CLAIRE CHANDLER:
… today with the Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg and my Federal colleagues, Senator Eric Abetz and Senator Jonathan Duniam, last week, the Federal Government led by Josh, announced the Budget, which is a Budget that will help Australia and have Tasmania recover from the COVID-19 crisis and increase the number of jobs in our economy. And it’s great to see good news on the jobs figures front today. I’ve had such positive feedback from the Federal Budget in my conversations with Tasmanians over the last week. Whether it’s the tax relief for the 200,000 Tasmanians on low incomes or the investment in the Midland Highway Action Plan of more than $100 million. Or indeed the support for small businesses through the instant asset write off. This is a great Budget for Tasmania, a great Budget for Australia and a Budget that I’m sure will see us continue to recover from the COVID-19 economic crisis. But it’s great to be here with Josh and I think he’ll now be saying some more to you about the jobs figures announced this morning.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Thank you very much Claire, it’s great to be here with you and with Jono and with Eric and to earlier today to be with Premier Gutwein, a re-elected Gutwein Government is good news for Tasmania and indeed good news for the national economy as well, and it was good to participate with him in the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry event. Today's job numbers show the strength of Australia's economy and the strength of Australia’s economic recovery. It shows that the Morrison Government's economic plan is working. Beating market expectations, today unemployment fell to 5.5 per cent. This is the seventh consecutive monthly where unemployment has fallen. Underemployment has fallen to its lowest level in seven years, and we have seen youth unemployment fall to its lowest level in 12 years. And full-time jobs saw an increase of 33,800 new full-time jobs being created in the month of April. Now we have to bear in mind that these job numbers came after the end of JobKeeper, a program that had supported 3.8 million Australians, and the ABS have said in today's statement that the end of JobKeeper did not have a major discernible impact on the job numbers, and that, again underlines the strength of Australia's economic recovery. And let's not forget the Labor Party said that the sky would fall in with the end of JobKeeper. The Labor Party will be very disappointed with today's job numbers because they have been talking down the Australian economy for the full 15 months of this pandemic, yet the Australian economy strengthened, even after the end of JobKeeper. We heard a huge whinge yesterday at the Press Club from the Shadow Treasurer - all smears, no ideas. The Labor Party's credibility has been shredded with these economic numbers that we have seen from the unemployment coming down, yet again. They have no plan, they have no credibility, yet the Morrison Government’s economic plan is seeing unemployment fall to 5.5 per cent, seven consecutive months where the unemployment rate has fallen.
QUESTION:
We’ve seen in these figures today that many people do remain underemployed, what are you doing to address that?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Again, underemployment fell to its lowest level in seven years,that is very important to underline. We announced in the Budget our plan to get more people into work. We’ve seen around half a million jobs being created since last year’s Budget, what we have in this year’s Budget is a plan to create another 250,000 jobs. So low and middle income taxpayers are going to get a benefit of up to $1,080 and as Claire said, here in Tasmania, more than 200,000 taxpayers are getting a tax cut. We also put in place in the Budget, an extension of the investment incentives because we want to back businesses to do what they do best, to hire, to innovate and to grow. More than 60,000 businesses in Tasmania will be able to access the extended and expanded instant asset write off. We also heavily invested in skills in this Budget. We are putting $2.7 billion into the creation of 170,000 new apprentices, whether they’re in the trades, whether in the hospitality sector, right across the economy, and 5,000 places for women to get them into non traditional occupations with additional support for women to get into those non traditional occupations. We’re expanding the JobTrainer program to support 450,000 places, partnering with the Liberal Government here in Tasmania to do that. We’re providing foundational skills, maths, English, computer literacy for people who have been long term unemployed. We’ve got record spending in infrastructure, more than $370 million extra for projects here in Tasmania, we’re investing in the digital economy, we’ve got initiatives around childcare to build workforce participation. What we saw in last week’s Budget was a plan to create more jobs, here in Tasmania and across the national economy.
QUESTION:
We’ve spoken to businesses here in Tasmania who say they are kind of on the brink of closure since JobKeeper ended. What would you say to them, given the job figures out today it seems like there are still problems on the ground with businesses facing closure?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
What the job numbers show today is that the unemployment rate has fallen at the end of JobKeeper and that the predictions from our political opponents that the sky would fall in was a false prediction, a false prophecy. It shows you they have no economic credibility. We know they’re in favour of higher spending. If the Labor Party got their way, JobKeeper would have been extended at a cost of more than $2 billion a month. If the Labor Party got their way, we would have ended up owning an airline, they wanted us to take a stake in Virgin. If the Labor Party got their way, they would be using hard-earned taxpayers money to support families with incomes of more than $500,000 with their childcare policies. In contrast, the Morrison Government has taken carefully considered decisions to take away that emergency support when it was appropriate to do so. With the end of JobKeeper after a year and to move to the next transition phase of our economic plan, with the infrastructure programs, with the skills packages, with the tax cuts for families, with the business investment incentives. Those plans are helping to create more jobs. Those plans are seeing the unemployment rate today come down.
