LUCY WICKS:
Thank you so much for being here this morning, it is a great day and it is a fantastic warm day to have the Federal Treasurer with us here on the Central Coast. I asked the Federal Treasurer to come to the Central Coast to hear firsthand from local businesses about the impact of the Federal Budget on how they do business and how it’s helping them to be able to succeed and adapt through the challenges that we have faced through this year, particularly as a result of COVID-19. Behind the Federal Budget, that was announced last week, are many, many local stories, like Terrigal Electrical Services. Terrigal Electrical Services is, of course, well known to many of us because of Free Trade Day and because of many other great initiatives. But I was so pleased to hear of Ryan and Yvette’s story about how they have been able to navigate the challenge of the coronavirus pandemic, be able to keep their employees thanks to JobKeeper, utilise the instant asset write-off and continue to grow their business despite the challenges of COVID-19, thanks in part to initiatives like the apprentice wage subsidy. I could tell you their story, it is a fantastic story, but I think there’s no better way to tell that story than to invite Ryan to say it to you in a few words.
RYAN WILSON:
Thank you for having me guys. So we’ve got a small business on the Central Coast established in 1982 by my father. I’ve taken the helm some sort of eight, nine years ago, lucky enough to have expanded on that business, we’ve now got 13 full time employees. We have directly benefited from JobKeeper, the instant asset write-off buying a new van and now after the recent announcement we’re lucky enough to have employed two new apprentices. I think the manner in how this stimulus package was rolled out was very timely, business confidence has come back, which is great. Our clients are confident, I can see that all our local building associates are very busy, as you can probably see in the background where there’s a lot going on, and that’s great to see.
LUCY WICKS:
Thank you Ryan. Federal Treasurer.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well thanks very much, Ryan. But firstly, thank you, Lucy, for the invitation to be here and for the fantastic advocacy and work you do on behalf of the people of the Central Coast. You’re a great member for Robertson, you’re a great friend and you’re a great colleague, and thank you so much for having me here today. Ryan, it is terrific to see your business in action and to see Chloe and Mitch, two young apprentices, who are putting their skills to work on sites such as these. To hear your story about how JobKeeper helped build that bridge for you and your employees to the other side of COVID-19. To hear how you have used that instant asset write-off to purchase a new van, which is exactly what we want to see; more economic activity, more jobs, more investment in your own business and in its very bright future. To hear how you are using the measures that the Government announced for apprentices is really welcomed as well.
The people of New South Wales are going to benefit greatly from the announcements by the Morrison Government in last Tuesday’s Budget. 3.7 million people in New South Wales are going to get a tax cut and over a million businesses are going to be able to use the immediate expensing, the expanded instant asset write-off, to buy new equipment, new machinery for their business, creating jobs right across the state, right across the country. This is what the Budget is designed to do; to create jobs, to create nearly a million new jobs in the years ahead. These are challenging times, but the Morrison Government has backed business, backed small business and medium-sized businesses and larger businesses across the country, like Ryan’s business here, to help them deal with the challenge of COVID, but also, once they’re on the other side, to invest in their productive capacity. It is great to hear, Ryan, how this is a family business, started back in the early 1980s by your dad, but also to hear how you’re putting back into the community, providing those free services to the people who couldn’t normally afford an electrician. You were telling me how some families were without a working oven for a number of years and you were able to get in there and to restore it and to fix it and to provide that service to them free of charge. That is a great community service that you have done. Employing people like Chloe and Mitch, and your other apprentices, is also a great thing that you are doing. So all the very best and the good news is in this Budget, we are creating jobs right across the state of New South Wales. Thank you.
QUESTION:
Treasurer, are you concerned that the Chinese Government is targeting our exports? What are the Government’s plans?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, obviously we’ve had some challenges with a few of our export markets into China and we will continue to engage with China on these issues and, obviously, with the key stakeholders. But the key point is the relationship with China is a very significant one and it’s a mutually beneficial one. There’s more than $200 billion of two-way trade between China and Australia. Our iron ore has helped fuel their economic growth and continues to do so. In fact, the iron ore prices are at very high and elevated levels. Our agricultural produce is the best in the world and it's on the tables of those people across China. Likewise, tourists, international students from China as well as the other many, many services that they provide to our country are really important to our economic growth and to job creation as well. So that relationship is important, it's challenging from time to time, but will continue to be very critical to Australia's economic prosperity and to China's economic growth.
QUESTION:
So how concerned is the Government about the rumours that China may stop importing our coal?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, again, there have been in the past some issues in relation to coal, and we've worked through those and we'll continue to work through these. And in the future there will be other issues and we'll continue to work those issues as well. We'll do so in a constructive way. We will do so in a productive way. But importantly, the relationship with China is critical to both Australia and to China. And it has served our two countries very well in the past and will continue to do so in the future.
QUESTION:
Treasurer, are you concerned that employer groups, including the Master Builders Association and the Australian Mines and Metals Association are becoming roadblocks to IR reform?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Again, what we've sought to do is to bring both sides of this debate together; the employer groups and those representing employees, namely the unions. And it's been a pretty constructive discussion so far and it's been around key issues like Greenfield sites, like around casuals, like around compliance, like around award simplification, enterprise bargaining. I am hopeful that there will be some breakthroughs from those discussions in the weeks ahead. Let’s not forget that when we put together the JobKeeper package, side by side with those $1,500 a fortnight payments, were important industrial relations reforms. And those reforms brought more flexibility to the labour market. Those reforms enabled an employer and an employee to agree around changes to duties, to hours, to location. So a worker who would normally be in the shop front of a retail business, but because there was less foot traffic, was able to be deployed to the warehouse without any issue. Those sorts of flexibilities in our workplace are critical to our economic recovery and we want them to continue.
