JAYNE AZZOPARDI:
Let's bring in Treasurer Jim Chalmers, who joins us from Canberra. Good morning to you Treasurer. Things are already bad enough in Australian households right now, are you and this report telling us it's about to get a whole lot worse?
JIM CHALMERS:
Good morning, Jayne and Karl. Look, what the government is doing is maintaining a primary focus on the cost‑of‑living pressures that people are under right now, at the same time as we try and work out ‑ how is our economy and our society changing and how do we make Australians the major beneficiaries of that change rather than victims of that change. And what people will see in the Intergenerational Report that I release later today is our population is living longer and healthier lives in the coming decades. We've got pressures from climate change, we've got pressures on the Budget and the reason we release reports like this at the same time as we maintain that focus on the pressure that people are under right now, is because the sorts of decisions that we take in the 2020s will go a long way to determining whether our country prospers in the future or not.
AZZOPARDI:
So are you going to take those tough decisions though, are you going to raise taxes or cut spending so that households can get a break?
CHALMERS:
Well, we've shown a willingness over the first two Budgets. We've only been here for 15 months but in our first two Budgets, we found $40 billion worth of savings, we turned a $78 billion deficit into a $20 billion surplus, and we showed spending restraint in order to do that. So we're getting the Budget in much better nick, and we're not doing that for its own sake, we're doing that so that we can afford the services that Australians will increasingly need and that Australians deserve. Whether it's health care, aged care, the NDIS, spending on national security, all of these things are putting pressure on the Budget. And what we need to do now what we are doing now is getting the Budget in much better nick so that we can afford to provide those kinds of services that people need.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Treasurer, you're also saying at the same time ‑ or at least the PM is saying this morning ‑ that the government can't deliver its climate and economic agenda without support from business ‑ that's an about‑turn.
CHALMERS:
I don't think that's an especially controversial point, Karl, because we've always said, really, from opposition and now in government, that our preference is to work together with business, with the union movement, with others, with communities, to try and achieve our economic objectives and to try and deliver our ‑
STEFANOVIC:
How's IR legislation going with business right now?
CHALMERS:
We're consulting with business and we never pretend that there's a unanimous view in the broader community about the changes that we want to see. I meet with senior business leaders on an almost daily basis, we talk about industrial relations, but we also talk about skills. We talk about infrastructure and housing, we talk about this energy transformation. And we've been clear since day one ‑ and it's a tribute to Prime Minister Albanese that he would rather get things done by working together. That gives us the best chance not just of managing the challenges that are coming at us, in our economy and our society, but also maximising those opportunities.
STEFANOVIC:
Treasurer, what I'm saying is you can't jam business on IR and then wave the white flag and say, 'I need your help to get everything done.'
CHALMERS:
Well, I obviously don't agree with either of those descriptions, Karl, of either of those agendas. What we want to do is we want to make sure that people have got secure jobs and decent pay, we've been up‑front about that for some years ‑ it's really, in lots of ways, our reason for being. People do have different views about how we achieve that and that's fine. We engage with people in a respectful and a meaningful way. And when it comes to the energy transformation, one of the reasons why we've got this vast industrial opportunity of cleaner and cheaper energy and dealing with climate change, is because business and particularly the investment community that I spend a lot of time with, they are enthusiastic about this energy transformation ‑ as is the government ‑ and we want to work with them.
AZZOPARDI:
How much stock can we take in this report, Treasurer? Because previous intergenerational reports have got their predictions wildly wrong. Is there any point in doing this when people just want you to fix their household budgets now?
CHALMERS:
First of all, Jayne, our primary focus, the major focus of the government is rolling out billions of dollars in cost‑of‑living relief over the course of the coming months, because we do recognise that people are doing it especially tough in the here and now. But good governments are capable of doing that at the same time as we work out how to maximise the opportunities of the future. And of course, with any forecasting that goes out a number of decades, you are doing your best to give people a sense of how we expect our economy and our society to evolve and that's fine too. The business community does that as well. But really what we're seeing and what is uncontested, I think, is a move around the world from hydrocarbons to renewables, from information technology to artificial intelligence. The globalisation is giving way to fragmentation, our populations are ageing, and that changes our industrial base, including this emphasis on the care and support economy. So those trends are pretty clear and that's what you'll see in the Intergenerational Report.
STEFANOVIC:
Intergenerational Report ‑ I can't help but think people won't be a little bit distracted by the bills they have to pay in regards to power, shopping and their mortgage. But anyway, it's over to you to explain a little bit later, Jim. Thanks so much.