DEAN SMITH:
My name is Senator Dean Smith, I’m delighted to welcome Josh Frydenberg back to Western Australia and back to Caversham Wildlife Park and Zoo, one of Western Australia’s premier tourist attractions, home to 2,000 animals from across 200 species, home of Jess the wombat and Lockie the koala. This is an important demonstration of the success of the Coalition’s JobKeeper program, 35 employees signed up to JobKeeper, this is a significant success story for why the Coalition Government’s economic recovery plan has been good for Australia and particularly good for Western Australia. 4.6 million visitors have visited Caversham Wildlife Park since it was created, many of them international tourists. This is a fantastic story about the Coalition Government’s recovery plan for Australia and for Western Australia. I’m delighted to invite Deb, one of the Thorne family, who is responsible for the care and maintenance, the wonderful operation of this fantastic tourist attraction.
DEB THRONE-MORLEY:
Thank you Treasurer, Vince, Dean. Thank you, welcome to the Park. It’s great to have you all here, thank you. We’re pleased to be able to have you onsite and spend some time in a workplace that has benefited from JobKeeper. It’s been a lifeline so thank you very much and we’re pleased we can spend the day with you here today.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well thanks very much Deb, to you Dave and to the entire family for your warm hospitality in having us here today and thank you to my colleagues, Dean Smith and Vince Connelly for joining me. This is another success story. As Deb said, JobKeeper helped keep 35 people employed in this business. And the other Morrison Government support including for wildlifes and parks, zoos and other sanctuaries and aquariums that helped feed the animals at a time when the doors have been closed to the public. But the good news for this wildlife sanctuary as well as other parks around the country is that the tourists are starting to come back. Now while the international borders are closed, that’s obviously difficult for international tourism, but having flown from Sydney yesterday into Perth, the plane was full. The plane was full of people coming to visit Western Australia and it would be great for them to come and spend some of their hard earned dollars here in this wonderful wildlife park. And as you said, I got to meet Lockie, the koala, who hanged on pretty tight and Jesse the wombat who is also great. And to have Deb at my side, in case anything went wrong was a great relief.
I’m here in Western Australia, following a visit from the Prime Minister last week, to say a big thank you. A big thank you to the people of Western Australia for supressing the virus, for keeping Western Australians employed and for helping make the Australian economy stronger. Western Australia punches above its weight. It represents 10 per cent of the nation’s population, yet 15 per cent of the nation’s economy and around 50 per cent of goods exports from Australia come from this one state, Western Australia. Indeed, Western Australia sends enough iron ore a year to China to make 10,000 Sydney Harbour Bridges. It’s been incredible to see the strength in the agricultural sector here in Western Australia, in the construction sector and in the mining sector. Indeed in the housing sector we’ve seen 20,000 applications to HomeBuilder here in Western Australia alone and that will support billions of dollars of activity across the Western Australian construction sector. Indeed, we’ve seen 150 per cent increase in dwelling approvals over the last year alone. And this is helping to contribute to the fall in Western Australia’s unemployment rate. Western Australia’s unemployment rate hit 8.7 per cent last June and is down to 4.8 per cent, the lowest of any state across the country. That’s a good sign for Western Australia, but it’s also a good sign for the Australian economy. Now JobKeeper had to end. It was always a temporary, a targeted program, initially for six months, we extended it for 12 months. But with JobKeeper coming off there are other programs in place that are designed to boost economic activity across the economy. The incentives for business investment, the loss carry back measure that we’ve put in place, the more than 300,000 training places, the apprenticeship program where we put in place support for 100,000 new apprentices thinking it would take a year for those numbers to be taken up, they were taken up in just five months. So we’ve now put more money into our apprenticeship program. All those measures will be built on in the Budget in just a couple of weeks’ time. The Budget is all about jobs and all about services. Creating more jobs for Australians but also guaranteeing the essential services that Australians rely on. Are there any questions?
QUESTION:
Treasurer, it seems like we’re witnessing a conga line of federal politicians arriving from Canberra, why is WA feeling the love all of a sudden?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well now the borders are open and it’s more easy to travel, that’s the reality of that. We obviously were in the middle of a storm last year with the terrible COVID pandemic at its peak. Both Scott Morrison and I were effectively chained to our desks in Canberra. This year, where we get the opportunity to get out and about, we will. And the Prime Minister spent a number of days here last week. I’m here this week, more federal politicians from other states will be here in the weeks ahead. Western Australia is a great success story. And as I said, the unemployment rate has come down. I’m also taking the opportunity here to catch up with Mark McGowan, the Premier, he’s also the Treasurer, and so I’ll look forward to working with him just as the Prime Minister does.
