LISA MILLAR:
Treasurer Jim Chalmers joins us now from Parliament House in Canberra. Good morning, Treasurer, welcome to News Breakfast.
JIM CHALMERS:
Thanks for having me back, Lisa.
MILLAR:
We've seen a bit of what's in this report, but today you actually release it in its entirety. What are going to be some of the markers that people see there other than the big headline news that we've already seen?
CHALMERS:
Well, Lisa, I hope that people will tune in at 12.30 on the ABC. I will release the full Intergenerational Report, but not just talk about what we're expecting to see in our economy and our society over the next 40 years, but also how the government is trying to maximise the opportunities that come from that. And it's really built on five big changes: the shift over time from hydrocarbons to renewables, from information technology to artificial intelligence, from globalisation to fragmentation, from younger to older populations, as you said, and also what that means for the composition of our industrial base as we become more reliant on the care and support economy. And so, it details those five big changes that we're expecting to see in our economy and our society in the years ahead, and then in the speech at the Press Club, I'll talk about the various ways that we are trying to make all of this change work for Australians and not against them.
MILLAR:
Yes. Well, Angus Taylor was on the program a little while ago, the Shadow Treasurer, saying that what it means is higher taxes. Does it mean higher taxes?
CHALMERS:
He's only got one speed, hasn't he? What we're talking about in the Intergenerational Report is getting the budget in much better nick after the fiscal carnage that we saw over the course of the wasted decade. In lots of ways we're cleaning up the mess that we inherited from our predecessors, including in the budget. And what Katy Gallagher and I have been able to show over the first two budgets, over the first 15 months of this government, is we've been able to get the budget in much better nick ‑ a combination of meaningful tax reform combined with spending restraint and finding $40 billion of savings already. So, we've made some really welcome progress when it comes to getting the budget in better nick, to face the uncertainties of the future from a more robust position, but there will always be more work to do and we've said that before.
MILLAR:
One of the big things coming out of the report is the need for greater productivity and a concern that the economy is going to be sluggish, that productivity is going to be sluggish. Last night the Prime Minister was making a pitch to business, as it's been reported this morning. Now, business wants changes to corporation tax. I know you were on 7.30 last night saying that's not on your books at the moment. But isn't this the time, with this report coming out, for a broader conversation about tax reform?
CHALMERS:
Well, I think it's time for a broader conversation about productivity, and one of the things that has troubled me for some time now is we've got this national conversation about productivity which is artificially limited to industrial relations and to tax. Obviously those two things are important, but we will get productivity gains into the future if we invest in our people and our industries and the ability to adapt and adopt technology and to clean energy transformation. These are the ways that we can get our sluggish productivity performance turned around over time. The productivity challenge has changed in the last 30 or 40 years, and the way that we deal with it, and the way we maximise the opportunities in the future economy has changed as well. And you'll hear a lot today about how we make our economy more productive, more dynamic, more competitive, so that it can create more opportunities for people and lift living standards. It's a big, big focus, not just of the Intergenerational Report, but of the government's economic plan more broadly.
MILLAR:
Just listening to you there, I feel like there's a different language being used between what you're saying and the government's saying, and what business is looking for. You say that IR and tax are important but there are other things going on. Well, business says, without that being pro‑business, more pro‑business, they're not going to be able to do what's required of them to improve productivity. Are you on a collision course with business here?
CHALMERS:
No, I don't see it that way, and the reason I don't is because a big objective of our industrial relations changes is to get more and better agreements so that we can get more win wins. We want our workplaces and we want our economy more broadly to be more productive, we want people to get job security and decent wages growth, which has been missing for too long, and in order to do that we've got to make sure that our industrial relations settings are right, we've got to make sure that the tax settings are right. But one of the things I've been really encouraged about, and I was there when Anthony Albanese gave his speech to the captains of industry last night, is that there is so much more common ground than things that we disagree on. The whole skills agenda and training and universities, the whole agenda around infrastructure and housing, the energy transformation, adapting and adopting technology. There are large swathes of our agenda where we are working very, very closely, not just with the business community, but also with the union movement, the community more broadly, because ‑ and Anthony Albanese sets the tone here ‑ we think we do get more achieved when we work together rather than work at cross purposes, and we are working together really right across those areas of our productivity agenda.
MILLAR:
I just want to ask you about one other thing, because watching your interview last night on 7.30 with Sarah Ferguson, they had done a very big piece on the decision not to allow Qatar Airlines to increase their flights into Australia. You again used the language that your colleague Catherine King had used, which was "It was in the national interest." What is the national interest?
CHALMERS:
Well, these agreements aren't commercial agreements, they're agreements between countries. It's a bilateral arrangement that countries strike with each other and the Transport Minister, in this case Catherine King, is asked to make these sorts of judgments from time to time, and asked to judge what is against the national interest. And in her view, in the government's view, the proposal before us wasn't maximising the national interest. That's as I understand it.
MILLAR:
But don't Australians have a right to know about this? I mean, has the government been transparent? Because we're the ones paying these high prices for flights, so there is an interest from Australians about what's going on with these decisions in the national interest.
CHALMERS:
Of course. No, I understand that. Two things about that ‑ first of all ‑ well, three things about that: first of all, we try and make the right decisions for the right reasons; secondly, one of the reasons why Andrew Leigh and I have got this Competition Review under way and Catherine King's got the Aviation White Paper process under way is because we want to make the economy more competitive. And lastly, there's been this misperception, I think, out there, that we are missing out on additional flight routes here. What we're actually seeing, I think ‑ Cathay Pacific, Qantas, I think maybe Emirates, or one of the other airlines ‑ we are seeing additional capacity come in and more options for more people, and that's a good thing.
MILLAR:
All right, Jim Chalmers, thanks for joining us this morning.
CHALMERS:
Thanks, Lisa.