BRIAN CARLTON:
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg joins me on the line now. Morning, Treasurer. How are you?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Good morning. Nice to be with you, Brian.
BRIAN CARLTON:
Am I wrong? Is this the beginning of the election campaign?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
We’re always communicating the economic data to the Australian people, and this does point to a strong recovery that is underway. It’s off the back of consumer confidence rising in seven of the last eight weeks, job ads being 30 per cent higher than at the start of the pandemic, unemployment being 4.6 per cent, a 12‑year low, and now insolvencies are 40 per cent lower than year‑on‑year.
BRIAN CARLTON:
How has all this happened off the back of a pandemic? The expectation was doom and gloom and economic recession, and in terms of the performance of the Australian economy, it’s basically defied every projection. Is this largely as a result of the incredible amounts of Government spending that’s happened out of your department over the last couple of years? It sort of has to, doesn’t it? There’s nothing else. What else do we attribute it to?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Brian, the economic support has been a big part of the recovery story, and it’s been multifaceted. As you know, it’s been a full‑court press from the Morrison Government together with business, together with regulators, together with the Reserve Bank, and what it has meant is that businesses had the time and the resources to recover. And we saw rental relief for retailers. We saw businesses not having to repay their interest obligations or their principal obligations on their loans for that period last year and into this year where there was a Delta outbreak. And then of course we had the cashflow boost and JobKeeper payments and, more recently, COVID disaster payments which ensured staff were able to be supported while they lost work. There’s been many aspects of our economic response that has helped businesses get to the position where they are now, which I think is to springboard into a strong recovery.
BRIAN CARLTON:
It’s not an expected position. I think if you were to go back two years ago and ask people where was the economy going to be around about now, I don’t think too many people would be suggesting where it actually is. Tell me, the old catch‑cry of Bill Clinton’s ‘92 election campaign and I think you know where I’m going here, “It’s the economy, stupid,” he had it all over the war room as he was campaigning to win that presidential election. “It’s the economy, stupid.” It’s the only thing that really mattered in terms of getting out there and getting Americans to vote for him. Is this the single plank you will be relying on for re‑election?”
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Certainly, our economic record is a strong one and not only have we seen the economy bounce back, but we have also seen tax cuts being delivered, put money more into people’s pockets to reward effort, to encourage aspiration. And, as you know, that was a clear contrast between the two major political parties at the last election, Brian. We would have discussed it numerous times back then. We were promising lower taxes which we subsequently legislated through the Parliament, and over the last three months, for example, we’ve seen more than $10 billion in tax relief delivered to more than 11 million Australians and the biggest tax cuts over a quarterly period in more than 20 years. At the same time, Labor at the last election were promising higher taxes on retirees, on housing investments, on savings, on family businesses and on workers. And the Australian people made a clear choice at the last election, and we’ve prosecuted the agenda since then, but they’ve also got long memories. And just because Labor is playing the small‑target strategy this time, doesn’t mean that it’s not committed to that high‑taxing and high‑spending agenda. Let’s not forget, they wanted JobKeeper to be expanded and extended. They wanted JobSeeker to be higher as a payment. They wanted to pay $6 billion to Australians who have already had the jab. And they’ve got a whole host of other spending initiatives. That can only be paid for with higher taxes. While the next election will not be a re‑run of 2019, there will be some common themes there. Who do you trust to keep taxes low? Who do you trust to keep the economy strong? And who you do you trust to keep creating more jobs?
BRIAN CARLTON:
One of the issues we have here in Tasmania – and perhaps we could organise a separate chat to deal with this – are some of the economic constraints at the moment. We have many, many businesses trying to get employees and they’re desperately struggling and also the supply chain issues that are impacting some of our businesses especially in construction. The State Government has acknowledged that some of these constraints have caused them not to spend a bunch of infrastructure coin that they’ve got sitting in the state budget. Maybe if you can pop the thinking cap on and we can reconvene at some point convenient to you, to have a chat with you about that specifically. I’d very much like to get into that as an issue because it’s deeply impacting the forward progress of Tassie just at the moment.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Absolutely. I totally understand that, Brian, and it’s not just in the hospitality sector and the construction sector. It’s also in the mining sector. It’s also with the IT specialists…
BRIAN CARLTON:
Even things like healthcare, Treasurer. The health system is groaning for fully trained people in a whole range of areas at the moment. It almost doesn’t matter which bit of the economy you look at here in Tassie; there’s a worker or a constraint on the available number of people who are prepared to do those jobs. I know you’ve got to fly to another interview. Thanks for your time this morning. We’ll reconvene. Thank you.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
All the best, Brian.
BRIAN CARLTON:
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg.