollars in debt, obviously rates rising, that will exacerbate that. Will you have to curb any of the spending that you had envisaged?
CHALMERS: We’ll implement our commitments, but people should expect that there’ll be more trimming of spending, the spending that we have inherited. Katy Gallagher and I have begun already the audit of rorts and waste in the Budget as it stands, because we want to redirect that political, unproductive spending into more productive investments - where you get an actual economic dividend. So there will be more trimming of spending. We’ve already begun the work to find those savings, but we’ll implement our commitments that we took to the election.
GILBERT: The Prime Minister confirmed to me at the weekend that – and you’ve done this as well, in fact, in last week or two – about the stage 3 tax cuts, they’re committed to. They’ll be delivered. He said there’d be no levies - Medicare, or NDIS. Can you rule out a budget repair levy as well, or are things that dire that you might have to look at that?
CHALMERS: We’re not contemplating a budget repair levy. We think the first port of call is to trim spending. We’ve got some proposals around multinational taxes that you’re aware of. We’ve already proposed eleven and a half billion dollars in Budget improvements a couple of days before the election. So that’s our priority.
GILBERT: So, there won’t be that sort of budget repair levy in the first term?
CHALMERS: No, we haven’t been contemplating a budget repair levy. We have been contemplating multinational tax changes, trimming of spending, making spending better quality so that we can grow the economic quicker without adding to these inflationary pressures.
GILBERT: One of the big reforms that you’ve been talking to me about for a long time now is on energy and the energy system. Where is the low-hanging fruit there in your mind?
CHALMERS: I think, if anything, the developments since the election around this spike in electricity prices shows that we are absolutely right to be focused on how we get more renewables into the system so that we can get energy prices down over time. That spike in energy prices is a consequence of a decade now of our predecessors stuffing around with energy policy. We want certainty in energy policy. We want it to be sensible, working with the business community and others to get the right settings in place because we cannot be hostage to those kind of spikes in the future. The best way to do that is to improve the energy mix, and that means more renewables.
GILBERT: You and I were around and remember the whole CPRS drama for Kevin Rudd and the Greens opposed it. In hindsight, obviously, many would have changed their behaviour if they knew how things would evolve over the last decade. But in the current context, your emissions target, if you can’t legislate it with the Greens – say, they don’t support it again in the upper house – what do you do in that context? Do you carry on without legislation?
CHALMERS: I hope that they’ve learned from that earlier period. I’m not here to kind of, you know, engage in the history wars about that period. I think that mistake is self-evident. We’ve had now a decade now of climate inaction because of that decision, so I hope they’ve learned from that, respectfully. Our intention is to implement the policy that we took to the election. We know from our modelling - we know from the good modelling and work that the Business Council of Australia did, and others - that that is the best way to deal with the climate challenge in a way that gets cleaner and cheaper energy in the system, boosts investment and creates jobs.
GILBERT: So your target…
CHALMERS: Those are our objectives.
GILBERT: That’s it. And you’ve got the mandate now, I guess, with the majority. If they don’t cop it, you crack on with that target?
CHALMERS: Yeah, we intend to implement our target and our policy. Chris Bowen has made that clear, Anthony Albanese and myself too, since the election. We want to work with anybody who shares our objectives about getting cleaner and cheaper energy into the system and bringing all of those economic benefits which are so clear now. We want to work collaboratively, but we intend to implement the policy that we took to the election.
GILBERT: Would you – would you also, I guess, you’d urge the Coalition to back you on that, because now, as I say, you’ve got that majority locked in.
CHALMERS: Yeah.
GILBERT: Do you think there’s a chance that that mandate might be respected?
CHALMERS: Well, I hope so, but to be blunt about it Kieran, I think Peter Dutton is just a different kind of bulldozer. He’s a different bulldozer with a different coat of paint. I suspect that he will play from the Tony Abbott playbook and the Scott Morrison playbook, and that shows that the Liberal Party have learnt absolutely nothing from the election result a couple of weekends ago. We want to work with the whole community - including different parts of the parliament - to implement our climate change policy. We hope they come along with us, but our expectations are pretty low.
GILBERT: Are you worried though that – because the Abbott style, sort of, it worked…
CHALMERS: Well, it’s bad for the country.
GILBERT: … if Peter Dutton goes that approach?
CHALMERS: Well, it’s bad for the country. And what Anthony Albanese has made clear for some time, including in today’s caucus meeting, is that this is Australia’s opportunity to come together around these big challenges. It would be a shame to waste that opportunity.
GILBERT: What was the mood like in the Caucus, being up the other end of the building?
CHALMERS: Buoyant. The really exciting thing Kieran, is we have the most extraordinary intake of new MPs that I have ever seen – diverse, experienced, enthusiastic. To see them together - all of these new Members from all parts of Australia - really warmed the heart. It is the most incredibly diverse and experienced intake, and the rest of us draw great inspiration from the people that we have added to our ranks at the last election.
GILBERT: It’s not like it has – you know, come easy - for many of you on your side of politics.
CHALMERS: Yeah.
GILBERT: As Anthony Albanese said, he’s had six years in government, 26 years in parliament. I guess the likes of yourself and others - a little bit younger, shall I say, than Mr Albanese - will be hoping to reverse that trend in terms of the number?
CHALMERS: We don’t want to waste this opportunity, I mean, that is really clear. And a lot of us have worked really hard in Opposition for a long time to get this opportunity and we want to make the most of it.
GILBERT: One last one before you go. I notice that you had a conversation with your Indonesian counterpart. How important is it for you as Treasurer to keep those sorts of links? You know a lot of people – we talk about the Prime Minister at the Quad and the international stage - but for Treasurers as well, is there a significance to that sort of correspondence? Why is it important?
CHALMERS: That’s been the big change in the Treasurer’s role over recent decades, there is a big international component to it. It was an honour to speak to Sri Mulyani, who was my first international call as Treasurer, because the Indonesians are the G20 President this year, as you know. And also, because she has a great relationship with Josh Frydenberg, with Wayne Swan going back a whole period of time.
GILBERT: That relationship has been perennially underdone – Indonesia-Australia - hasn’t it?
CHALMERS: Absolutely.
GILBERT: Why is that?
CHALMERS: Absolutely, and we need to work harder at it. Anthony wants to, Penny Wong wants to, and I want to work closely with them as well. There’s a big international economic agenda. I hope to get to the G20 meetings in Bali in July so that we can make our contribution to making sure the G20 works effectively in the economic sphere as well as the issues beyond that.
GILBERT: Treasurer Jim Chalmers, thanks for your time.
CHALMERS: Thank you, Kieran.
GILBERT: Talk to you soon.
ENDS
