EMMA MCBRIDE:
Good morning, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us today for a really important day for Logan and for residents in this community. Forty years ago, our government established Medicare. Today we know that your mental health is just as important as your physical health, and we’re now putting mental health at the heart of Medicare, opening 61 Medicare Mental Health Centres across the country, 19 in Queensland, and the fifth one in Queensland officially opening here today.
We know that it has been hard for people in the community to be able to find support when they need it. And what we’re doing is making sure that that support is now available closer to home for everybody – free walk‑in centres. You don’t need a diagnosis. You won’t need to wait for a referral, and you’ll walk in and be greeted by someone like Chris, with their own personal experience, because we know sometimes the best person to talk to is someone with their own lived experience.
I’ve worked in mental health and suicide prevention now for over 25 years. To see now mental health put into the heart of Medicare will make a difference to hundreds of thousands of Australians who will now be able to receive support that is welcoming, that is compassionate, that really makes a difference to them in their lives. This investment here will make such a difference to so many local people, and I’m so pleased to be here with local member and Treasurer Jim Chalmers, who has been such a strong supporter of Medicare Mental Health Centres.
When I spoke to Jim about Medicare Mental Health Centres he immediately understood, being someone from Logan himself, the difference that it would make. And I’m pleased to have our candidate here, Rowan, as well, a really strong supporter of this initiative.
So, 61 Medicare Mental Health Centres across the country, 19 in Queensland, the fifth one opening here today. In the Budget, we were able to secure close to an extra $30 million to make sure that in every centre you’ll be able to access a psychologist or a psychiatrist to make sure that these specialist mental health services are affordable, timely and close to home.
I’m so proud at this announcement, and the Treasurer and I are very pleased to announce that today another centre will be opening nearby in Jimboomba.
JIM CHALMERS:
Jimboomba, yeah.
MCBRIDE:
Jimboomba. And I know that this will mean more services for local people closer to home.
I might now hand over to the Treasurer.
CHALMERS:
Thank you. This is a really exciting day for Logan City and also for Medicare. It’s a real honour to have Emma McBride here, our Assistant Minister for Mental Health, one of the absolute superstars from Anthony Albanese’s frontbench in the government and someone who understands the needs that we have in this local community and, indeed, right around the country.
We’re announcing today we’re opening this wonderful, wonderful Medicare Mental Health Centre and we’re also announcing a new Medicare Mental Health Centre in Jimboomba.
As Emma rightly pointed out, this is all about making sure that mental health services are as accessible as they can be right in the heart of communities like ours. This one is in the very heart of Logan City on Wembley Road at Logan Central, another one in Jimboomba, 19 in Queensland, 61 around Australia, a very important way that we are strengthening Medicare and providing more mental health services at the same time.
A big thank you to Emma for fighting for this centre here, a big thank you as well to Charis Mullen as well and Cameron Dick, local state members, huge supporters of our efforts to strengthen Medicare, as is Rowan Holzberger, Labor’s candidate for Forde next door. Rowan understands just how important mental health services like this are as part of our broader efforts to strengthen Medicare at the same time.
We are investing billions and billions of dollars in strengthening Medicare. We’re making sure that mental health is part of that and making sure that those mental health investments are as accessible as they can be and as welcoming as they can be.
Here I wanted to pay tribute to Chris and everyone who works here, everyone who has set this place up. It is a wonderful, welcoming place where people can come without being judged, without sitting in big, impersonal waiting rooms at hospitals. We can take some of the pressure off Logan Hospital and off QEII at the same time.
This really ticks every single box. This is the sort of investment that the Albanese Labor government is so proud to be making in local communities, strengthening Medicare, more mental health services, investing in local communities, making sure that we can do the most good that we can in the most responsible way. That’s what this is all about.
This is overwhelmingly a happy day for our community, but I’ve got to point out that a lot of this investment is at risk if there is a change of federal government. All of this is at risk.
The Liberals and Nationals under Peter Dutton describe our investments in Medicare and mental health as wasteful spending. They said there’s $315 billion too much spending in the budget, including our investments in strengthening Medicare. That shows what a risk a Coalition government would be to local communities, to household budgets and to the national economy more broadly as well.
We know that they are a risk to Medicare because we know Peter Dutton’s record. Last time he was in office he cut Medicare, and he tried to impose a GP tax on every visit to see your local doctor. We can’t see that again. We know how important out‑of‑pocket health costs are to household budgets. That’s why we’re strengthening Medicare, and that’s why we can’t afford to see these really important services cut.
