CAROLYN EVANS, GRIFFITH UNIVERSITY VICE CHANCELLOR:
Good morning everybody, I'm Carolyn Evans, the Vice Chancellor of Griffith University. Griffith University is delighted to welcome back two of our alumni - the Acting Prime Minister and Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Assistant Minister for Education, Senator Anthony Chisholm.
On behalf of the university sector, I really would like to welcome the jobs and employment summit. We know that it is going to be absolutely critical to be thinking about the future of work. Universities have been doing this for a long time. We welcome the announcement that universities are going to be involved in this process. We're big employers. Over 130,000 people are directly employed in the university sector and many more people indirectly. Fourteen thousand people are employed by universities in the region. It's absolutely critical. Today we've seen some of the traditional professions that are still going to be in critical need in the future including nursing and midwifery where Griffith ranks second in the world. We've also seen and heard about some of the future of business, the research and teaching that Griffith is doing in this area. So we really welcome the opportunity to show this to some of the senior members of government. We welcome the forthcoming summit and we look forward to universities playing an important role in helping this country have the skills that are needed into the future. Thank you.
JIM CHALMERS, TREASURER:
Thanks very much, Carolyn. Very kind of you to have us here at Griffith University. This is, as Carolyn said, the number two ranked nursing and midwifery school on the planet and the number one university for those subjects in Australia. So it's terrific to be here as we think about the Jobs Summit and particularly the important place of the care economy in the Jobs Summit as well.
Here with the Assistant Minister for Education Anthony Chisholm. This place means a lot to us, not just because we are graduates from here but also because of the really important work that this university does to engage with local communities to connect people's aspirations and their ambitions with real opportunities to succeed and get ahead in life. And that's the job of this university. It's also the job of the government. It's the whole point of our economic plan. And it's the whole point of the Jobs Summit in September as well. Creating opportunities, making sure that people can grab those opportunities as part of a high wage, high skilled, well trained, productive workforce.
Our vision is for a good, well paid secure job for everyone who wants one and an enthusiastic, well trained productive worker for every business that needs one. And that's what the Jobs Summit is all about. Now, what we want to see is business, unions, universities, and community groups from every corner of Australia come together to address our big economic challenges. In every community and in every industry around Australia there are pockets of possibility and promise and people with the talent and the ambition to succeed so long as we continue to create opportunities and teach and train people to grab those opportunities. That is in many ways, our government's reason for being - to create opportunities and to make sure that more people in more parts of Australia can access those opportunities. And so, that's the discussion that we want to see at the Jobs Summit in September.
The government changed hands at a time of rampant skills and labour shortages, high and rising inflation, falling real wages and a trillion dollars of debt in the Budget. The only way to deal with challenges this serious is to try and bring people together, to seek common ground and to seek our common purpose and to make sure that we are addressing thetse big economic challenges together. There is absolutely no reason why we can't tap this appetite that we see around Australia to work out what we agree on and how we can work together and to direct that energy and that appetite towards solving some of these big economic challenges that the new Albanese Labor Government has inherited.
So today, we're speaking to the workers of the future in the care economy – which is a big part of our thinking in the Jobs Summit - but also, thinking about the future of work as well, as Carolyn said. The industries which have traditionally been big employers in our economy, but also making sure that we are grabbing and understanding the opportunities that lie ahead as well. So today was really a bit of a microcosm of the Jobs Summit itself.
I am so inspired and so encouraged and so pumped about the future of our workforce when you speak to students and lecturers and teachers like we have been able to do today. The future of this country can be bright but only if we get together, find that common ground and address the common economic challenges that we face together. A big part of that is making sure that there are secure well-paid jobs for everyone who wants one and a great, productive, well trained worker for every business that needs one. Over to you.
JOURNALIST:
The trade unions have demanded government reinstate the $700-a-week pandemic leave payments for workers forced to stay home. The program costs a lot of money, as you've said, but at a time where cases are rising has the government considered a smaller payment instead of stopping it completely?
CHALMERS:
There are a range of COVID support payments which were designed by our predecessors to end at a certain point and to restart them would cost a considerable amount of money and what we've tried to be is upfront about the challenges that we face in the Budget. Unfortunately, there is not room in the Budget for every good idea or to extend every program, even good ones indefinitely. And we've tried to be upfront about that. We will continue to take the advice obviously of the medical profession and others to make sure that we're providing support where we affordably can. But we've tried to be upfront with people and say that some of these important programs that have existed in the recent past which are designed to end in the near future, we can't afford to extend all of them.
JOURNALIST:
You're a big supporter of measuring things that matter using indices other than financial to determine what's working. Has the government weighed up the health and wellbeing impacts of ending the subsidised RATs program against the costs to the Budget bottom line?
CHALMERS:
The RATs program was an important program which recognised that around the beginning of this year, it was almost impossible to find a rapid test and if you could, it cost something like $30 a test. And so we fought for some access and some affordable access for Australians, particularly vulnerable Australians to make sure that they could access those tests.
