PATRICIA KARVELAS:
They say numbers don’t lie, and the latest economic figures will probably confirm what everyone’s feeling, that while inflation is slowly slowing and wages are slowly rising, households are still in a world of pain and living standards aren’t getting better. But the outlook doesn’t necessarily signal faster relief from the Reserve Bank. So what’s left to do? Jim Chalmers is the federal Treasurer, and he joins me on Radio National Breakfast. Treasurer, welcome.
JIM CHALMERS:
Thanks very much, Patricia.
KARVELAS:
A sad economy without much hope, that’s the description of EY’s Chief Economist. Is it accurate, a sad economy? Not a lot of hope?
CHALMERS:
I don’t think so. I don’t share the bleakest of those assessments of the National Accounts which came out yesterday, but I do acknowledge that the economy is very weak and people are under a lot of pressure, and if you look at those quite difficult set of figures that were released yesterday, there were some encouraging elements, and the most encouraging element goes to incomes, which you introduced a moment ago.
When you look at the National Accounts you can see that wages are growing, inflation’s coming down and the tax cuts are playing a helpful and meaningful role as well. For all of those 3 reasons, what we saw yesterday was the main measure of living standards actually ticked up a little bit. It was falling badly when we came to office, we’ve been working very hard to turn that around, and the fact that that is slowly turning around is one of the encouraging elements of the National Accounts, in addition to some other encouraging elements which go to business investment and investment in housing.
KARVELAS:
This is the seventh straight quarterly decline in the GDP per person, so per person this is not a great result. Do you understand why people feel so frustrated at the government at the moment?
CHALMERS:
I do and I acknowledge every time I’m asked about the pressures that people are under, I acknowledge that those pressures are substantial, and that’s the whole reason why we’ve been rolling out this cost‑of‑living help in the most responsible way we can, because we know that people are doing it tough.
When you get numbers like these, as we got yesterday, and as we’ve got for most of the year, which show that the economy is weak and households and people are under pressure, you’ve got a choice to make, and the choice that we made was to help people with the cost of living, to fight inflation, to get the budget in better nick.
Our opponents wanted to make a different choice, and if our opponents had had their way Australia would be in recession, and Australians would be under even more pressure than what we’re seeing in the community right now.
KARVELAS:
So that’s going to be, it sounds to me, like your line as we go into this period where we are closer and closer to an election by May next year, you’re going to say you would have been in a recession. But given households feel like they already are, will it work?
CHALMERS:
I’m not interested in the politics of it, Patricia.
KARVELAS:
Well, you are a little bit.
CHALMERS:
I’m interested in the economics of it, and it’s not a line, it’s a fact. We know that the Coalition is a risk to the economy and a risk to household budgets, because we know their record. They didn’t support the cost‑of‑living help, that’s a fact. They came after Medicare and wages last time they were in office, that was also a fact. They got $315 billion in secret cuts they won’t tell us about, another fact.
If the Coalition had their way, the economy would be going backwards, people would be under more pressure, and the reason I raised that is because these economic decisions have real consequences for people, and what we have been doing in the 2 and a half years that we’re in office is not just acknowledging that people are under pressure and the economy is weak, but rolling out cost‑of‑living help, tax cuts and in other ways, getting the budget in much better nick, fighting inflation.
As we saw in the National Accounts, inflation is coming down, wages are going up and the tax cuts are playing a helpful and meaningful role in household budgets.
All of 3 of those things are good things, but we acknowledge more broadly, particularly when it comes to growth, that the economy is weaker than what many economists were anticipating. We saw that in the National Accounts as well. They were a difficult set of National Accounts. There were some encouraging elements, but overall the economy is softer than we want it to be, people are under more pressure, and that’s why we’re working around the clock to try to ease some of that pressure where we can do that in a responsible way.
KARVELAS:
You’ve previously said that you think the economy is being smashed. Do you think that the RBA has now completely smashed the economy?
CHALMERS:
You know that I don’t second guess the decisions taken by the independent Reserve Bank.
That commentary that I’ve made in the past on a number of occasions just reflects the reality that the economy is being buffeted by a combination of 3 things: higher interest rates, cost‑of‑living pressures and global economic uncertainty. I don’t think that’s necessarily a contentious point to make, I think it’s obvious.
