CHRIS SMITH, HOST:
It's a big day for the federal government, we're going to have three different Prime Ministers in less than 24 hours. Anthony Albanese earlier this morning has taken off to Fiji a short time ago. Normally you'd have Richard Marles filling the job but he's in Washington DC. Then Penny Wong is the next one in line but she's in Fiji. So that leaves Treasurer Jim Chalmers who is now Acting Prime Minister as of a few minutes ago. Acting Prime Minister Jim Chalmers, welcome to the program.
JIM CHALMERS, TREASURER:
Chris it's very good of you to have a Queenslander on your show on Origin day.
SMITH:
Thank you very much for the interview. It's good to have you on the show. Come on I bet you're wearing maroon are you?
CHALMERS:
I've got the maroon tie on already which is pretty standard on Origin day here. I think the kids even get to wear maroon to school today. Their uniform is normally blue so we take it pretty seriously here as you know.
SMITH:
Seriously, Cam Munster not in the team. New South Wales have to be favourite?
CHALMERS:
Well, they’re definitely favourites no doubt about that. But I think throughout the history of Origin, what we've shown is when people write us off we often perform at our best at Origin level and I think most people expect New South Wales to win tonight but I think that we always save something special for nights like this.
SMITH:
Don't do it to us. I don't want to come to work in the morning if it happens. Alright, let's get down to business, cost of living. You've been Treasurer for about seven weeks now. Inflation is getting worse. People are struggling. I keep getting calls on the open line with anecdotal stories about how much of a struggle it is. How long is it going to go on for and what's your plan?
CHALMERS:
Well, first in terms of the size of this challenge it is immense. We do have a big cost of living challenge and that's no news to all of your listeners who feel it every day. They see it in every aisle of every supermarket. Cost of living, particularly the essential costs of living, are going through the roof and we understand that. Unfortunately, there's no sugar‑coating this, it will get a little bit worse before it gets better but it will get better. We expect many of these costs to come down quite substantially next year. But we know that people need relief now. So there's some relief in the system. People are getting those low and middle income tax offset refunds from their tax. Not that long ago pensioners and people on payments got a little bit of relief. There's still a couple more months of petrol price relief in the system.
SMITH:
Why won't you increase the cut to the fuel excise? Why are you being so stingy on this one? Why couldn't you increase it for a couple more months beyond September?
CHALMERS:
It really is the cost Chris and I don't want to pretend that we can extend all these programs. All these programs have been welcomed, they've given people a little bit of relief and they've been welcome, and that's why we supported them but they always had an end date. We don't want to pretend to your listeners that we can extend them forever. Just to give people a sense of it -
SMITH:
But we're not talking forever. You could extend it to the end of the year, could you not?
CHALMERS:
Just to give people a sense of the cost of it, for every six months it costs about $3 billion dollars. So that's about half a billion dollars per month. That's not a small amount of money. The reality is, and again being upfront with people is that the Budget is heaving with debt. There's not room in that Budget for even good ideas or welcome ideas or things that people would like us to do. So what we'll do in the Budget in October, is we will provide cost of living relief in areas like medicine costs, which I know a lot of your listeners will be battling with. Also childcare costs for people with young families in particular, we will provide some of that cost of living relief but we're not going to pretend to people that we can fund every good idea that people have when the reality is we just can't.
SMITH:
What about allowing pensioners to work a bit longer without restricting what they can earn. I know Peter Dutton is right into this. The Coalition weren't into this, neither was Josh Frydenberg and the previous government, but New Zealand does it and they find that it actually pays them back.
CHALMERS:
We have been having a look at this Chris. We started having a look before the election and we've done a little bit of work since the election. I hope it's one of the issues that comes up at this Jobs and Skills Summit that we're hosting in a few weeks’ time.
SMITH:
So there's a possibility?
