JIM CHALMERS:
Well, in the last week of September, I’ll be travelling through China to take part in our Strategic Economic Dialogue with my Chinese counterparts. This meeting will take place in the last week of September, most likely on or around the 27th of September. Our relationship with China is full of complexity and full of opportunity, and stabilising that relationship is good for our workers and businesses, employers and investors.
Now, we’ve got a lot at stake and a lot to gain from the work that we have been doing to stabilise this really important relationship with our key trading partner. The Strategic Economic Dialogue is all about having the forum and the opportunity to work through issues in the global economy and in our own economies, and to do that in a way which strengthens and stabilises our relationship with China.
I wanted to pay tribute to Penny Wong and Don Farrell, the Prime Minister, and other Ministers who have worked so hard to stabilise this relationship. We’ve seen some of the fruits of those efforts already, and my trip to Beijing should be seen in that light. This will be the first time in 7 years that an Australian Treasurer has been to China. It’s been a long time since the Treasurer has been to Beijing for talks of this nature. It’s a really good opportunity to further strengthen and further stabilise the relationship with China.
We don’t pretend that there aren’t complexities in this really important relationship, but it’s a relationship full of opportunity, and that’s what I want to maximise on behalf of this country, its people and their economy.
The second issue I wanted to cover was the Census. There will be a new topic in the census which covers sexual orientation and gender for the first time in 2026. We have listened to the LGBTIQ+ community to make sure that we can work with the ABS to deliver this really important change when it comes to the 2026 census. We say to Australians from the LGBTIQ+ community: you matter, you’ve been heard, you will be counted.
This is a really important way that we gather the information that we need. There will be one new topic which covers sexual orientation and gender. We have been working very closely with the diligent and professional and sensitive people who work on these issues at the ABS. I wanted to give a big shout out to the Chief Statistician, David Gruen, in particular, working closely with my terrific colleague Andrew Leigh, to make sure that we get this right.
Now, we said that we would listen, that we would take feedback seriously, and we have done that. We said we would listen, we took that feedback seriously. We said that we would get it right. And I believe that we are and we will get this right.
The last point that I wanted to make was around the coming parliamentary week. It’s time for Angus Taylor to come clean on his $315 billion in secret cuts. Angus Taylor and Peter Dutton need to tell us what are their $315 billion in cuts – what do they mean for Medicare payments and pensions, and what would they mean for the economy?
Our opponents and our critics desperately wanted to see a recession in last week’s national accounts. They wanted that for political purposes. They are very disappointed that Australia did not go into recession. Two‑thirds of the OECD has had a negative quarter or worse. Australia has avoided that fate and that’s because we’ve been managing the economy in the most responsible way. If we had taken the free advice given to us by our opponents and our critics at Budget time, Australia would be in recession right now. Their approach to the economy is a recipe for recession and this will be a key feature of the coming parliamentary week.
I say to the Liberals and Nationals, tell the Australian people where those $315 billion in cuts are coming from and admit to the Australian people that if we had followed their advice, we’d be in recession right now. This government believes it’s better to avoid a recession than to clean up after one. We think it’s really important that we maintain this primary focus on inflation, working closely with the Reserve Bank and its Governor to get inflation down further in our economy without ignoring the risks to growth or the pressures that people are under.
Our approach to responsible economic management is fighting inflation without ignoring the risks of growth and recognising that people are doing it tough. That’s why we’re rolling out cost‑of‑living relief that our opponents don’t support. That’s why we’ve avoided recession, which our opponents would not have done. And that’s why we have been very upfront about the combination of budget repair, cost‑of‑living relief and economic reform in our economy as well.
We’re now in the third year of a three‑year parliamentary term and our Liberal and National opponents still don’t have any costed or credible alternative economic policies. We’re focused on the cost of living. Peter Dutton’s focused on dividing people. And we’ll probably see that, unfortunately, when it comes to Peter Dutton through the course of the coming week.
Over to you for a couple of questions.
JOURNALIST:
Firstly, on the census. So, the ABC revealed the exact wording of the 2026 questions that were under development by the ABS. How were they divisive?
CHALMERS:
Well, I’m not going to get into the process here, into the internal discussions or the work that has been going on to get to this point. I undertook to listen and to take seriously the feedback that we got from the community to make sure that we get this right, and I’m confident we have done that, and I’m confident we will do that.
This 2026 census, for the first time will have a new topic that covers sexual orientation and gender. I think that’s an important development. We’ve been working closely with the community and with the ABS to get it right. I’m confident we have and we will.