QUESTION:
Treasurer, can I ask a question about the employer incentives of $200 for under 30’s and $100 for under 35’s. On the Central Coast we have a large population of middle-aged people who have lost their jobs through COVID. Now, when JobKeeper runs out in March and they're going back onto JobSeeker, which by then will be back to $40 a day, is there anything else in the pipeline that’s going to help those newly unemployed survive?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
We have a number of programs for people of various ages. For example, we have a Restart program which is for those who have been unemployed for six months or more, who are aged 50 or above and we provide an incentive of up to $10,000 to businesses to take them on. More than 50,000 Australians have taken up that scheme. The reason why we’re focus on those aged 16 to 35 with the JobMaker hiring credit is because we looked at previous recessions in Australia, particularly the 80’s and the 90’s, and the experience was that it took a long time to get people from the unemployment queues into work, but it took an even longer period of time to get those younger people from the unemployment queues into work. In fact in the 1990’s it took a full decade to get unemployment back below 6 per cent from where it started, but it took an incredible 15 years to get the employment levels for young people back to where it started before that recession. And we know that the youth unemployment rate today is double the rate across the rest of the economy. What we want to see is young people get into work. They've been hit hard by this crisis. But we want to see people of all ages get into work and that's why Lucy and I and the rest of the Morrison Government have strongly supported the tax cuts, because that is going to put more money into people's pockets, that’s going to create 50,000 new jobs. That’s why we're bringing forward infrastructure projects and investing in new infrastructure projects. That’s why we have provided an extra 10,000 places for the first home loan scheme, to get more building across the nation, put $1 billion of concessional finance into affordable housing, namely into NHFIC. That’s why we’re providing the business incentives, the use of the loss carry-back measures, the 340,000 new training places through the JobTrainer program, more university places, the $2 billion in R&D. All these measures are designed to create jobs for people right across the country, women and men, senior Australians and younger Australians, we’re all in this very much together.
QUESTION:
Josh, just staying on the local angle in regards to the coast, a lot of cashed up Sydneysiders moving up here, and I suppose with COVID where people are realising they can work from home, more people are coming up this way, putting more pressure on social housing, something that the Budget didn’t provide for, your thoughts?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well the Budget did provide an extra $1 billion for affordable housing, and we do this through an organisation called NHFIC, and that’s brought that total contribution to around $3 billion. But I point out that the states have the primary responsibility around social housing, and it was good to see Dom Perrottet, the NSW State Treasurer, talk about investing more in social housing here in this state. You’ve heard from the Governor of the Reserve Bank, that the states have the balance sheet and the capacity to do more. In fact, they could be spending up to another $40 billion or two per cent on GDP in the coming years. That would be welcome and if they were to spend more money on backing small business, more money on affordable housing, more money on infrastructure projects we would welcome that. Because the Commonwealth has done the heavy lifting when it comes to using our balance sheet and providing the spending across the economy and it’s working, because today consumer confidence numbers were up again; 2.1 per cent and that’s the sixth week in a row. And now you’ve got consumer confidence having recovered 93 per cent from its falls and low in March. 93 per cent recovery in consumer confidence since March, six weeks in a row, 2.1 per cent up this week. That is a Budget bounce according to the economists who saw those consumer confidence numbers. A Budget bounce in consumer confidence as a result of the measures that we’ve put in place, as a result of the virus being suppressed and those restrictions being eased.
QUESTION:
A lot of the Federal MPs who have been taking precautions, moving especially from Victoria to Canberra, bringing their families alongside, is that something that you’re considering yourself Treasurer?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Not at this point. My kids have just gone back to kindergarten and to prep, in Melbourne, and they’ve spent many months out of the classroom. And to be honest, that’s one of the real tragedies of the Victorian lockdown, is that millions of kids across the state won’t be able to get that time back in the classroom. And you can’t replicate the time in the classroom with time in the living room with online learning. It’s just not the same. Kids have been separated from their friends, grandparents have been separated from grandchildren, parents have had to work from home and manage all that at the same time and that’s been really difficult. And that’s why my message to the Premier in Victoria, Daniel Andrews, is to give Victorians back their freedom. It’s time, people have had enough, paid a very heavy price for the bungles in hotel quarantine, for which no one has yet taken responsibility. Victorians have paid such a heavy price for those failures with hotel quarantine and they’ve been strung along now for weeks about the lifting of those restrictions. This Sunday is the Premier’s opportunity, this Sunday is the Premier’s opportunity to give millions of Victorians their freedom back. He says he’s not in favour of an elimination strategy, it’s now time he proved it and lifted those restrictions this Sunday and people could go about their normal lives in a COVID-safe way.
QUESTION:
Can we get just one more local please? Treasurer, the local council here is in a very serious financial position, it has an $89 million deficit and the Federal Budget, it was more than $1 billion for financial assistance grants, is there any way that the Federal Government can expedite that funding, particularly are there any specific allocations that the Federal Government may provide to Central Coast Council in light of its serious issues and the revelation that it will be seeking up to $100 million in loans from the State Treasury?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well our focus in the Budget, in terms of infrastructure was on shovel ready projects, so we could get people to work but we could also make improvements to people’s safety on the roads. That’s why we announced $2 billion for road safety initiatives, which will be done through the state governments on a use it or lose it basis. But also why we put in place $1 billion for local councils, because they have a lot of smaller infrastructure projects that don’t need the tier one contractors, don't need the big drilling equipment, but people can get to work very quickly. So that will be provided to the states on a pro-rata basis and of course to local councils. And whether it’s here in the Central Coast Lucy, or whether it’s in other parts of this great state of New South Wales, we want that money to be put to use, to create jobs and to create safer conditions on the road for people across New South Wales. Thank you.