QUESTION:
He no doubt will be asking you to guarantee WA’s GST arrangements, can you do that, can you guarantee they won’t change?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Yes.
QUESTION:
And is an extension of the low and middle tax offset guaranteed in the Budget?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
I’m not getting into the game of ruling in or ruling out particular measures that may or may not appear in the newspapers in the weeks leading up to the Budget. You always get that level of speculation. I can say a couple of things though. The Coalition is the party of lower taxes. We took to the last election, a series of tax reforms, that would see a whole tax bracket abolished. 37 cents in the dollar tax bracket abolished, creating one big tax bracket from $45,000 to $200,000 with a marginal rate of no more than 30 cents in the dollar. We’ve legislated, we’ve legislated those tax cuts. It's now up to Anthony Albanese to say whether he supports the fact that those tax cuts have been legislated and whether he will stay true to that. In last year's Budget, which was a little over six months ago, we announced that we were bringing forward by two years those stage two of the tax cuts, as well as putting an extra year of what is called the low and middle income tax offset. That's now putting money into people's pockets, that’s providing more than a billion dollars extra a month into people's pockets.
QUESTION:
Further extending the offset makes both economic and political sense though doesn’t it? I mean, Australia mid-pandemic can't afford a budget that leaves 10 million Australians worse off.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
The Coalition is always the party of lower taxes. That's our record. And that will continue to be the message and the policies that we deliver going forward.
QUESTION:
Is keeping the cash flow going and the spend going, the be-all and end-all at the moment, whatever the cost?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well confidence is cheapest form of stimulus because we know $240 billion is built up on household and business balance sheets that was not there this time last year. So by keeping the domestic borders open, by seeing business investment continue to be made and consumers continue to spend, that is the best form of economic activity. We’ll put incentives in place where it's possible to do so but we’re focused on driving that unemployment rate down. I don't need to remind you that even as recently as the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook last December, Treasury thought that the unemployment rate over the March quarter would be as high as 7.5 per cent. It’s now 5.6 per cent. The labour market has very much surprised on the upside. There's been an enormous amount of resilience. You remember everyone calling for us to extend JobKeeper. Well, the early signs, and it's still too early to reach a definitive position, is that we haven't seen those long lines outside Centrelink that the economy's finding its level, people are getting back to work, businesses are reopening, and Australia has outperformed all major advanced economies across the world.
QUESTION:
At what point will you have to start repaying debt though?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, we have obviously announced a fiscal strategy in the lead-up to last year's Budget. I will make a speech in the lead-up to this year's Budget where I will talk about that fiscal strategy. But the best way to repair the Budget is to repair the economy. And last year, we were standing on the edge of an economic abyss. Treasury thought the unemployment rate could reach as high as 15 per cent. That economic growth could fall by more than 20 per cent. Fortunately we avoided the worst fate that we saw in other countries across the world. Australia on both the health and the economic front has done so much better than other countries.
QUESTION:
On iron ore, can more be done to get those profits back to WA taxpayers? Kevin Rudd suggested a super tax on the big miners?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well we have been there before with the Labor Party. As you know, they've tried and failed to introduce an increased tax burden on some of the most productive companies across the country, our resources industry. So, the Labor Party, we know they believe in higher taxes. They were the policies they took to the last election. Don't look at what they say, look at what they do. And they tried to introduce a super profits tax and they took to the last election higher taxes on your superannuation, on your housing, on your income, on your retirement savings as well. We, on the other hand, went to the last election promising lower taxes, which we have delivered. Now is not the time for an increased tax burden on those resource companies. The resource sector operates in cycles. There are some times, like today, when we are seeing higher prices for iron ore and for other commodities. There are other times when we see significantly lower prices and what we want to see is investment over the period of the cycle, not a punishment for companies at a time where they are doing better than previous times.
QUESTION:
Treasurer, what is the current iron ore price?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
About $170. And obviously the contrast with that free on-board price is what we put in the Budget. And we were pretty conservative at the Budget at about a $55 a tonne iron ore price. So, obviously there's been a greater boost to the revenue take of the Commonwealth as a result of the higher iron ore price. But we have always been conservative with the iron ore price and so too has the State Government that benefits greatly from the royalties.