The reality is that the situation has changed in welcome waves, such that a test costs much less than that now and is much easier to find. And my advice to pensioners and people with the relevant card is that this program doesn't end until the end of the month. And so, if you can access those 10 additional tests you should do so. For a lot of people, that will last them some time after the end of the program. Also there are state government programs and in areas like aged care facilities, where free tests will still be available. So we understand that programs like this one, even welcome programs like this one have to end at some point. The reality of access to and affordability for RAT tests has changed dramatically since that program was introduced and now seems to be a good time to transition out of it towards the end of the month.
JOURNALIST:
What was the cost of that program? I guess, from month to month, do we have that number?
CHALMERS:
We can provide that number to you. It's obviously a relatively costly number. But if you add it up with the paid pandemic leave, which was something like I think $60 million a week in its most recent iteration, you combine that with the support at the petrol bowser, you combine that with a whole range of programs which were designed by the former government to end around this time. It is not possible to extend all of these programs and so we need to do what we can where we can make a meaningful difference, recognising that we have inherited a Budget which is heaving with a trillion dollars in Liberal Party debt and we can't do everything that we would like to do.
JOURNALIST:
Your colleague Stephen Jones has said the government intends to start treating COVID as an endemic disease. Is that true?
CHALMERS:
Stephen knows his stuff when he's talking about all of that. What we call this situation that we're in, I'll be guided by the medical experts and I'll be guided by the Health Minister Mark Butler, as we all should be. Right throughout this pandemic, which has been with us for some years now, my approach and I think the now government's approach, the former Opposition's approach has been to hew as closely as we can to the medical advice, whether it's terminology whether it's necessary restrictions and that's what I intend to continue to do.
JOURNALIST:
TikTok has confirmed Australian user data can be accessed by its employees in China. Do you hold any concern Australian data is being passed on to the Chinese government?
CHALMERS:
Well, those concerns have been there for some time. And we take advice obviously from our various national security agencies when it comes to the use and safety online of various social media platforms. It's not for me to necessarily add to that. Australians need to be careful online and we need to recognise the risks of participating in some of those platforms.
JOURNALIST:
I guess on one hand, we're talking about the Budget heaving with debt and on the other hand we're talking about our hospitals heaving with patients there for COVID there for flu. And it feels as though perhaps there is a disconnect between what we're spending in the pandemic and the pandemic as it exists. Do you agree? Do you think there is a disconnect there, or do we need to recalibrate our thinking? What's happening?
CHALMERS:
I respectfully disagree with that and I'll tell you why. One of the first acts of the Albanese Labor Government was to provide hundreds of millions of dollars of support to our hospital system via the extension of the National Partnership Agreement with the states recognising the pressures on hospitals from COVID. And so I think almost $800 million agreed between Prime Minister Albanese and the Premiers and Chief Ministers of Australia and that is, in many ways, a good example of us doing what we affordably and responsibly can to recognise that COVID is still with us. But unfortunately, that doesn't mean extending every program. It's trying to work out where we can make the most difference. And that's why we've made that big investment in our hospital system, which is our priority.
JOURNALIST:
Reports in The Daily Telegraph today that Aussies on the basic age pension to get as much as $43.20 extra a fortnight when the payment gets indexed in September, assuming the CPI for the June quarter is between 2.8 and 4.8 per cent. Is this in line with the assumptions coming out of Treasury or is it potentially higher like the net report?
CHALMERS:
A couple of things about that. First of all, I'll update the government's expectations for inflation towards the end of this month when Parliament resumes. I'll be giving a very detailed Ministerial Statement to the Parliament which will update our expectations for inflation and growth and wages and what all of that means for our Budget position as well. And I'll be doing that because I want Australians to understand the gravity of the economic situation that we are in, but also not just the size of the challenge, the shape of the challenge too. Inflation will get worse before it gets better, but it will get better. And next year we expect inflation to moderate and so I will be speaking about that at some length in the Parliament towards the end of this month. But when it comes to the pension, this is an important feature of how our pension system works, that it is indexed twice a year to the cost of living. We want to make sure that Australian pensioners don't fall further and further behind during this cost-of-living crisis. We understand that pensioners are doing it incredibly tough when it comes to the cost of essentials like groceries, electricity and petrol and in other parts of the household budget. We don't want to see pensioners fall further and further behind. And that's why this indexation which tries to keep up with the skyrocketing cost of living is so important.
JOURNALIST:
Now you're acting PM, how will Australia change under your leadership?
CHALMERS:
I'll tell you what didn't change - my kids at home couldn't care less that I was the Acting Prime Minister today. They still wouldn't put their shoes on for school. And so it didn't hold a lot of sway at home this morning at breakfast time. I see this like any other day except it's game three of State of Origin tonight and that's what makes the day special to me. Very pleased to see colleagues appropriately dressed for State of Origin tonight. But this is how it works when the various travel arrangements match up a certain way. I'm happy to mind the shop for 12 hours or whatever it is but it's a usual day for me in lots of ways. Thanks very much.