When you look at the impact of rate rises, for example, in yesterday’s National Accounts, we see it in mortgage costs, but we see it as well in the fact that people’s discretionary spending has been going backwards. It is one of the very substantial pressures that people are under, not the only one, and that’s just a factual point, to point that out.
KARVELAS:
Okay. So the economy like is smashed now though. Does that mean we need a rate cut in February?
CHALMERS:
I feel like we’ve done some version of this dance, Patricia.
KARVELAS:
Well, we’ve done a version of this in all of these conversations, because that’s the thing about economic trends, right, this has been going for a while, so what does it mean?
CHALMERS:
I would say about that that the Reserve Bank when it meets will weigh up all of this data, as they usually do, they’ll come to a decision independently, they’ll do that without me pre‑empting or second guessing –
KARVELAS:
Okay, but can households afford –
CHALMERS:
– their considerations.
KARVELAS:
– to wait?
CHALMERS:
I’m focusing on my part of the job. My part of the job is rolling out these tax cuts which are playing a helpful and meaningful role, rolling out this cost‑of‑living help, being helpful when it comes to inflation, and inflation has come off really quite considerably in our time in office. It peaked in the year we were elected at 7.8, in the latest quarterly numbers it was 2.8, so inflation’s coming down and we’re very focused on that, and as the Reserve Bank Governor has said, our surpluses are helping in the fight against inflation, our cost‑of‑living help is part of the story here as well.
That’s my job, I’m focused on that, the Reserve Bank will conduct its conversations and considerations in the usual way free of any commentary from me.
KARVELAS:
You’ve said you expect public sector supports would not be a permanent feature of the Australian economy going forward. What do you mean by that, which supports?
CHALMERS:
One of the elements of yesterday’s National Accounts, which people understandably focused on, was the fact that public final demand, which is the measure of government spending, is one of the reasons why the economy continues to grow rather than fall backwards.
The point that I made yesterday, and that I’ve made on other occasions, is that public spending’s playing a helpful role here in keeping the place ticking over, but the best kind of growth in the medium term in normal times is private sector‑led, and again, I think that’s a pretty common view that people hold, certainly the view that I hold.
Cost‑of‑living help’s important, it’s playing a role, government investment’s helpful, playing a role, but ideally, when we get the place growing in a more normal way, in a more sustainable way, the private sector’s playing a bigger role.
That’s why yesterday’s numbers about business investment outside the mining sector were very encouraging. It’s why the numbers about housing investment were quite encouraging in yesterday’s National Accounts, because we want to see the place ticking over in a more normal way, and that means a big role for the private sector.
KARVELAS:
And what does that mean for MYEFO? I mean there’s obviously often measures in that update. Are you looking at specific measures that kind of motivate the private sector more?
CHALMERS:
We have been throughout. You think about our production tax credits in areas like critical minerals and green hydrogen, this is all about incentivising the private sector.
Our Future Made in Australia agenda is not about replacing private sector investment, it’s about incentivising it, attracting it, encouraging it.
Instant asset write‑offs for small business is about encouraging the private sector.
Much of what we have been doing has been about trying to recognise the crucial role played by the private sector in our economy, and where we can attract and incentivise more investment, we’ve been doing that.
We see some good –
KARVELAS:
I don’t mean to be rude, I’m just trying to get a sense of what we should expect from MYEFO. Are you going to put down some policy incentives in that MYEFO which kind of try and shift the dial here after these latest figures? Does it give you pause to go, ‘we need to go in and make this a better environment for business’?
CHALMERS:
Some of the measures I just ran through haven’t rolled out yet. We’re still rolling them out, so they are still prospective, and so it’s important to recognise that.
In the mid‑year Budget update people shouldn’t expect it to be some kind of mini budget. There will be some measures, and some initiatives accounted for in the mid‑year Budget update, but it will be largely an update of the Budget from May. We’ll update our forecast, there will be some new measures in there, but it won’t be a kind of a big spending new opportunity to announce a whole bunch of new stuff.
