PATRICIA KARVELAS:
Jim Chalmers is the Treasurer. He joined me a short time ago. Treasurer, welcome back to the program.
JIM CHALMERS:
Thanks very much, Patricia.
KARVELAS:
Treasurer, what did you make when you read those incredibly serious allegations about the CFMEU’s links to organised crime?
CHALMERS:
Well, I thought it was completely unacceptable. And I think a lot of great work has been done by those journalists involved in uncovering what are completely abhorrent and unacceptable activities within that part of that union.
My experience of trade unions is that they are overwhelmingly a force for good in our society and in our economy and trade union leaders are overwhelmingly good and decent people with their members first and foremost in their minds but you can’t say either of those things about John Setka and the CFMEU and so I think it’s appropriate that the Industrial Relations Minister Tony Burke as he told you yesterday on Insiders is examining all of his options.
KARVELAS:
He is examining all of his options. Deregistration is on the agenda. The BLF was deregistered – the Builders Labourers Federation – in the eighties by Bob Hawke. Do you think that is something that should be explored?
CHALMERS:
It’s something that is being explored and that’s because the government condemns in the strongest possible terms the kind of conduct that has been uncovered here. So I think it’s right and appropriate that Tony as Industrial Relations Minister has all options on the table and will take whatever steps is necessary.
KARVELAS:
Construction is key for the government’s target of 1.2 million homes over the next 5 years. CFMEU pay deals in New South Wales and Queensland are impacting the cost of some apartment builds. Are you worried about that? Can you intervene?
CHALMERS:
We want to make sure that builders and construction workers are paid properly. Of course we do. We want to make sure that we get these homes built. We want to make sure we’re training the people to build these homes, they’re being paid appropriately and we can build the homes that our communities desperately need. And so this is one part of it – training the workforce that we need, but also making the right investments at the Commonwealth level, getting the planning arrangements right at the state level. If all of us do our bit, we can build these 1.2 million homes over the next 5 years. It’s ambitious but it’s achievable if everybody plays their part.
KARVELAS:
Yeah, but I asked you with respect to the CFMEU’s role in this – are you worried and are we getting value for taxpayers’ dollars?
CHALMERS:
Clearly we need to clean up the CFMEU I mean, that is abundantly clear from these abhorrent revelations that we’ve seen in the last few days and I think the Industrial Relations Minister, his response has been appropriately tough in saying that we will consider all of the options. This is one of the issues in the construction sector. The construction pipeline is not what we need it to be. But it’s not the only issue there and that’s why I’m saying we need to all do our bit. For me that means investing $32 billion in housing. The states need to do their bit. This is part of it but not all of it.
KARVELAS:
I just want to raise with you the donations that the Labor Party receives from the CFMEU. Ahead of the 2022 election alone the CFMEU donated nearly $2 million. Given what we have learnt through this investigation and the Nine papers and 60 Minutes in relation to the CFMEU, are you really comfortable with the union continuing to give your party that support?
CHALMERS:
Well, I think as Tony made it clear yesterday and I’m happy to repeat today, these are appropriately matters for the party organisation. There are good reasons why ministers don’t get involved in that kind of thing. We want to make sure that our focus is where it should be right now, which is cleaning up this activity which was uncovered and revealed in these reports over the last couple of days.
KARVELAS:
Treasurer, it’s the parliamentary winter break. You’re out selling the stage 3 tax cuts and budget measures. But energy and particularly gas prices are continuing to rise. Are you prepared to look at more support?
CHALMERS:
Well, first of all, I mean, we’ll know a bit more about the inflation outlook when we get the quarterly CPI for June. We’ll get it later this month and we expect the big drivers there will be petrol and rent and insurance and that’s partly some international influences and partly some domestic influences. The oil price is up about 10 per cent since this time last year. Global freight costs I think have more than tripled since November and so that is a reminder of some of these pressures on inflation.
Our focus when it comes to cost‑of‑living relief is rolling out these tax cuts for every taxpayer and energy bill relief for every household. Around 9 million Australians have already got their tax cut and another 2 million will get theirs in the next fortnight including about 750,000 Australians will get their tax cut today. So my advice to your listeners, PK, is to check your payslip and see how much you’ll benefit. Obviously in future budgets we will consider if more can and should be done and we’ll do that in the usual way.
KARVELAS:
Treasurer, just finally before I let you go, I mean, I have to talk to you about the biggest story in the world and just get a sense from you about what was your reaction when you saw what was unfolding in the United States where Donald Trump had obviously an assassination attempt on his life? What are your reflections on how – what this means for democracy?
CHALMERS:
Well, it was a bit surreal for me, Patricia, because I was live on TV when these events were unfolding and I was talking with one of your counterparts, Kieran Gilbert, and we weren’t sure in real time that there had been a shooter, that there had been an assassination attempt but it became very clear obviously in the aftermath of that interview just how serious this assassination attempt was. And we’re relieved that former president Trump is okay. Our hearts go out to the family of the man whose life was lost in the crowd.
But you asked for my reflections, and I think this was an extraordinary moment and it goes beyond the events at the scene and unfortunately it will persist after the scene has been cleared. It’s about what happened yesterday in Pennsylvania and it’s about January 6, but it goes beyond that as well. And I think a lot of people around the world are worried about how ugly and dangerous politics has become, and I share those concerns. The democratic world needs to step back from the normalisation of extremism in politics. Democracy is supposed to help moderate and mend our differences, not magnify and horrify them.
KARVELAS:
Anthony Albanese has warned that these things can escalate in even our local protests that we’ve seen. Obviously protesting is very different to what we saw here, and I want to make that distinction because it’s an important one. But are you worried that there is a sort of spectrum and that things can escalate and that we shouldn’t just see this as a distant phenomena but actually there are risks at home?
CHALMERS:
The Prime Minister would make that distinction too. There is a role, obviously, for peaceful protests. And looking for consensus in our country doesn’t always mean looking for unanimity – there’ll always be a range of views but I think if you look around the world and you look around the democratic world I think you can see that politics has been getting uglier, more violent, more polarised in extreme ways and these are very troubling developments and so we’ve got a big choice to make as democratic societies – we’ve got an opportunity here to step back from the normalisation of that violence to make sure that we disagree in civil ways and not in violent ways and that we settle our differences with votes, not violence.
KARVELAS:
Treasurer, thank you for your time.
CHALMERS:
Thanks, Patricia.