ANNA HENDERSON:
Treasurer, thanks for joining SBS.
JIM CHALMERS:
Thank you.
HENDERSON:
The JobSeeker increase you've announced equates to about a bus pass a day. You've chosen a surplus over giving people a leg up, haven't you?
CHALMERS:
Well, the surplus that we're forecasting is for this year. The increase to the base rate of JobSeeker kicks in in September and so they don't directly cross over.
HENDERSON:
But if I can just pull you up on that, you could have in some way worked out how you could have added that money to what you need to give to vulnerable people as opposed to banking it, couldn't you?
CHALMERS:
Well, the next opportunity, as we saw it, and inevitably, you can try and manage it the way that you've described, but the next opportunity, as we saw it, was September.
HENDERSON:
The NDIS cuts such a significant change to the deficit figures, but it is a demand driven system. So, do you concede you can't actually control the actual outcome there?
CHALMERS:
Oh, no. What we're saying here with the NDIS is we want to make sure that every dollar in the NDIS supports the people that it's supposed to help. We're big supporters, big believers in the NDIS, and what we need to do is make sure the money gets where it's needed and we need to, over time, moderate the increase in costs in the scheme so that we can do that. And so there's a target in the scheme of around eight per cent growth, which is still pretty remarkable growth in the program. We want to fund the NDIS, we want to see the money getting where it's needed. In order to do that, we've got to make sure we get a handle on those ballooning costs.
HENDERSON:
On the age pension it looks like there are less people than forecast going to need that. And so does that mean that there is a de facto increase to the retirement age happening in our society?
CHALMERS:
As I understand it, that change in the estimate is about people working a little bit longer than was earlier anticipated. But it's not uncommon in these estimates, particularly for big spending areas like pensions, for there to be variations from one Budget to another.
HENDERSON:
Do you know how long most people are now working for?
CHALMERS:
I don't have that information in that estimate. The Finance Department and the Treasury work with the relevant departments to come to a realistic assessment of how these programs are growing. As I said, it's not unusual for them to bounce around a bit, particularly when we're talking about these big areas of government spending.
HENDERSON:
Is your advice, though, that people are working longer because of the economic conditions?
CHALMERS:
It doesn't go into that kind of detail.
HENDERSON:
On visa fees; why is it fair to hike up visa fees for people coming into this country who you really need to encourage to work?
CHALMERS:
Because we’ve got to clean up the mess that was left of the system. The visa system was an absolute mess.
HENDERSON:
Hundreds of millions of dollars. Do you think it's fair enough to ask people coming to this country to work in our economy to foot that bill?
CHALMERS:
Yeah, there are a series of difficult decisions in the Budget. We want to get through this visa backlog.
HENDERSON:
I mean, many mortgage holders around the country will be hoping you can answer the following question; how many interest rate rises have you priced in to your forecasts?
CHALMERS:
Well, the Budget now assumes that we are at the peak. So, 3.85 per cent at the moment was what we assumed in the October Budget it would be by the time of the May Budget. We actually take an average of market economists to make that assessment. It's not me making a judgement on interest rates or even the Treasury Secretary. It's an average of the market. The market expects that we are at or near the peak. It remains to be seen whether that's the case.
HENDERSON:
Treasurer, we thank you very much for your time.
CHALMERS:
Thanks for your time.