One of the features of the mid‑year budget update, one of the reasons why in a couple of the years the budget situation becomes a bit more difficult is because we have to account for automatic increases in spending in areas like Veterans’ Affairs, and Medicare and early childhood education, so the mid‑year budget update is really an opportunity to account for all of that.
KARVELAS:
Spending on the public service is up. You might argue that’s helping to keep the economy afloat, but with unemployment still quite low, that spending is also adding more to inflation, isn’t it?
CHALMERS:
I don’t think so. One of the reasons why I think it’s unfortunate that people want to pin the difficult environment to people who might work in the care economy or people who might be on minimum wages, is that what we’ve been able to do when it comes to wages for people on low and middle incomes is to see those wages grow at the same time as inflation’s been coming off very substantially.
From time to time you hear that people are worried about what’s called a wage price spiral, that if wages are growing too strongly, then inflation won’t come down. What we’ve managed in our economy is to see inflation come down very substantially and to get wages growing at the same time, that’s why real wages are growing again, and they were falling when we came to office.
Some of that investment in wages has been a very good thing. It’s helping people with the cost of living, and it’s getting wages growing again after a decade of wage stagnation. That’s part of the story.
Another part of the story, when it comes to that public final demand we were talking about before, is defence spending. I see Peter Dutton out there saying that public final demand is sugar‑coating the economy. The biggest part of the Commonwealth’s contribution to that in the quarter was defence spending. If he wants to hack that back, he should say why he wants to do that.
We’ve got to be very careful about some of this commentary about public spending. A lot of it is about the care economy, a lot of is about defence spending –
KARVELAS:
A lot of it but not all of it, right, there’s –
CHALMERS:
– a lot of it is about cost‑of‑living help –
KARVELAS:
There’s other stuff in there too –
CHALMERS:
– and all those things are important.
KARVELAS:
There’s other stuff in there too, it’s not all that.
CHALMERS:
I just acknowledged that.
KARVELAS:
Yep, yep.
CHALMERS:
Defence, care economy, the NDIS, cost‑of‑living help, these things are all very important at a time when the economy is especially soft, and people are under so much pressure.
KARVELAS:
If you’re just tuning in, it’s Radio National Breakfast, Thursday morning, and I’m talking to the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers.
Treasurer, crossbenchers have urged the government to raise the threshold for defining a small business in the Fair Work Act from 15 to 25 employees. Are you willing to do it given the strong pressures on small business at the moment?
CHALMERS:
It’s not something we’re looking to do in the near term, and obviously we listen respectfully to the suggestions that are put to us by the crossbench, usually good people making well‑considered contributions.
But we’ve got this review from the Fair Work Ombudsman looking at this particular issue, and as I understand it, if memory serves, the deadline for that consideration’s been pushed back to the middle of next year, so people shouldn’t expect any movement on that before then.
KARVELAS:
Okay. But you say not in the near term. Do you think there is merit to the argument?
CHALMERS:
Let’s see what the review says. We’ve given it to the Fair Work Ombudsman for a reason, and that’s because they have an opportunity to pore through all of the arguments.
It’s not something that we’ve been considering, partly because we’ve got this review underway. Let’s see what that review says and engage with the arguments that they make when we see them.
KARVELAS:
Are you working on a Budget to deliver in March? is that what you’re doing right now?
CHALMERS:
Yep. Almost exactly right now, Patricia.
KARVELAS:
Yeah?
CHALMERS:
We’ve got to get the mid‑year budget update out the door this month –
KARVELAS:
And then the March –
CHALMERS:
– and then we’re working on, more or less simultaneously, a March Budget at the same time.
KARVELAS:
So you do want to and plan to deliver a March Budget?
CHALMERS:
That’s the plan and we’ve been meeting the Expenditure Review Committee around the clock and doing all kinds of engagement with colleagues to try to put 2 things together more or less at once, the mid‑year budget update, and then before long after that, the Budget.
KARVELAS:
Is this Woolworths’ dispute going to be settled today? What role is the government playing?
CHALMERS:
The government has been engaging with both sides of it, Woolies and the relevant union, and we want to see it resolved as soon as possible. If not today, then as soon as possible. We want to see a speedy resolution, we want to see people engaging in good faith.
