AARON VIOLI:
Hi, I’m Aaron Violi, the Liberal candidate for Casey. It’s really exciting to welcome the federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg to Healesville today. We’re at Four Pillars Gin Distillery. It’s an institution here in Healesville. They’re a two‑time international winner of the gin producer of the year, and Stu and Cam have really transformed this part of Healesville. It's gone from an industrial area into a tourist destination. So, grateful to have Cameron, President of the Australian Distillers Association and an owner of Four Pillars, and also Cameron, owner of Four Pillars as well. Cam, over to you.
CAMERON MACKENZIE:
Thanks so much, Aaron. And thanks so much for visiting today. This is really important for us. This is an industry that’s in infancy. We started Four Pillars eight years ago with less than a handful of staff. We now have over a hundred staff, and with the new development we’re doing next door we’ll add another 30 or 40 staff to that. There’s a huge opportunity for distilled spirits in Australia. We still import a huge amount of spirits. So big import competition, I think, with the best gin in the world. Huge export opportunity, fantastic tourism opportunity. We’re trying to bring about 200,000 visitors out to the region. And I think the world’s our oyster. We’ve got to lot to work on. And having the Treasurer come out today and visit along with Aaron\, our local member is a great opportunity for us to talk about how we can continue to grow this incredible industry. So thank you for coming out, both of you. It’s really important to us. And over to you, Josh.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Thanks very much, Cam. Well, firstly, thanks, Aaron, for the invitation to join you here in Casey. You and Rachel are raising a family with two children here in the electorate. You're a third‑generation local. You’re the Liberal Party’s candidate here in Casey. You went to a local school. You worked for a local business. And I know you’re very, very active in the local community. So thank you very much, Aaron, for having us here.
Cam and Stu, wonderful to be at this local and now national institution at Four Pillars. What a great success story – starting the business back in 2013, moving to the Healesville site in 2015, producing a million bottles of gin out of this facility alone, growing your workforce to more than 100 people, and now to hear about your plans and your investments to expand and double this facility. To go and see this now bottling plant and to see firsthand manufacturing here in Australia in action and to know that you’re one of the top 10 gin brands in the world and to know that through the COVID pandemic you used JobKeeper and that that was a great support to yours and many other businesses, but to also know that you supported the local community. You pivoted to hand sanitiser, making more than 200,000 bottles of hand sanitiser through the pandemic, supporting our local community. I think that shows just how diverse but also community‑spirited you were. So all the very best with what you do. The government strongly supports our distilleries around the country. We have about 600 microbrewers, about 400 distilleries around the country, and we actually made a significant announcement in this year’s Budget, earlier in the year about – last year’s budget now; we’re in 2022 – in the 2021 budget where we made a significant announcement about the excise refund cap, lifting it from $100,000 to $350,000 dollars, which benefitting a lot of small distilleries and brewers right across the country because they together collectively employ more than 15,000 people. So thank you very much for the invitation to be here.
Well, we’re still in the middle of a pandemic. We still face many challenges both in our health system across the supply chain. But the Australian economy is remarkably resilient, the Prime Minister later today will talk about that resilience and what we’re seeing in our labour market, which is particularly strong. An unemployment at 4.2 per cent, bearing in mind that when we came to government, unemployment was 5.7 per cent. Now the Labor Party said the single biggest test of the Morrison Government’s management of the pandemic will be what happens to the unemployment rate. It's now at a 13‑year low. There are 1.7 million more Australians in work today than when we came to government, including one million more women. We’ve got 220,000 apprenticeships, people in trade apprenticeships, right across the country. That’s the highest since numbers began back in 1963. And now we have an historic opportunity to drive that unemployment even lower still. That’s why we’re investing in infrastructure. That’s why we’re lowering taxes. That’s why we’re investing in skills like the JobTrainer program and the wage subsidy for apprenticeships. What we’re seeing now as well is billions of dollars – about one and a half billion dollars a month – flowing into the pockets of Australians through the tax cuts that we have legislated and are now delivering. So if you are a worker on $60,000 a year, you will pay $2,160 less tax this year compared to when we came to government.
Finally, we’ve seen some consumer confidence numbers out today, and they were up. And this is encouraging given that we’ve seen with the Omicron variant consumer confidence hit. So consumer confidence in New South Wales was down in successive weeks, but now we’ve actually seen it increase today. We are confident about the year ahead. We’re confident that the fundamentals of the Australian economy are sound – a strong investment pipeline, a lower unemployment rate, Australia’s AAA credit rating being reaffirmed. And what we know from yesterday with new data being released, there’s more than $400 billion that’s been accumulated on household and business balance sheets. So this business – Four Pillars – an institution here in the electorate of Casey and across the country is employing people. It's expanding, and it’s a sign of what Australians can be confident about in the year ahead.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Thank you.
