JIM CHALMERS:
Tomorrow’s a really important day because it’s the 1st of July. From tomorrow, every taxpayer will get a tax cut, every household will get energy bill relief, millions of Australians on awards will get a pay rise, there will be cheaper medicines and an extra 2 weeks of paid parental leave.
This is all about ensuring that Australians earn more and keep more of what they earn. This cost‑of‑living help is substantial, it’s meaningful and it’s responsible.
What we’ve been able to do by getting the budget in much better nick, by delivering 2 surpluses in our first 2 years is we’ve been able to provide this cost‑of‑living relief at the same time as we get the budget in better nick and fight inflation without smashing the economy.
Tax cuts and energy bill relief and cheaper medicines and pay rises, this is how you deliver cost‑of‑living relief, not with expensive nuclear reactors, which is Peter Dutton’s hare‑brained alternative.
So tomorrow’s a really important day. We know that Australians are under pressure and we’re doing something about it. More help is on the way from tomorrow, the 1st of July.
So from tomorrow, a tax cut for every taxpayer, energy bill relief for every household and more cost‑of‑living relief to recognise and respond to the cost‑of‑living pressures that we know that Australians are under. Over to you.
JOURNALIST:
How confident are you that those tax cuts won’t be inflationary?
CHALMERS:
Well, we are confident, but not complacent about inflation in our economy. What we’ve seen in the last couple of years is that inflation has moderated really quite substantially, but it doesn’t always moderate in a straight line.
We’ve seen around the world, earlier in the year, inflation went up a couple of times in the US before it came down again. In recent days we’ve seen inflation go up in Canada, core inflation and headline inflation, and we’ve also seen inflation rising in the Euro area.
So we’re confident but not complacent about our progress in the fight against inflation. Inflation is still too high, but it’s much lower than what we inherited from the Coalition, and we know that our policies are helping.
Last week we heard from the Bureau of Stats and the ACCC which said that our cost‑of‑living help is putting downward pressure on prices and downward pressure on inflation – we’ve seen that in electricity, we’ve seen that in early childhood education, we’re seeing it in rent as well.
This is all about making sure that our cost‑of‑living help is meaningful and substantial, but responsible as well in the context of this fight against inflation.
JOURNALIST:
You said earlier today that it remains to be seen what the Treasury’s forecast for inflation returning within the 2 to 3 per cent band was optimistic. Are you starting to doubt their advice?
CHALMERS:
No, that’s not the point that I’ve made. The point that I’ve been making throughout is that there’s always an element of uncertainty when it comes to forecasts about the economy, but especially right now.
The Treasury does expect an earlier return to the inflation target band because of the way that we’ve designed our cost‑of‑living policies.
Now our strategy here is to provide substantial, meaningful and responsible cost‑of‑living relief at the same time as we fight inflation and get the budget in better nick without smashing the economy.
JOURNALIST:
Just on the cost of living, I noted the Shadow Treasurer was calling it ‘Jimflation’, do you think that’s unhelpful to try to personalise this, is this a cost‑of‑living battle that all [INAUDIBLE] put on the shoulders [INAUDIBLE]?
CHALMERS:
I think Peter Dutton and Angus Taylor are a very risky and dangerous duo. It’s the worst combination of Peter Dutton’s anger and Angus Taylor’s incompetence. I think Peter Dutton and Angus Taylor are the worst combination of anger and incompetence and because of that, they are a risky and dangerous duo.
Angus Taylor wouldn’t know the first thing about responsible economic management. They promised a surplus in their first year and every year thereafter, and only delivered 9 deficits.
We’ve been turning big Liberal deficits into Labor surpluses and we know that those 2 surpluses are helping in the fight against inflation, a point that the Reserve Bank Governor has made as well.
If Angus Taylor thinks that there should be hundreds of billions of dollars of cuts to the budget, then he should come clean with the Australian people and tell them – what does that mean for Medicare, what does that mean for Social Security? If he thinks there is too much spending in the Budget, it’s time for him to come forward with the detail, but they never provide these details.
Peter Dutton is a very divisive character, he leads a very divided party, and he doesn’t provide the details, and that’s what makes him risky and dangerous.
JOURNALIST:
Senator Payman says she’s received the cold shoulder from some [INAUDIBLE] caucus since she crossed the floor. Do you think that’s acceptable?