CHALMERS:
There's a possibility but again, programs of this type they seem like they would be relatively inexpensive. But what happens is you have to count not just the people who are on pensions who might work a bit more, but the people who are currently working and not able to get a pension able to then go on to the pension. So there is actually a cost associated with it, which not everybody recognises but we've had some good conversations with the relevant groups, seniors groups who are campaigning for this change. What I tried to do when Peter Dutton came out and made the suggestion, I pointed out that they had a decade to do it and didn't do it. But I also said, if ideas are put to us, we'll consider them in good faith but again, it doesn't come without a cost. That's a pretty substantial constraint that we have on us. Right now pensioners can earn up to $480 before their pension is touched, that's part of what people are proposing here and obviously there'll be discussion about going further.
SMITH:
It would be one way to fill what is a gap in workplace positions at the moment, we need staff. I hear a lot of business people tell me we're at full employment, that's probably fairly close to the truth, full employment because we can't fill positions and yet we've got 850,000 Australians on JobSeeker. Are we making JobSeeker too easy to reach?
CHALMERS:
I don't know that that is the problem Chris, but I think your diagnosis of the skill shortages and the labour shortage in the economy is bang on. This is a huge challenge that we have. This is this is the biggest reason why we're having this Summit at the beginning of September because everybody's got an interest whether you're an employee, an employer, a union, a business peak group, or a community group. What we want to do is to make sure that everybody who wants a good well paid job can get one and every business that needs a good worker, can get one as well. This is the big economic challenge before us. It's part of the reason why we've got this inflation because there's all this pressure on the supply chains around the country, people can't find workers to get the goods moving. So this is what we want to focus on. There's so much common ground here Chris. So often in politics, we focus on the things that we don't agree on. But what I've noticed - and I consult around the clock - for the seven weeks I've been in this job and well before that as well is there's a real appetite to get our heads together to try and solve this problem. We do have labour shortages. We do have skill shortages. There's a whole range of reasons for that. There's a whole range of things to do about it. Training is a big part of it. Childcare reform, so young parents can get back to work if they want to. Considering some of the other issues that you put to me today. Migration is part of the story. All of these pieces need to be put together because if we don't solve these big challenge we will have these labour shortages as the economy recovers. That will put pressure on businesses and on supply chains and on our grocery aisles and all of the rest of it.
SMITH:
Okay, let's point to gaps in the workplace in the market. You've got almost a year or more line‑up of people wanting to get their visas approved. Can you not kick a senior public servant in the backside today and say this has got to be reduced? Anthony Albanese mentioned this yesterday I think it was.
CHALMERS:
This is this is a big focus for us. We have been doing a heap of work behind the scenes. It is a big problem that we need to address. There's a huge backlog here. It's frustrating people but it's also got broader economic consequences to getting this pipeline sorted. I know that my colleagues who work in this area - Clare O'Neil, Andrew Giles and others - have been spending a lot of their time trying to fix this problem. Anthony Albanese, myself and others have been involved. We recognise it's a big challenge and we're doing our best to fix it.
SMITH:
Two quick ones. We gave $50 million to Sri Lanka two weeks ago. Do we know where that money went? Given the fact that I saw the Prime Minister leaving the country with a very large suitcase?
CHALMERS:
Well, Chris, as you as you would expect, we need help around the world to make sure that we're managing our borders well. There's a lot of countries in our region who are having a tough time so that means where we can responsibly provide some assistance, then we will do that.
SMITH:
What about the Greens they're threatening to block legislation if you don't bow to their demands? They have the balance of power in the Senate. This is one of the biggest problems you have, isn't it?
CHALMERS:
The Senate is always a challenge. So yes, it will be a challenge. We hope that they learned the lesson from the last time they got in the way of sensible, responsible action on cleaner and cheaper energy. We hope that they've learned that lesson. It would be disappointing if they haven't, but I think inevitably, a government of any political persuasion has to deal with the Senate. We genuinely want to work with people, not just parties from the crossbench but in the broader Australian community as well. We've got a big agenda when it comes to the economy and in other areas, and that means working with people and I think we're temperamentally suited to that from Anthony Albanese right down. There's an appetite in the community and in the government to see what we can achieve together and that applies to the Parliament too.
SMITH:
Too bad Adam Bandt is a nutcase. But anyway, that's just a side issue. I appreciate your time this morning, all the very best with the balls that you're juggling, and hopefully we can speak again.
CHALMERS:
Appreciate your time, Chris. All the best.