QUESTION:
With the growing COVID numbers in India, is it time we suspend flights from there?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well we have always taken the health advice when it comes to border closures. And we moved very quickly. People say Australia has done well because we're an island. Well, the UK is an island and they haven't done as well as Australia has. Scott Morrison took the decision early on to close the border with China and that's been to Australia's great benefit. So we will continue to take that health advice, decisions about India or other countries are matters for the chief medical officers and ultimately for National Cabinet.
QUESTION:
You did say this morning though, how crucial it is for Australia to be the destination of choice when the international borders reopen, when does that need to happen to ensure we're not left behind other nations?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Again, it will be based on the medical advice. We're rolling out the vaccine. That’s obviously important, more than 1.7 million Australians have received already the first dose of the vaccine. But Australia is in a better position than other countries in that the virus is not running rampant across the country. Our ability to isolate those specific cases when they occur, to avoid closing state borders will continue to see our economy recover. That's the momentum that we're focusing on. Obviously with the international borders being closed, that impacts businesses like the one we're at today. That impacts other tourism businesses, that impacts the airlines, that impacts international education. We have put in place a number of support packages to help those industries. As you know with the tourism sector, we put in place the half price airfares. They have sold like hot cakes. People are now making their way for domestic travel. That's bringing in dollars to businesses right across that tourism supply chain. For this park and for many other wildlife parks, we have put in place economic support for them to help feed the animals. We will continue to provide the support as necessary.
QUESTION:
Is the Government expecting or preparing for any retaliation from China in response to the decision to tear up Victoria's belt and road deal?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
The Morrison government will always defend and promote Australia's national interest and that's why we have acted today. We make no excuses for strongly protecting the national interest. It is the Federal Government that decides the foreign policy settings of our country and determines what's in our national interest in terms of bilateral partnerships with other countries. Our relationship with China is important. They are the number one trading partner for Australia. We want that relationship to continue to be productive and it will continue to be valued. But at the same time, we will be clear and consistent with respect to our national interests. Whether it's around human rights, foreign investment, or other national security related issues.
QUESTION:
*inaudible* be nervous given the impacts they have previously experienced when the relationship with China has deteriorated?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well when it comes to iron ore, it's a mutually beneficial relationship with China. We obviously earn significant export income and create tens of thousands of jobs from that industry here in Australia. But China, who is the world's largest steel exporter, also benefits greatly from the quality and the quantity of our iron ore. Iron ore that they cannot in the same quantity access from other countries around the world. So, I'm confident that that relationship, despite the challenges we have today, will continue to promote job creation in our country. With respect to other sectors across the agricultural sector and the like, well we’ve seen China's actions, targeting Australia in respect to wine or barley or, indeed, lobsters and crayfish and other produce. The Australian agricultural sector has been remarkably resilient and has been able to diversify its customer base. And that's a good thing. And we encourage that. Obviously the Chinese paid a bit of a premium for some of those products. But, again, it comes back to our national interest. The Prime Minister Scott Morrison, the Foreign Minister Marise Payne, our entire Government, will always be consistent and clear with respect to our national interest and that is what's motivating our decisions.
QUESTION:
Can you run through the assistance Australia is able to offer with regard to the search for the Indonesian submarine that's missing?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, we’ll help out wherever we can. Indonesia's a very close and dear friend. I understand there's been already some contact. I will leave it to the Defence Minister to provide further updates. But Indonesia is a very dear friend. A very important neighbour for Australia and we would obviously seek to help them in any way we can. Thank you.
QUESTION:
Is Senator Smith able to take a question with regard to the WA Liberal Party?
DEAN SMITH:
Sure.
QUESTION:
Just obviously you put your hand up to be involved in the review process underway since the state election. Are you confident that the panel of three can fix what’s broken?
DEAN SMITH:
The review process that the West Australian Liberal Party is now engaged in is the best opportunity we’ve had in a long time to reset the West Australian Liberal Party. That reset should be about making the Party bigger, making the Party inclusive and making sure the West Australian Party is representative of Liberals not just in the Liberal Party but throughout the community.
QUESTION:
Does Faye have your support in the lead up to an election?
DEAN SMITH:
Faye has my support. Thank you.