Jim Chalmers:
This week is all about building consensus and it’s all about building momentum. We’ve been working really hard in the lead up to this roundtable. And I’m confident that all of the effort that’s gone into this has already been worth it. This is a really important opportunity. We intend to make the most of it. We don’t intend to waste it. We will be gathering people of vast experience and expertise in the Cabinet room. It’s an important opportunity to confer with them about the big challenges in our economy in our economy as we face the future together. The timing for this roundtable couldn’t be better, and the responsibility on all of us couldn’t be bigger.
Our economy is finally balanced between the progress that we’ve made on wages and inflation and living standards and the productivity that we desperately need to sustain that progress in the years and decades ahead. Living standards – higher living standards are the holy grail, and that makes productivity the primary focus. Productivity has been elusive over the last couple of decades, but it will be absolutely essential to the couple of decades ahead. And that’s really what motivates and drives us in this Economic Reform Roundtable.
I wanted to welcome the fact that Danielle Wood is speaking at the National Press Club today, and, really, the 3 themes that Danielle is highlighting at the Press Club are central. They are essential to the considerations of the roundtable in the coming days, but also to the government in the months and years ahead. And Danielle is talking about a growth mindset when it comes to regulation, she’s talking about the important role of adapting and adopting technology when it comes to growing our economy but also making the important point that in order to make our economy more productive over time, it will take time.
We need cumulative effort, ambitious effort over time in order to make our economy more productive. This isn’t a challenge that has just shown up in the course of the last couple of months or the last few years. This productivity challenge has been bedevilling our economy for a couple of decades now. The weakest decade for productivity growth in the last 60 years was the Coalition decade, that’s the situation that we inherited, and it will take some time to turn around. And I think in that regard, the points that Danielle Wood are making about sustained effort, continuing cumulative effort on productivity, I think that those are good points. Very well made. I have realistic expectations about the next few days, but I’m optimistic as well. I’m optimistic that there is an appetite for reform, there is ambition when it comes to dealing with the 3 major challenges in our economy.
Productivity, first of all, but also economic resilience and budget sustainability as well. So, I’m realistic, but I’m optimistic that we can make some progress together. I don’t believe that we will solve every challenge in our economy in 3 days. This is all about 3 days to inform the next 3 Budgets and beyond. And I’m really looking forward to it. We’ve got a lot going for us in this country. We’ve got a lot coming at us from around the world. We’ve got a lot of work to do. And the Prime Minister and I believe that the best way to do that work is to try and involve people to do that work together. And that’s really what drives us over the course of the next 3 days. But not just the next 3 days, beyond that as well. We’re focused on delivering our economic plan. We are making good progress. This is about the next steps with the primary focus on productivity. I’m very grateful to the hundreds and hundreds of Australians who have already expressed a view. I’m very grateful to the people who will be here in the course of the week, and I intend to make the most of the opportunity. I’ve got to be relatively brief and so I’ll take maybe 4 or 5 questions.
Journalist:
Treasurer, how quickly can you put in some of these changes, or will you decide to wait until the next election where you can argue that you have a mandate to change?
Chalmers:
It depends on the nature and the magnitude of the changes that are being proposed. Ideally, I’d be able to speak with you on Thursday night about broad reform directions where we’ve built some consensus, and we’ve built some momentum. But to illustrate that progress, it may be that there are some nearer‑term opportunities that we can implement relatively quickly. That remains to be seen. I’ve tried to be really careful not to pre‑empt the discussions of the reform roundtable. We have obviously done a lot of preparation, but the timing of any changes that come out of these discussions will be driven in part by the magnitude of the changes which are being proposed. I would really encourage you to think about this as 3 days to inform the next 3 Budgets. Change takes time. The best kind of change is the change that we embark on together, and that’s what’s driving us.
Journalist:
The Productivity Commissioner and yourself both talked about regulation, [indistinct] choking the economy. The Opposition, they’ve said that your government has been responsible for that introducing 5,000 regulations over the course of the last term. How do you respond to that?
Chalmers:
Well, a couple of things about that. I think Andrew Leigh has absolutely torpedoed the absolute rubbish that Andrew Bragg will be peddling at the Sydney Institute tonight by pointing out that more regulations were introduced in the last term of the last government than in the first term of this government. I think I’m recalling that correctly. I encourage you to give Andrew a call about that because I think Andrew has already torpedoed this rubbish that Andrew Bragg has been peddling. That’s the first point.
Secondly, if the Coalition had answers on productivity, they wouldn’t have presided over the worst decade for productivity growth in the last 60 years. And the third point I would make, and I saw that Tim Wilson was out there yesterday, I’m not sure where the Shadow Treasurer is, but Tim Wilson was out there yesterday saying that the answer is to go back to the Coalition’s sorts of industrial relations changes. No matter what the question is in our economy, the Coalition always think the answer is lower wages or harsher conditions or scorched earth industrial relations.
The final point I’d make this because I hear them talking about tax from time to time and spending, never ever forget that this Coalition took to the last election this year a policy for higher income taxes for all 14 million taxpaying working Australians, a policy for lower wages, higher deficits, and more debt. And so I think that goes to the lack of credibility when it comes to the Coalition. My fear is that they’ve learned nothing from the last election, they’ve learned nothing from the last term of the parliament. They’re still peddling the same kind of nasty negativity which was rejected by the Australian people on the 3rd of May.
Journalist:
Further on Jacob’s question, do you concede that some of the regulations that you put in in the last term of government pursued aims that aren’t the core aim of policy, such as using government procurement policy to further add apprentices or further gender equality aims, which is not related to procurement issues?
Chalmers:
I think when it comes to regulation, we need to make sure that it’s serving a useful purpose. And some of the examples that you have identified are instances where regulation can solve a useful purpose. Now, our goal here is to make sure that regulation is fit for purpose, that it is serving an economic end. My personal view, I think the view of the government is that some of this regulation is getting in our way when it comes to building more homes or building more energy projects. I think we’ve made that clear in ways that I’m proud of. We’ve put really front and centre in the national agenda that regulation can solve a useful purpose. Obviously, we want standards, we want protections for people, but we also need to make sure that we’re not getting in our own way.
And I think Danielle Wood was making that point quite effectively this morning on radio and will be later in her speech as well. Where regulation is unnecessary, where it’s duplicated, where it’s not serving a useful purpose, we should seek to wind it back, and that’s what we intend to do. We can’t do that on our own. We are engaged in a genuinely consultative and collaborative process here to see what progress that we can make together. That progress may take time, but it will be worth it.
Journalist:
In the latest news poll, 57 per cent of Australians said they were concerned about more taxes. Can you promise that no new taxes will result from this roundtable?
Chalmers:
We’re cutting taxes, and that was at stake in the election. Now, we went to the election having cut taxes once and proposing to cut taxes 2 more times. We cut taxes last year, we’re cutting them next year, we’re cutting them the year after. And that was at stake in the election because our opponents wanted to increase taxes on 14 million taxpaying working Australians. And so that’s the primary focus of our tax policy. We’re also doing work with the states and territories on EV road user charging, we’ve been upfront about that before and after the election as well. Our tax agenda is cutting taxes for people who work hard to pay the bills and to provide for their loved ones. And that’s the difference between us and our political opponents. Thanks very much.