CHARLES CROUCHER:
Treasurer, welcome.
JIM CHALMERS:
Thanks very much, Charles.
CROUCHER:
You’ve called it a Budget for all Australians. Everyone gets a tax cut. Everyone gets a rebate on their power. How do we afford it?
CHALMERS:
Well, it’s an important but responsible way to deliver some substantial cost‑of‑living relief. You know, we’ve found a way to help people with these cost‑of‑living pressures that are being felt right around the country and up and down the income scale. But we found a responsible way to do that, and that’s by combining a tax cut for every taxpayer, energy bill relief for every household, and then some targeted measures too: some rent help for almost a million renters, cheaper medicines, and some other measures as well. We’ve done that in a substantial way, but in a responsible way as well.
CROUCHER:
And part of that, I would imagine, is to, seemingly artificially, put pressure on the Reserve Bank to lower interest rates, because you are bringing down what will be the CPI, what is inflation, firstly, does the Reserve Bank buy that?
CHALMERS:
Well, you have to ask the Reserve Bank, but our intention here, our objective, and I think we will be successful, is to put downward pressure on inflation with this Budget, the way we’ve designed our cost‑of‑living help will do that, particularly when it comes to energy and rent relief, but also the responsible approach that we’ve taken, a second surplus, the first back-to-back surpluses in almost 2 decades, the spending restraint that we’ve shown, the savings that we found elsewhere in the Budget. So, we found a meaningful and substantial way to help people with the cost of living. We’re putting downward pressure on inflation at the same time as we invest in the future.
CROUCHER:
You spoke about the restraint and the downward pressure, and I’m sure everyone at home appreciates the $300 off their power bill, as would Gina Rinehart, as would Malcolm Turnbull. The question is, does that now become baked in? Because if that puts pressure, downward pressure on inflation when it returns, it would put upwards pressure on inflation. Is this just another yearly bill that whoever’s in your chair will have to have for years to come?
CHALMERS:
That’ll be a matter for treasurers to determine in future budgets what kind of help that they provide. But this is, in this Budget, a one‑year rebate, $300 for every household to help them with their energy bills. We know that people are under pressure. That’s why more help is on the way and energy bill relief is an important way to do that.
CROUCHER:
The reason I ask that is because, if that is baked in moving forward, that is more money that a treasurer is going to have to spend when we’re looking at going through a trillion dollars in gross debt in the next 18 months to 2 years. By 2027, 2028, our yearly interest payment is $26 billion. That’s $71 million per day, or roughly in the time we’ve asked this question, about $25,000. How do we pay for that?
CHALMERS:
This is why it’s so important that we’ve made such stunning progress in repairing the Budget that we inherited from our predecessors. It is true that the Budget is set to breach a trillion dollars, but it was supposed to have already breached that this year. Instead, it’s around $900 billion, which is still more than we would like. But about $150 billion improvement in the debt level in one year is saving us, over the next 10 years, about $80 billion in interest repayments. This is a really important reason why we’re cleaning up the mess that we inherited in the Budget, so that we can get those interest payments down, so we can get debt down. And what you see in the Budget is a really substantial improvement in the debt profile.
CROUCHER:
And a new direction, which is what is clearly needed if that’s the kind of payments we’ve got coming. Tell us about this Future Made in Australia, where will the money go? What does it mean to someone sitting at home? Because $23 billion is a big investment, but this is a big change of direction.
CHALMERS:
The best way for your viewers to understand it is the Budget is about near‑term pressures that they are experiencing, helping them with that and longer term priorities. And one of our long‑term priorities, in addition to strengthening Medicare and building more homes and making sure our skills base is ready for the future, is making sure that we are investing in the sorts of industries which will create the good, secure, well‑paid jobs into the future, not just in the cities, not just in the suburbs, but in the regions as well. And that’s what a Future Made in Australia is all about. It’s about the economic and industrial opportunities from this big energy transformation that’s underway in the global economy, and that’s why we’re making these investments.
CROUCHER:
Are you confident we’ve got the settings right here? Because getting it wrong, given all those parameters, is really high risk.
CHALMERS:
We’ve put a lot of work into it. We’ve done a lot of consultation, we’ve considered it from every angle. And this investment that we’re making will only be a sliver of the private investment that we need to see in the transformation.
CROUCHER:
And is that money there? Because there’s lots of competing factors – the US has a trillion‑dollar programme, Canada, Japan.
CHALMERS:
Not every other country has our combination of advantages. Our energy base, our industrial base, our human capital, our resources, our attractiveness as an investment destination, we want to make the most of that. And so the investments that we’re making, primarily through tax credits for people that produce things like renewable hydrogen or add value to our critical minerals, these are the sorts of things where we want to use some public money to incentivise and attract private investment.
CROUCHER:
Let’s talk people. How do you get people that have been in the workforce for a decade, 2 decades, have seen their industries change, on board with this new plan? I know there’s training involved, but it’s a big, complex system. Are you confident you can do it?
CHALMERS:
I am, and there is some substantial training money in the Budget to make that a reality, with an emphasis on construction workers, clean energy workers and manufacturing workers, plus a big investment in the care economy. We know how the global economy is evolving. We know what Australia’s place in that, I think an indispensable place in that. But it only works for us if we find a role for our people, training people for these opportunities, making it easier for people to adapt and adopt technology in a modern economy. This is in lots of ways our reason for being, to help people through tough times, but also have a vision for the future with people front and centre.
CROUCHER:
On Sunday you told me things get easier from tonight. Have they?
CHALMERS:
Well, certainly people will find it a little bit easier to pay their energy bills, a little bit easier to pay their rent. A tax cut for every taxpayer and some other help as well. You know, we know people are doing it tough. We know people are under the pump. More help is on the way. We are proud of the way that we’ve found room in this Budget to help people with the cost‑of‑living at the same time as we invest in the future.
CROUCHER:
We’ll wait for their verdict and that of the Reserve Bank with interest rates as well. Thank you, Treasurer.
CHALMERS:
Thanks so much, Charles.