QUESTION:
The AMA says we are sitting ducks due to the poor takeup of the vaccine. How much more are you prepared to spend on a public information campaign to boost the vaccine takeup?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
We’ll continue to communicate with the Australian people about the importance of taking the vaccine. We have seen over 400,000 people get it over the course of the last week; more than three million Australians have received a dose of the vaccine and that’s more than 10 per cent of our population and more than 30 per cent of our population over the age of 70. Importantly, that’s a more vulnerable cohort who have received a dose of the vaccine. We now have 5,000 plus contact points around the country, whether its GPs, or whether its state and territory clinics that are designed to enable people to access the vaccine. So, it is important that as many people as possible take the vaccine. We’re continuing to roll it out as quickly as possible.
QUESTION:
Are you prepared to invest in a public information campaign. If so, by how much more?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Again, we’ll have proper communications programs in order to communicate to the public about the importance of the vaccine rollout. We’re already doing that through local groups like the AMA and others, their members are communicating to their own patients.
QUESTION:
How sustainable is it in the long term for Tasmania to receive about double its fair share in GST? Will we remain (inaudible) state forever?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
I think the Tasmanian economy is going from strength to strength. Let’s not forget, we had an unemployment rate just under 8 per cent in October last year. It has come down to just over 6 per cent today. We continue to strongly support programs and projects here in Tasmania and I think the fact that Premier Gutwein has been re-elected by the Tasmanian people was a vote of confidence in his economic [inaudible] for the people of Tasmania and a vote of confidence in the way he (inaudible)...
QUESTION:
(inaudible)...GST funding (inaudible)
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
We’ll continue to see a strong share of the GST and, indeed, the Budget (inaudible) the Budget just last October.
QUESTION:
There are a lot of different sectors across Australia, including hospitality, tourism, they’re still struggling to attract, especially, international workers. What are you going to do about that and do you think there is a reluctancy from Australians to take on those roles?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
The good news is there are more Australians in work than ever before. More Australians are in work than were in work prior to the pandemic. That is very important to understand as well. Now, because the international borders are closed, obviously, you’re not getting the flow of temporary migrants, but we’ve done work with particular sectors to enable some of those workers to come in. For example, in the fruit picking and agricultural sectors we have small cohorts. We’re working to bring in international students, working with the states, the universities to have students come in over and above the existing quarantine cap. But we are investing in skills programs, because we want Australians to be skilled up to take up those jobs that are available. You referred to the aviation tourism sector. I flew here today from New South Wales. The plane was full. Lots of people coming in and we do know that the Morrison Government has put in place 800,000 half-price airfares, including here in Tasmania, which many people are taking up to support the local tourism sector because those international borders remain closed.
QUESTION:
How much more can the Government do to convince people to get vaccinated when there are some out there who are concerned about getting AstraZeneca?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
This is not just an Australian phenomenon. This is a global phenomenon. We’ve seen surveys in the United States indicate that some people have a hesitancy around the vaccine takeup. Here in Australia, we’ve been very successful in suppressing the virus. If you look at the number of people for other vaccination programs here in Australia, we’ve had a historically high take up. So, I am very hopeful and confident that many Australians will continue to get the jab.
QUESTION:
Just on the roles in hospitality and tourism like you spoke about, do you think there is a reluctancy for Australians to take on those roles, you know, in kitchens in hospitality and things like that?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
No, I don’t. I think that Australians are taking up those jobs, as they become available. The good news is that the job ads are up [inaudible]. So the jobs are out there and we’re encouraging [inaudible].
QUESTION:
Josh, can you guarantee that there won’t be a spike in unemployment next month with the impact of JobKeeer figures are revealed?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, again, we’ve got the numbers today. We’re not talking about next month’s numbers, we’re talking about this month’s numbers, for what we’ve seen over the course of April. We saw our political opponents, the Labor Party, scream from the rooftops that JobKeeper would mean the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs. You heard from them saying that the sky would fall in. The reality is, the sky didn’t fall in. The reality is that Australian economy strengthened, even after the end of JobKeeper. The reality is that the unemployment rate fell after the end of JobKeeper. The Labor Party has got egg on its face today. The Labor Party has shown it doesn’t have credibility when it comes to the economy. What we wanted to hear from the Labor Party, yesterday at the Press Club, was their plan to back in our stage three tax cuts, not more hesitancy, more bets on each side; a bet each way is how they play. What we wanted to hear from the Labor Party was that they would be backing in our legislated tax cuts which are going to deliver more Australians more money in their pockets.
QUESTION:
What do you think of Victoria’s mental health levy?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, again, we’re always in favour of supporting more mental health investments, and we did that in the budget. The Labor Party in Victoria will have to explain its methods of revenue raising to its own public. What I do say, though, about the Labor Party in Victoria is that they’ve increased taxes on home buyers. They’ve increased taxes on the housing industry and that has come at exactly the wrong time. As the economy is recovering, they’re whacking more taxes on the Victorian people. But this is what Labor does. Whether it’s State Labor or Federal Labor, they’ll always increase your taxes because they’ll have higher spending that they need to fund. And we saw at the last election, you know, Claire and Jono and Eric and I fought the last election based on our plans to drive taxes lower, and we legislated those plans after they were endorsed by the Australian people. But what the Australian people did reject at the last election was Labor’s plans to put higher taxes on superannuation, higher taxes on your housing, higher taxes on franking credits, higher taxes on your income, higher taxes on your small business. The Labor Party believes in higher taxes. The Labor Party’s policies reflect that. Our policies reflect lower taxes. That’s what we took to the Australian people. That’s what we legislated. That’s what we delivered. And that’s what the Labor Party needs to back in - our plan for lower taxes, which are being legislated through the Parliament.