In the last day or so we’ve had the release of the National Accounts, and that was a report card on the economy. In a different set of national accounts, we also know that our efforts to get wages moving again, to get inflation down, to roll out the tax cuts and to invest in local services like this one are making a meaningful impact. We don’t pretend that people aren’t doing it tough – of course people are doing it tough, and the economy is soft in aggregate. But our efforts to boost wages and get inflation down and invest in Medicare and housing and in other ways, we are starting to see some welcome and encouraging progress, and that’s really important.
Our political opponents would rather Australia be in recession. They want that for political reasons. If Peter Dutton was in charge, we would be in recession right now. We know that because he didn’t support the cost‑of‑living help. He wants to take $315 billion out of the economy at the worst possible time. That gives you a bit of a sense of the risk that he poses.
But today is all about Medicare, strengthening Medicare, investing in these services. I also want to pay tribute to Mark Butler, the Health Minister, Emma’s very close colleague. We all work closely with Mark in the Cabinet. Today is one million visits to our new Urgent Care Clinics. As Cameron knows, we’ve got a new Urgent Care Clinic – new‑ish Urgent Care Clinic at Browns Plains. We’ve had 20,000 visits to the Browns Plains Urgent Care Clinic, a million visits to Urgent Care Clinics overall.
This is what Labor’s investment in local communities and strengthening Medicare is all about – taking pressure off the hospital, making it easier for local families and pensioners to get the health care that they need and deserve.
With that, happy to take some questions.
JOURNALIST:
Treasurer, do you acknowledge Australia is in a people’s recession when accounting for economic growth per capita, that many people are thousands of dollars worse off than they were when Labor first came into office?
CHALMERS:
We acknowledge that the economy is weak, and people are under very substantial pressure.
The choice that governments have to make confronted with that weakness in the economy and confronted with people being under substantial pressure is whether or not you try to help people with the cost of living, which has been our approach, or whether you don’t try to help people, which is our political opponents’ approach.
What we saw in the National Accounts yesterday was growth which was weaker than economists were expecting, but we also saw incomes up, inflation down, and we see that the tax cuts that have been rolling out since the middle of the year are playing a helpful and meaningful role in household budgets as well. We saw that in the savings figures. We saw that in other ways in the data which was released yesterday.
We do understand and acknowledge that people are under pressure. When we came to office living standards were falling sharply, real wages were falling sharply, and we’ve been working to turn that around. Real wages are growing again in our economy, which is a good thing. Per capita real household disposable incomes in yesterday’s data started growing again. We’re not carried away about that because we know that people have got a lot of ground to make up in their household budgets. But we have been working to provide that cost‑of‑living relief that people need and deserve, and our opponents have been working around the clock to prevent people getting the help that they need and deserve.
JOURNALIST:
Speaking of that cost‑of‑living relief, can you see a case to extending further energy bill relief before the next election?
CHALMERS:
We’ve said on a number of occasions now that from budget to budget we always look to see if there’s more that we can responsibly do to help people doing it tough.
We haven’t made any decisions in relation to that specific policy, but what we’ve shown in our first 3 budgets is a willingness to make room in those budgets to help people who are under pressure. The tax cuts for every taxpayer, energy bill relief for every household, cheaper medicines, cheaper early childhood education, rent assistance, Fee‑Free TAFE, getting wages moving again, these are our efforts to get a little bit of help to people who need it most, people who are doing it tough. On almost all of those occasions our political opponents said that that cost‑of‑living relief should not be flowing to people. That’s why they pose such a big risk to household budgets and the economy more broadly.
JOURNALIST:
Can Australians expect more cost‑of‑living relief in the mid‑year fiscal outlook?
CHALMERS:
From budget to budget and from update to update we work out the best and most responsible way that we can support people doing it tough. People shouldn’t expect the mid‑year update to be some kind of mini budget with a lot of new initiatives. We’ve got to deliver the mid‑year budget update and we’re also working on a budget for March, not long after the mid‑year update.
As I said in relation to your colleague’s question, we’re always looking for responsible ways to help people where we can. We’ve got pretty substantial budget constraints, and we want to make sure that we’re part of the solution, not part of the problem when it comes to inflation.
Our approach, whether it’s the 2 surpluses that we delivered, whether it’s the way we’ve designed our cost‑of‑living help, it’s now extremely clear that we are playing a helpful role in seeing inflation coming down, wages go up. A big part of that is because from budget to budget, update to update we do what we responsibly can.
JOURNALIST:
On that mid‑year outlook, are the government’s plans for universal childcare making up part of that MYEFO?
