JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Good afternoon. These are challenging days for our country. Forty-six new cases today of COVID, and Sydney in lockdown, as well as other parts of New South Wales. The Morrison Government continues to provide significant economic support to those who are impacted by the virus, with payments of $500 and $325 available to those in New South Wales who have been in the lockdown, in a designated hotspot, for a period of longer than one week.
In the Budget delivered just weeks ago, we anticipated that there would be further lockdowns, and outbreaks across the country and that is why we committed some $41 billion in additional economic support. More tax relief, infrastructure spending, skills programs, all designed to boost aggregate demand and to smooth Australia's economic recovery from the worst economic shock since the great depression.
Today, there is some new economic data that shows that the Australian economy remains resilient even in the face of the continued threat and challenges posed by COVID. Job ads are up today by 3 per cent, to more than 211,000 job ads available across the country. This is the 13th consecutive month where we’ve seen an increase in the job ads and job ad numbers are now their highest in 13 years.
We’ve also seen retail sales up in the month of May, pre-lockdown, the numbers came out today, higher than market expectations and we’ve seen the unemployment rate fall to 5.1 per cent with 115,000 new jobs created in the month of May. We've also seen in the March quarter National Accounts, 1.8 per cent growth which was stronger than the market's expectations and particularly strong private-sector led demand in household consumption. It is a good sign that Australians have confidence in the economic recovery.
Indeed, Australia, ahead of any other advanced economy in the world, has seen more people in work than before the pandemic and has seen our economy bigger today than we went into the pandemic early last year.
Our continued economic recovery will continue to depend on our effective response to COVID. That is why the agreement last Friday at National Cabinet was so significant. In many ways, it represents a turning point for our nation. For the first time, we have an agreed national roadmap for the pathway forward. This will help give businesses the confidence to plan and to invest and it will give governments the ability to open up.
And importantly, this roadmap, this plan agreed at National Cabinet, will see the relegation of lockdowns as a method of last resort. We need, as a nation, to move our focus from the suppression of the virus, ultimately, to living with the virus and preventing hospitalisations, fatalities and serious illness. That is the pathway set forward in the road map that the Prime Minister took to National Cabinet last Friday.
There is clearly more work to be done with the Doherty Institute doing the modelling to help give us the detail around the targets and duration of those stages. But last Friday was a significant step forward in our economic recovery by providing us with a road map and the confidence for business to get on with doing what they do best and that is hiring more Australians.
QUESTION:
Treasurer, just in regard to vaccinations, can scientists coming up with the vaccination level, we need the stage two of the plan, what is the risk appetite they’re being given, Australia has been given and is it to be able to treat COVID like a flu?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well ultimately, we can't eliminate the virus. That is based on the best available evidence that we have today. We have to learn to live with the virus. That means vaccinating as many people as possible and it is pleasing more than 8.2 million doses of the vaccine have already been delivered, with more people being vaccinated every single day.
And we are focused on those more vulnerable cohorts, with more than 70 per cent of Australians aged over 70 receiving a dose, more than 50 per cent of Australians over 50 receiving a dose and more than 30 per cent of the eligible population having now received their first dose.
We are making progress in rolling out the vaccine, but our focus is on living with the virus and ensuring as many people as vaccinated as possible, and that way we can mitigate what are the real threats from the virus which is the hospitalisation, serious illness and ultimately, the fatalities that we have seen in large numbers around the rest of the world.
QUESTION:
Treasurer, you talk about economic recovery, but I guess the big question that Australians want to know is that if we can't get our economy open as the rest of the world is opening up, how much damage will this do to the Australian economy when we look at the rest of the world?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
We will open those borders when it is safe to do so, and that is why the vaccination rollout is important, and that is why it is pleasing to see more people getting vaccinated each and every day.
Our economy has shown itself to be remarkably resilient. In fact, our economic recovery has been faster and stronger than our most optimistic forecast and expectations over the course of last year and early this year and ahead of what the rest of the world has experienced.
As I said, the Australian economy today is bigger than it was going into the pandemic. There are more Australians in work today than going into the pandemic. Our ability to ensure a strong economic recovery has been because we have been effective as a nation in suppressing the virus, but also because of the very strong economic support particularly the Federal Government but also the state governments have provided.
Programs like JobKeeper, the Cash Flow Boost, the JobSeeker Coronavirus Supplement, the HomeBuilder program, all of these programs have been vitally important in providing the economic support when the economy was badly damaged. The good news is that the trajectory sees the economy continue to grow, the unemployment rate continue to fall, but that is why the economic recovery does depend on that road map that the Prime Minister spelt out last Friday which now has the buy-in of the states and territories.
QUESTION:
Just on another issue, as Treasurer, you funded commuter car parks almost entirely in Liberal seats - the ones you wanted to win in the last election. Including four in your own. How is this anything other than pork barrelling?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
The Labor Party had their own park and ride program with $300 million. We were responding to the need where there is congestion on our roads because people are taking the driving option as opposed to using the public transport.
And we have seen from the Minister for Infrastructure talk about what infrastructure Australia has said - nearly 40 per cent of people in the city of Melbourne are not living within walking distance of public transport and by putting in place these car parks, it can help alleviate some of the pressures on our roads and get people to work sooner than later and also getting them home safer. That is what has been the overriding focus of our infrastructure program and we look forward to delivering those car parks right around the country.
QUESTION:
So you are saying that it’s not, I suppose, it’s got nothing to do with the fact the car parks were in those seats? It’s just a by-chance thing? It’s a need around the country? So you can guarantee taxpayer money won't be used in the same way in the next election?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Every dollar that we’re spending is designed to create more jobs and to generate more economic activity. The Auditor General made a number of recommendations and as the Minister has made clear, those recommendations have been accepted. Thank you.