QUESTION:
… in hotels. Is he dangling a carrot there that doesn’t exist, considering that the vaccine program is really delayed?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well the Prime Minister made very clear that we would obviously follow the medical advice, but he was also presenting the opportunity that arrives when we do roll out that vaccine more broadly, not just here in Australia but also around the world. Our desire is to get the vaccine to as many people as quickly as possible. We’ve obviously followed the medical advice with respect to the caution that we have provided Australians with the AstraZeneca vaccine and those who are under the age of 50. We’ll always follow the medical advice, that has been something we’ve done consistently through this process.
QUESTION:
Isn’t there a problem that given the fact that it’s so heavily reliant now on Pfizer coming in from overseas, we’re only getting about 100,000 a week?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well again, we’ve secured 20 million extra Pfizer vaccines, they’ll come later in the year. But we can only roll out that vaccine as quickly as we get the supply. And the complications with AstraZeneca are not the ones that have just been seen here in Australia, they’re ones that are being seen more broadly. But I’m confident that the economic recovery, and the momentum in that recovery, will continue, despite the challenges we have with the vaccine rollout. And we saw in yesterday’s job numbers unemployment fall to 5.6 per cent. Unemployment is now lower than it was when Labor last left office. That’s after a recession that we’ve just had and the height of the pandemic that we saw last year. So there is a good reason to be confident about Australia’s economic future, businesses are investing more, households are now spending, Australians are moving more freely across the country, and that’s a good thing.
QUESTION:
Speaking of jobs, Olympians have one, they want to go to Tokyo, will those games still go ahead and do you think they should jump the vaccine queue to be vaccinated to go to Tokyo?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well again, there’ll be medical advice, I’m sure the Sports Minister will make a fuller statement on that. But I would obviously love to see the Olympics go ahead, not just to see Australians get on the dais but of course it’s always great viewing and it’s a great international event.
QUESTION:
Treasurer, do you think the economy needs more tax cuts or more money, or is there a risk now starting to overstimulate?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well we know, that there’s $240 billion that’s been accumulated on household and business balance sheets that was not there this time last year. Now that’s a combination of the higher savings ratio that we saw during the peak of the crisis which is started to come down. But also the significant Government support that we’ve rolled out. Now we have committed $251 billion in direct economic support, about $150 billion is already out the door. So there’s more to go, for example through the tax cuts. The states have also made their own commitments. If we can maintain that confidence in the economy that money will be spent and that is a positive for the Australian economy. We obviously put a premium on fiscal discipline, but we’ve also seen the first pandemic of this kind in a century and the biggest economic shock since the Great Depression. And when we were standing on the economic abyss last year, Treasury came to me and said that the unemployment rate could reach as high as 15 per cent. Yesterday it fell to 5.6 per cent. That means hundreds of thousands of Australians are now in a job and that means families are better off, that means businesses are better off. And that means the Australian economy is better off. Thank you.