CHALMERS:
One of the big pressures that you’ll see in the budget update is what the economists call the estimates variations, the automatic changes in spending. Cameron would be familiar with these, having pored over the state’s books for so long.
Some of the biggest pressures on the mid‑year update will be in areas like veteran support. Because we’re processing veterans’ claims quicker, there will be billions of dollars of extra spending on veteran support, the support that they need and deserve. Medicare, you’ll see increases in automatic spending. You’ll see that in early childhood education as well, which is at the core of your question.
The Prime Minister, myself, Jason Clare, Anne Aly and others – Emma, no doubt – we have all expressed a willingness and an enthusiasm to do as much as we can, as much as we can afford to do, when it comes to making sure that early childhood education is more accessible in communities. We see early childhood education as a gamechanger for families and for the national economy as well. Where we can do more on that front we will.
JOURNALIST:
The state Treasurer, David Janetzki, has flagged a potential credit rating downgrade. Does Queensland’s fiscal footing cause you concern?
CHALMERS:
No. I’ve said this before in the context of Cameron’s very successful period as the Treasurer of this state – that if you made a ranking of the state budgets and the Commonwealth budget, Queensland would be nearer to the top of that list than nearer to the bottom of that list. That’s a tribute to this bloke.
I saw for myself up close – not just because our offices are next door, but I watched the state budgets very closely and carefully – I saw the difficult decisions that Cameron made to get the budget on a much more sustainable footing. I also saw the way that he made room for cost‑of‑living help.
Inevitably the new Treasurer of Queensland – I’ve spent some time with him as well and I’ve got no personal beef with him – but I think any objective observer of Labor’s time in office at the state level would say that the economy was managed very responsibly – very responsibly in a traditional sense but also providing that responsible cost‑of‑living help as well, trying to take the sting out of some of these cost‑of‑living pressures.
I’m not sure if Cameron wants to have a swing at that, but we should give him a chance.
CAMERON DICK:
Thanks, Jim. I appreciate your comments and your observations as the federal Treasurer about the strength of the Queensland economy and the strength of our budget.
As I said yesterday, we’re very proud as a Labor government in Queensland to have delivered the biggest single budget surplus in Queensland history. We’re very proud to have delivered the lowest unemployment rate in Queensland history. We’re proud to have delivered the biggest single jobs creation number in the country since Covid – more jobs than any other state or territory.
Of course, when I announced the draft report on the state finance outcomes for this financial year just completed – ’23–24 – our budget surplus had increased by $1.1 billion from $600 million to $1.7 billion. We’d halved our projected net government sector debt here in Queensland from $11 billion to $5.7 billion. In every stage after every budget our credit rating in Queensland was affirmed at AA+.
I also said yesterday the challenges facing Queensland now with the credit rating are all the responsibility of David Janetzki and David Crisafulli, the government now that Queenslanders can see. That promise to spend more, tax less, lower debt, the only way you take a square and you turn it into a circle is to cut, and they are now softening Queenslanders up for cuts – cuts to jobs, infrastructure and services.
I think Queenslanders will rightly be ringing the alarm bell about not only what that means for them personally when they won’t be getting that cost‑of‑living relief that we provided, they will not be getting that cost‑of‑living relief from the LNP and David Crisafulli, but the impact of that, those constraints that this new government is going to put on the economy, that is going to create problems for households, for businesses and for the community more broadly.
The challenges for the new government are to get out of the blame game and get into the business of government. I hope they can do that for the benefit of all Queenslanders. Thanks.
JOURNALIST:
Treasurer, what do you make of the teal independents’ argument about raising the limit for small businesses to 25?
CHALMERS:
We’re very fortunate in this country that we’ve got a number of quality crossbenchers who make well‑considered and well‑informed contributions to the national policy debate. I respect and listen very closely to colleagues from the crossbench when they make those kinds of suggestions.
That change that they’re proposing in this instance is not something that we are contemplating, certainly not in the near term. The Fair Work Ombudsman has been asked to have a proper look, a dispassionate look, at the definition of small business. As I understand it, the deadline for that work is around the middle of the year, and so what we will do is we’ll continue to engage in the usual respectful way with the crossbench while we wait for the conclusions and recommendations of the Fair Work Ombudsman who has been asked specifically to look at this issue.
But Murray Watt, the Industrial Relations Minister, and others have made it clear that we’re not contemplating a change like this in the near term. We’ll wait and see what the Ombudsman says.