CHALMERS:
Look, I respect every one of my colleagues in our Labor team and I haven’t had the opportunity to engage much in the internal issues around that, but I have a good and respectful relationship with all of our colleagues, and I share Penny Wong’s view that we get more done and we make more progress when we act collectively rather than individually, and I think that’s the case here, and I support our party’s policy on a two‑state solution which seems to be the only way to build an enduring pathway out of this endless cycle of needless violence in the Middle East.
JOURNALIST:
Pat Anderson says the government has gone silent since the Voice Referendum. Do you accept that?
CHALMERS:
Look, again, I take Aunty Pat’s contributions very seriously, a person of immense status and stature in our community, not just our First Nations community, but in the broader Australian community, and I take that, her contribution seriously.
I don’t feel like we have, I feel like we’ve been working away on all of the various ways that the government intends to close the gap.
For me there’s been a big focus on employment, a big focus on economic opportunity. We’ve got a Productivity Commission report that we’re responding to, and so our efforts here are about closing the gap, delivering meaningful outcomes and better outcomes for our First Nations people, cognisant, obviously, of the disappointment that we feel about the outcome of the referendum last year.
JOURNALIST:
The federal Greens are looking to revive a push for a National Truth and Justice Commission. Will the government back that?
CHALMERS:
I haven’t seen the Greens’ comments or proposals in that regard. No doubt Linda Burney and others are more aware of that. My focus is on delivering this cost‑of‑living relief from tomorrow and making sure that we do that by putting downward pressure on inflation rather than upward pressure on inflation.
All of these issues are very important, and no doubt central to Linda’s thinking and the government’s thinking more broadly, but we’ll have our own policy, we don’t need our policies written by the Greens.
JOURNALIST:
Do you mind if I have one more? The Cook government in WA signed a deal with your government for 10,000 skilled migrants, a bit of controversy about that this morning. Should local workers be fearful or do skilled migrants have a place in our workforce and our story as a nation?
CHALMERS:
Well, skilled migration has had a role to play in our economy for a long time, and it will have a role to play into the future, but it can never be a substitute for training more Australians for more opportunities.
We’re here at Team Global Express today and we know that we need to train more truckies, more drivers, more people in transport and logistics, but we also know this – the truckies and tradies and nurses and teachers of this country will be the big beneficiaries of Labor’s cost‑of‑living tax cuts which come in tomorrow.
The whole reason we’re here at Team Global Express, in my electorate, a big employer, and an important part of our local, state and national economy is because the people who drive here at Team Global Express, the truckies, but also the tradies, the nurses and teachers of Australia, they need and deserve the cost‑of‑living relief which is coming in from tomorrow.
And from tomorrow we’ll see a tax cut for every taxpayer, energy bill relief for every household, a pay rise for millions of Australians on awards, cheaper medicines and extra paid parental leave, and that’s because we recognise that people are under the pump and people are under pressure, but more than recognise and understand that, we’re doing something about it.
We are making it easier for Australians to earn more and keep more of what they earn. We’re providing that cost‑of‑living relief in a substantial and meaningful but responsible way, and that’s how you deliver cost‑of‑living relief, not with the economic insanity of Peter Dutton’s more expensive nuclear reactors in 15 years’ time.
JOURNALIST:
Can I just ask one more question?
CHALMERS:
Yep, go for it.
JOURNALIST:
How much of an effect is COVID still having on the economy?
CHALMERS:
Well, obviously we’re still dealing in lots of ways with the overhang of the worst, most difficult part of the COVID pandemic. Obviously, it has changed the way that people think about work, and it’s changed the way that people think about life in communities more broadly.
The primary concern, the primary influence out of the COVID pandemic in economic terms was obviously the big spike in global inflation that the world has been dealing with, with higher interest rates around the world, and we haven’t been immune to that. But the nature and shape of our inflation challenge has changed over time. There’s a big focus on services right now, and in the most recent data services inflation was flat, in fact, and market services inflation was very, very subdued, and so the inflation challenge has changed over time, but COVID was a big part of some of the challenges we’re dealing with.
When we came to office inflation had a 6 in front of it, now in quarterly terms it has a 3 in front of it. That shows the welcome and encouraging progress that we’ve made on inflation, but we know we’re not there yet. We are confident about the future trajectory of inflation, but we’re not complacent about it. The best 2 things you can do is hand down surplus budgets which we’ve been doing, and design our cost‑of‑living relief in a way that takes the pressure off inflation rather than add to it and we’re doing that too and people will see the fruits of that from tomorrow when this substantial, meaningful, but responsible cost‑of‑living help kicks in.
Thanks very much.