JOURNALIST:
How many questions will be in that topic?
CHALMERS:
Well, the government provides the topics to the ABS and the ABS writes the questions, and that’s what we expect to see here. The Prime Minister, Andrew Leigh, and myself have indicated today, and there’ll be more information released later today, a statement from Assistant Minister Leigh. Now, the government has decided on an additional topic. The ABS will work out the questions themselves. The government doesn’t write the questions, but we’ve asked that that topic cover both sexual orientation and gender.
JOURNALIST:
When will we find out the detail about those questions?
CHALMERS:
There’ll be more details released in due course, including later today in Andrew Leigh’s statement. But there’s a whole bunch of work that has to happen now at the ABS end. There’s a legislative instrument that needs to be determined, ideally by the end of the year. So, there’s a lot of process still to go through. But today is all about making it very clear that there will be a new topic, it will cover both orientation and gender, and that’s because we have listened to the community and worked closely with the ABS to get it right.
We’ve had good intentions right throughout this. We wanted to do the right thing for the right reasons. We’ve listened, we’ve taken that feedback seriously. We’re going to get the right outcome here, which is really important. We will continue to work with the community and with the ABS through the next stages of the process.
JOURNALIST:
Yeah, I think you sort of covered it, but, will the transgender and gay community be counted as a single cohort under the census? Why should a lesbian woman or gay man be counted under the same category as a transgender person?
CHALMERS:
The ABS will continue to do work on the questions themselves to make sure that we take those kinds of considerations into account.
The government’s role here is to task the ABS with an additional topic that covers both sexual orientation and gender. And that’s because we have been working with the ABS who have done a characteristically diligent and professional job, they’ll continue to do that and they’ll continue to weigh up the kinds of issues and questions which are in your question today to make sure that we get it right.
JOURNALIST:
Just on the Budget. If a drop in key commodities cost $4.5 billion, as you suggested this morning, what would be the implications?
CHALMERS:
What we’ve seen in commodity markets this year is that iron ore and net coal have come off about 40 per cent. Oil has come off I think about 20 per cent, or just over that, since around April. So, when commodity prices weaken like they are now, that’s a real sign of the global economic uncertainty, the risk and volatility in the global economy.
We know China’s growth has been slow, we know there are concerns around the US, we know that 2 thirds of the OECD countries have had a negative quarter or worse already. And so there’s a lot of global economic uncertainty, which is combining with persistent price pressures here in our own economy and the impact of higher interest rates to slow our own economy quite considerably.
It also has an impact on the budget. When commodity prices weaken, it has an impact on our economy, but also our budget. One scenario that the Treasury is tracking could see around $4.5 billion lost to the Commonwealth’s Budget as a consequence of lower commodity prices. Our budget improvement over the last couple of years, when we’ve turned those 2 big Liberal deficits into 2 big Labor surpluses, has not only been about commodity prices, but it’s made an important contribution.
Big contributions come from the strength of the labour market, the savings that we’ve made, the responsible approach we’ve taken to the budget. But commodity prices are important too. They tell us that there’s a lot of risk and uncertainty in the global economy. They impact on our own economy. We’re not immune from it and they also flow through to our budget.
JOURNALIST:
Would you have to cut any services or spending as a result?
CHALMERS:
Our approach, when it comes to variations in revenue, is to take the most responsible approach that we can. When commodity prices were higher, we banked almost all of those upward revisions to revenue. Our opponents and predecessors used to spend most of it. And a big reason why we have 2 Labor surpluses, not 2 Liberal deficits, is because we’ve largely banked the upward revisions to revenue we get when commodity prices are higher or the labour market is a bit stronger. We’ve also found almost $80 billion in savings and we’ve made sure that we’re managing the budget the most responsible way. The Governor of the Reserve Bank says that our 2 surpluses are helping in the fight against inflation.
When it comes to future decisions, in future budget updates and future budgets, we’ll take the most responsible course, once again. We’ll do that in a way that factors in the economic conditions.
It’s a good thing, not a bad thing, that Australia has avoided recession unlike a number of our peers. That’s because we’ve ignored the free advice we got from our opponents and our critics to cut harder and harsher in the budget. That would have been a diabolical recipe for recession if we followed their advice. They were wrong about it. We’ve been right about it. We’ll continue to manage the economy and the budget in the most responsible way that we can.
Thanks very much.