JOURNALIST:
Given the slump in the private sector and we’ve seen a record jump in spending, is there a case for you to rein in spending? Are there any areas you and Katy Gallagher are looking at saving money in the budget update and next year’s budget?
CHALMERS:
Katy Gallagher and I are always on the lookout for areas where we can reprioritise spending. In the course of our first 3 budgets, we found $80 billion in savings compared to precisely zero savings in the last Coalition budget.
We’ve shown a willingness and an ability to reprioritise spending, to cut back on waste and rorts that we inherited and to direct that to more productive purposes, like Medicare Mental Health Centres and other important investments that we’re making as a government.
We’re always on the lookout to improve the budget where we can. We’ve done that in the first 3 budgets. We’re asked from time to time whether the next budget will contain some savings.
In the best case, every budget contains some reprioritising of spending, trying to make the most of that spending, trying to make sure that it’s directed to the most productive purposes.
More broadly when it comes to government investment, if you look at those public final demand numbers in yesterday’s National Accounts, without the responsible and balanced approach that we’ve been taking to the budget, the economy would have gone backwards in the last quarter and earlier in the year as well.
We get a lot of free advice from our political opponents and from their sycophants and suck‑ups that we should have some kind of slash‑and‑burn budget with radical austerity. That’s a recipe for recession.
If Peter Dutton and Angus Taylor had the keys to the economy over the last little while, we’d be in recession. People should be very wary about the risk associated with tossing the keys to the economy to these people who don’t support cost‑of‑living relief, who’d slash and burn in the budget and who came after Medicare and wages last time they were in office.
JOURNALIST:
Peter Dutton is [inaudible] offshore wind at Port Stephens in New South Wales. He says he’ll bring down power bills. Does he have any credibility making these claims considering his costings for nuclear still haven’t surfaced?
CHALMERS:
Peter Dutton went there for a fundraiser and needed something to say the next day.
The announcement that he’s made today will put thousands of jobs at risk. The amount of power which could be generated from projects like these would be enough, as I understand it, to power Tomago twice over.
We’re talking about a very substantial opportunity to generate cleaner and cheaper energy. Peter Dutton in the usual destructive and risky way wants to put those thousands of jobs and all of that renewable energy at risk.
If he wants to talk about energy, he needs to come clean on the cost of this nuclear madness that he has said by now he’d already have the costings and the details for. Let’s see all of the details. Let’s see all the costings.
When we do, people will understand that nuclear energy is the most expensive form of new energy, it will push up people’s energy bills, it won’t come in for 20 years and even in the best case scenario it will only provide 4 per cent of the power that Australia needs.
His nuclear policy is economic insanity. If you take away all of the other considerations and just focus on the economics, it is mad what he’s proposing when it comes to nuclear energy. It would turn Australia’s back on this remarkable combination of advantages that we have when it comes to renewable energy. It is economic madness what he’s proposing, and that’s why it’s taking them so long to come clean on the costs, the impact on bills, how long it would take and what little sliver of power that it would provide.
We hear from time to time a lot of criticism about off‑budget funds. This would be by far the biggest off‑budget fund. You remember Angus Taylor said he wasn’t for it if the government had to fund it. Now the government is doing all of it. But they’re doing it off‑budget.
Let’s hear all of the details. Let’s hear all about the off‑budget funds that they’ve been bleating about. Let’s hear all about the impact on power prices. Let’s hear about the timing. Let’s hear about how much more expensive it would be for people.
Australia’s future is renewable. That’s because it is cleaner, and it is cheaper, and it is better for our economy. That’s why we are rolling out all of the policies to make that renewable future a reality.
JOURNALIST:
Is a return to those 20 subsidised mental health visits per year under Better Access likely to happen before the next election?
MCBRIDE:
What we saw under the former government’s review of Better Access was that while individuals benefited from those sessions it locked thousands of people out of care. When it resumed as the former government intended to 10 sessions, we saw 44,000 more people be able to enter the system of care.
But, importantly, centres like Medicare Mental Health Centres will mean someone can walk in without a referral, without an appointment and access psychologists for free. This is a significant investment in the mental health and well‑being of thousands of Australians.
From our perspective, we are investing in Medicare Mental Health Centres and also our new – and I haven’t had a chance to talk about it today – our new early intervention service, which will be via phone or video, where someone in distress but not yet in crisis can call up or speak with a counsellor or a mental health worker. So, we’re developing Medicare mental health where we will have a stepped model of care that meets each Australian at that point in time close to home and free.
CHALMERS:
Great, thanks so much. Thank you.