JOURNALIST:
Hi, Treasurer. Just on the government’s announcement today regarding those two one‑off payments for aged‑care workers, why won’t the government support calls for a permanent increase to pay for aged‑care workers?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, as you know, there are other processes for those permanent changes to wage levels. But this is a very important announcement that the Prime Minister will be talking about later this morning with those two payments of up to $400 each, so up to $800, which will go to more than 230,000 aged‑care workers. That’s a very significant investment in our workforce. Our workforce in aged care have been challenged over the last couple of years. And it’s been a very difficult time. So this is both recognition but also a retention bonus. It builds on those three payments that we made last year and it will be very important to supporting the aged‑care workforce who have been incredible throughout this crisis.
JOURNALIST:
But can you understand why people are leaving the workforce given that they can get just as much money, if not more, in a less demanding role in potentially retail or hospitality?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, people work in aged care, they work in our hospitals, they work right across the medical field because they’re dedicated to supporting the vulnerable members of the community or people who are going through some difficult times. So people who work in the aged‑care workforce do so because they want to help people who are less fortunate than themselves and people who are in their older stages of their lives.
So there are people who are completely dedicated to serving the aged‑care workforce and will continue to be so, and we’ll be supporting them today while also encouraging others to come back to the workforce because the aged‑care workforce, like other workforces, has been hit by absenteeism during the Omicron variant.
JOURNALIST:
The other announcement today from the government that $2.2 billion, can the Coalition be trusted on R&D given that over the years under your government it’s been slashed, it’s been reinstated and now it seems to be a priority?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, it’s actually been expanded, because in a previous budget I announced a $2 billion commitment to research and development through the various tax incentives. This followed the Finkel and Farris review. That was an important review that looked at how we can make our R&D tax system work better for us. We implemented all of those changes based on the intensity of the R&D spend, and that has been very successful. We’re building on that today with this very significant announcement of more than $2 billion. And what the Prime Minister points out in his speech is that 85 per cent of our Australian research is world‑class, and we want to ensure that it’s commercialised. We’re investing with the CSIRO, we’re investing in our universities, we’re building collaboration between industry and our universities because that is going to be absolutely key to ensuring that the great ideas get turned into commercial realities.
JOURNALIST:
The Australian Electoral Commission has released that annual donation disclosures today, but we only know where about a third of the political donations come from. Do you believe or accept that that is an acceptable level of transparency in our democracy?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, there are rules around declarations of donations, and one would expect all political parties to adhere to those rules. And as I understand it, that information is available on websites.
JOURNALIST:
Can we expect any announcements for federal funding in the Casey electorate that we’re now in the election?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, obviously Aaron’s got his priorities in this area. And I note Lilydale Road is one of those, which has seen significant investment by the commonwealth government which has helped make a difference to the business right here. And the number of visitors – 200,000‑plus – and their ability to get here is being enhanced by our investments in infrastructure. So we’ll continue to look at opportunities to invest in this electorate. But whether it was the great work of Tony Smith as the sitting member or the new candidate for the Liberal Party here in Aaron Violi, we’ve got people who are deeply committed to the electorate of Casey and investing in its future.
JOURNALIST:
Why is Aaron the right guy to represent the Casey community?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, Aaron is an outstanding candidate. I was present at his preselection. I saw him perform firsthand and the strong support that he had. As I mentioned, him and Rachel are raising their two children here in the electorate. He’s a third‑generation local. He’s someone who went to school locally. He’s someone who’s worked in business locally. He’s someone who’s now volunteering working at community organisations. And he’s determined to support his local community, not just through the difficult times that we’re having right now with COVID but obviously long into the future.
JOURNALIST:
Aaron, how does it feel to have the support of Mr. Frydenberg down in Healesville today?
AARON VIOLI:
I think, it’s great to have the Treasurer here. He’s done a great job. One of the things I keep hearing about in the community when I’m talking to businesses is JobKeeper and how instrumental that was to helping businesses survive. And that’s a legacy to the Treasurer. So I’m really proud to have Josh here today and really proud to have Four Pillars hosting us. It’s an exciting day and there’s a great future out here in this tourist hub that we’re building in Healesville.