We know the Fair Work Commission’s involved now, so we encourage both sides of the argument to make full use of the services that are provided by the Fair Work Commission, and hopefully we can get this thing resolved ASAP.
KARVELAS:
Now I want to turn, if we can, to just a little bit of politics. Before you said, ‘I’m focused on the economics’. But you’re the Treasurer, you’re a man who understands the country, been in politics for a long time, and then before then a staffer, you understand that politics is pretty important here too.
So given all of that, you gave a pretty interesting speech where you talked about needing what you considered a second term and not wanting to lose that. Do you concede that there is a very real risk that you will lose government after just one term?
CHALMERS:
Of course that’s a possibility. We take no outcome of any election for granted, and people have got a choice to make. When we go to the people in the first half of next year, they can choose between a Labor government helping with the cost of living and managing the economy responsibly, or they can choose the kind of economic insanity of the Coalition, which would make people worse off and send our economy backwards.
The people have got an important choice to make, and we make no assumptions about the outcome, we take no outcome for granted. All of those possibilities are on the table, of course they are.
KARVELAS:
Okay. So if they’re on the table, there’s a pretty interesting piece that’s been written today by Niki Savva. She says if Anthony Albanese wins the next election to govern, either in a majority or minority, he should, after a decent interval retire so Labor can regenerate. Does Labor need to regenerate after that next election?
CHALMERS:
One of the things that we’ve shown a capacity to do is regenerate under the same leader and what we will do if we win a second term, if the people give us that privilege to continue working for them and with them, we’ll make sure that our policy agenda is keeping up with the big changes in the world and in our economy.
My expectation and my hope is if we do win the election next year that Anthony Albanese serves a full term and runs again. That’s what I would expect to happen, that’s what I would hope would happen.
KARVELAS:
Why should that happen?
CHALMERS:
The best version of that for me is to continue being the nation’s Treasurer.
KARVELAS:
Why should that happen though? Like what’s wrong with change?
CHALMERS:
One of the things that we’ll be taking to the Australian people is a sense of stability, a sense that we’ve got an economic plan, we’re rolling that out in difficult times, we’re helping people where we can, and that’s a tribute to Anthony’s leadership that we’ve been able to do that.
People should anticipate, I certainly anticipate and expect and hope that if we win the next election that Anthony will be around for as long as possible.
KARVELAS:
Are people better off than they were 3 years ago?
CHALMERS:
People are doing it tough, we acknowledge that, and when we came to office –
KARVELAS:
So do you concede they’re not better off than they were 3 years ago?
CHALMERS:
When we came to office people were already going very substantially backwards, their living standards, their real wages were going backwards, and we acknowledge that they’ve got a lot of ground to make up in their household budgets, and that’s been our focus.
That’s what the tax cuts, the energy bill rebates, the cheaper early childhood education, the cheaper medicine, the fee‑free TAFE, getting wages moving again, that’s what that’s been all about.
There were some encouraging elements of the National Accounts yesterday on that front, but we know that we’ve got much more work to do because people are still under very substantial pressure.
The question for people will be: are you going to be better off or worse off if the Coalition gets back in and comes after Medicare and comes after your wages again like they did last time, or will you be better off under a Labor government led by Anthony Albanese rolling out cost‑of‑living help and managing the economy responsibly?
That will be one of the big key choices at the election.
KARVELAS:
Jim Chalmers, we’re out of time. Thank you so much for joining me throughout my tenure on Breakfast over the last 3 years, but also on Radio National for the last 10 years, you’ve often joined me. We’ll meet again on Afternoon Briefing next year, I’m not leaving the ABC, but I just wanted to thank you for your generosity in the mornings, thank you so much.
CHALMERS:
Patricia, I know you’re in the home stretch now on Radio National Breakfast. By our count this is the 61st time that you and I have hung out on Radio National Breakfast. 61 times since you’ve been the host, and I’ve really appreciated the opportunity, just as I appreciate the opportunity today. All the best.
KARVELAS:
Thank you. That’s the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers. And of course, he’s done the stats on that, hasn’t he? That’s what they do, they’re Treasurers. You’re listening to ABC Radio National Breakfast.