PETER STEFANOVIC:
Treasurer, good to see you. Thanks for your time as always, this morning. So where are you expecting that figure to land today?
JIM CHALMERS:
Good morning, Pete. Look, we’ll see what those numbers say in a couple of hours’ time but the jobs market has been a real source of strength in our economy. In an economy which has been otherwise soft and when people are under pressure, it has been a source of strength that the Albanese Labor government has seen the creation of 820,000 jobs which is a record for a first‑term government of any political persuasion and we’ve had faster jobs growth than any major advanced economy. And so we’ve had that going our way, but the labour market has softened a little bit in recent months, that’s what happens when the economy slows as a consequence of these higher interest rates.
STEFANOVIC:
Yeah.
CHALMERS:
So we’ll see what those numbers say but it has been a source of strength. We have seen a labour market which has been pretty resilient over the course of the last couple of years.
STEFANOVIC:
You get a little whiplash watching it go up and down at the moment as you point out there. Now, if it does drop back to 4 per cent, what would be your read on that when we’re all told it’s only supposed to go up?
CHALMERS:
Sometimes these monthly numbers can bounce around a little bit and the unemployment rate is really important, but we also look at jobs created or lost, we look at the participation rate. There’s a whole range of things in the data today that we focus on and others focus on, including the Reserve Bank and others. But the overall story has been of a really resilient labour market, an economy which is soft, inflation which is moderating but we need it to moderate further and faster and so these are all of the sorts of conditions that the Budget was really carefully calibrated to respond to by providing cost‑of‑living help and fighting inflation and getting the budget in better nick without smashing the economy which is already soft.
STEFANOVIC:
Well, let’s get to the Opposition. Peter Dutton says he’ll raise the minimum age for our kids to access social media to 16 if he wins office, Treasurer. Will you do the same?
CHALMERS:
We support age limits for social media. Not just as a parent, I think every Australian is, frankly, terrified by the sorts of developments that we’re seeing on social media, particularly as it relates to Australian kids and so we are in favour of age limits for accessing social media but you’ve got to make sure that you’ve got the technology which can do that and that’s why we funded in the Budget the trial of some technology which is all about age verification. Having the restrictions is one thing but being able to actually implement and police that is another thing as well.
STEFANOVIC:
Yeah.
CHALMERS:
And so we’re doing the work because we support this. We want to see our kids safe online, and that’s what all of our work in this area is about.
STEFANOVIC:
So your limit is 16 too, is it?
CHALMERS:
Beg your pardon?
STEFANOVIC:
Is your age limit at 16? Is it the same as what Peter Dutton is proposing?
CHALMERS:
We’re working through it. We support age limits. We want to make sure we’ve got the right technology.
STEFANOVIC:
Yeah.
CHALMERS:
We’re working through that. That’s what the trial is all about.
STEFANOVIC:
Okay. Yeah but 16, is that your age limit, or would it be younger than that or older than that, or is that about right?
CHALMERS:
It’s the same answer I gave a moment ago, Pete. You know, we are interested in an age limit.
STEFANOVIC:
Okay.
CHALMERS:
We need to set it at the appropriate level. It might be 16, but we need to make sure we’ve got the technology to deliver that.
STEFANOVIC:
Sure.
CHALMERS:
Having that aspiration is one thing, being able to do it is another.
STEFANOVIC:
So Dutton said this morning that the government could use the tax system to pressure tech giants to comply. Is he right? Can that be done?
CHALMERS:
Obviously we want to make sure that the tech giants pay their fair share of tax. That’s part of the reason for the multinational tax changes that we’ve already proposed and budgeted for. And it’s certainly the case that we need the tech giants, the tech companies, to work with us and not against us making the social media environment safer for Australian kids. We definitely need them to help at the same time as we’re making sure that they pay their fair share of tax. All of this is part of our efforts to make sure that as the economy changes and technological change gathers pace that people are not victims of that, that they’re beneficiaries of that.
STEFANOVIC:
Yeah.
CHALMERS:
So in the tax system, in appropriate regulation and in other ways all of this is related.
STEFANOVIC:
I guess, how do you police – how do you penalise if you can’t police properly is a point to consider as well.
CHALMERS:
Yeah, that’s right and to be frank with you, Pete, Peter Dutton says a whole bunch of stuff, but he never backs it up with any detail. He’s a very divisive guy, his party is very divided and he never provides detail on these sorts of policies. We’ve seen it with supermarket divestment, nuclear power. He won’t tell us where the reactors are going, he can’t even explain his own migration policy – there’s never any detail to this sort of thing. We take our responsibilities seriously to Australian kids and Australian families.
STEFANOVIC:
Okay.
CHALMERS:
We want to work with the tech giants to make sure that we can make life safe for kids on social media and for people more broadly, that’s why we’re doing the work in a methodical and a considered way.
STEFANOVIC:
Just interested to get your thoughts on this, too, on Peter Dutton. He, as you know, nixed the 2030 and 2035 emissions targets because they can’t be achieved so wants costings done before setting targets again. How do you feel about that?
CHALMERS:
Well, Peter Dutton is a very risky proposition when it comes to the economy and I think this commentary shows that once again. If he rips up the emissions targets, that will send a shiver up the spine of the Australian investment community. One of the reasons we have these targets is to provide certainty to investors, to businesses and to workers so that everybody knows our ambition and everybody knows what we’re working towards and if Peter Dutton rips that up, that will create extreme investor uncertainty. It will damage our economy and our workers, businesses, employers and investors will be poorer for it.
STEFANOVIC:
Even if targets probably won’t be reached?
CHALMERS:
Well, I believe we can hit our targets. And, more importantly, the business community, the investor community, they are working on that basis and that’s really important. We want to work with investors and employers and workers to hit these targets so that we can create the kind of economy which is indispensable to the global net zero transformation, that’s our goal here. And once again, Peter Dutton is showing what a risky proposition he is, especially when it comes to the economy. He’s divisive, his party is divided, he never provides any detail and if he rips up these emissions reduction targets our economy will be weaker as a consequence.
STEFANOVIC:
Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers, thanks as always for your time this morning on a beautiful morning it looks like in Sydney, albeit a little chilly.