NEIL BREEN:
Josh Frydenberg, good morning to you.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Good morning, Neil. Nice to be with your Queensland listeners.
NEIL BREEN:
So obviously these will need to be purchased for work‑related purposes and you’ll have to prove that your workplace needed you to take one and that you paid for it yourself.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
That’s right. And this is part of the tax relief that we’re giving both to households and to businesses. So if you’re a retail worker and you want to take a RAT test before you go into work, then that will be tax deductible now. And if you are a business and you’re providing RAT tests to your staff members, then they will be exempt from the fringe benefits tax, and that’s something that the business community has been asking for. But I want to make it very clear to anyone who’s listening to your program this morning, that if they are symptomatic, if they feel they’re coming down with COVID, then they can go into a state clinic, they can get a RAT test, they can get a PCR test, at no cost to them and get the results soon after. We’re also providing RAT tests, as you know, to more than 6 million Australian concession card holders like pensioners, and we’re also providing RAT tests free into aged care.
NEIL BREEN:
If RATs are going to be tax deductible, what about masks?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, we do have PPE that is tax deductible if it’s for the purposes, again, of work‑related duties. So we’ve already got clarity around PPE. It’s just in relation to these new tests which obviously, you know, weren’t factored in to budget deliberations because they weren’t prevalent at the time.
NEIL BREEN:
The RATs weren’t. But masks? Masks aren’t PPE.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, they are looked at in terms of protective equipment, that’s right. They are seen as protective equipment. But, you know, at the end of the day, what we’re seeking to do here is making it easier for people to go about their jobs in a COVID‑safe way, and that is why we’re making this clarification today, Neil, which I think will be very well received. We’ve drawn a line when it comes to our spending. We haven’t obviously joined with some of the states in extra spending programs. We brought the COVID disaster payments to an end. We were criticised by the Labor Party. We brought JobKeeper to an end. Again, we were criticised by the Labor Party. But since then, hundreds of thousands of jobs have been created. We’ve had to draw the line at some point when it comes to the spending because we recognise that Australians want to see that level of fiscal discipline into the future as the economic recovery continues.
NEIL BREEN:
I still don’t understand about masks, though. So, if I buy a bunch of masks because I have to wear them at work, and we all have to wear them here, is that mask tax‑deductible, or is it just the full PPE gear?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, again, it’s about what is related to your work practice. So, if a business is providing masks to their staff members, then, you know, that obviously is in the conduct of their work and they can apply for a tax deduction that way.
NEIL BREEN:
Okay. Right. I think I’ve worked it out. Now, Treasurer, pay rises have been hard to get the last several years. We’ve seen the great resignation in the United States where people quit their jobs. But in Australia our Treasury believes we’ve had a great reshuffle and people are switching jobs to get more money. Is that the advice from the federal government, jam your boss, switch your job and get more cash?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, what Treasury analysis has shown is that in the three months to November we actually saw one million Australians go into a new job. Now a large number of those were actually switching jobs, and when they were switching they were seeing pay rises of between 8 to 10 percent, so not insignificant. Now, this is the highest level of job switching that we’ve actually seen, and it’s a result of a tight labour market. So as employers are competing for labour, they’re going to be paying more to their staff, and that’s what we’ve started to see through the economy.
NEIL BREEN:
Treasurer, this text messaging story has grown legs. We’ve had the drama last week with the Van Onselen ‘horrible person’ and ‘psycho’ texts from two years ago. Now we’ve got Barnaby Joyce, the Deputy Prime Minister, sending Brittany Higgins’ people a text saying the Prime Minister’s a ‘hypocrite’ and a ‘liar’. We’ve got Bob Carr saying that the person who leaked the texts was Peter Dutton. We’ve got Peter Dutton denying it. A sitting week this week. A federal election within months. This is a disaster for the federal government.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, firstly, Bob Carr was a waste of space as a foreign minister, and he suffers from a bad bout of relevance deprivation syndrome. I mean, when he was in government his own colleagues were calling him a narcissist and immature and self‑indulgent. And he’s put out this tweet without any evidence to back up his claim. And, as you say, Peter Dutton has utterly rejected it and asked for it to be deleted. But, you know, the Labor Party will go on about text messages, Neil, and I’ll go on about the unemployment rate reaching a 13‑year low. I mean, you and I discussed jobs and what was happening to the economy from pretty much day one of this pandemic. And there was incredible fear early on across the community that we were heading for a very long‑lasting and deep recession. Just like we saw in the 1980s and 1990s…
NEIL BREEN:
I know that, and I understand that, Treasurer. And the work the government has done has stopped all of that. But the problem is all the oxygen has being sucked out of the room because people in cabinet have sent a text to Gladys Berejiklian in the middle of the bushfire, and it’s created a bushfire.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, again, you may want to talk about text messages; I want to talk about jobs. And up at the, when we come up to the next election very shortly, there’s going to be a very clear choice. And that choice will be between a Liberal and National coalition and a Labor and Green coalition. And it’s only fair that you look at the choice coming up to the next election. And Labor talks a big game in opposition, but when they’re in government they deliver something very different. They talk about more jobs, but the unemployment rate was 5.7 per cent under them and rising, and it’s 4.2 per cent under us. They talk about real wages, but when they were last in government real wages were actually falling. They talk about the cost of living, but under Labor electricity prices doubled. They’ve come down under us. And they talk about debt, and, as you know, they wanted to keep spending on JobKeeper and the COVID disaster payment and now free RAT tests and the like. You know, their spending knows no bounds and that’s why they promised $387 billion of higher taxes at the last election. So there is a lot of noise out there, I accept that. And there’s been a few distractions. But when we get closer to the next election, the quiet Australians listening to your program today, who are not the ones tweeting as keyboard warriors, they’re not the ones marching on the parliament; they’re the ones who just want to get their kids to school, pay down their mortgage, hold their job. They’re the ones who will look at Scott Morrison and the Coalition and decide that they’re a better choice for Australia’s future, not Anthony Albanese and his arrogant Labor Party.
NEIL BREEN:
Should the texter and the leaker resign?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, again, it’s been denied that there was actually a federal cabinet minister who sent that message that was so‑called put out there by Peter Van Onselen. So that’s actually been contested, so I’m not going to accept that point.
NEIL BREEN:
Okay. Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, best of luck today.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Thanks, Neil. All the best to you.