ALI MOORE:
Josh Frydenberg, you feeling the pain of your colleagues down south at the moment given that you’re still in Canberra?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well absolutely. These are very trying times for all Victorians, we’re all in this together, and we’ll all get through this together…
ALI MOORE:
We’re not really all in this together, are we, anymore?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well in terms of Victorians, we are, and no other state can discount the possibility of a second wave, that’s why Victoria’s success will be Australia’s success. And the steps that have been taken, based on the medical advice, will give us our best chance of trying to stem the tide of these new cases.
ALI MOORE:
So what every business wants to know, what every person who has lost their job wants to know, that come September when JobKeeper is meant to stop, when the extra amount of money for JobSeeker is meant to stop, JobKeeper, obviously keeping a lot of businesses going in Victoria, what will happen and will Victoria get special treatment because we are in special circumstances?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, certainly people in Victoria right now doing it much tougher than the rest of the nation. And there will be a second wave of income support that the Commonwealth will announce, as we’ve foreshadowed we’ll be making statements on 23 July. It’s also important to point out that more than $10 billion has been injected by the Federal Government into the Victorian economy in just the last few months through two programs, the JobKeeper program and the cash flow boost, which seeks to provide extra resources to small and medium sized businesses to meet their daily costs. Our focus to date, Ali, has been on the national approach as opposed to state specific programs. This has been one of the strengths because it has allowed us to put in place demand driven programs that respond to need wherever that arises, but we’re certainly going to be factoring in recent developments in Victoria into our thinking and into our decisions for the 23rd. I and the Prime Minister have had very constructive discussions with Daniel Andrews and with me also speaking to the State Treasurer, Tim Pallas, so we’re very conscious of Victoria’s needs right now.
ALI MOORE:
Are you also conscious of how you can make the system more efficient, so on the one hand, you can save some money in some areas and that could be used to prop up businesses? I mean, you’ll have for example restaurants in Sydney that are pretty quickly getting back to normal business, you’ll have restaurants in Melbourne that are threatened to have to close their doors permanently. Can you make the system more efficient so money doesn’t go to the restaurant in Sydney, or less of it goes to the restaurant in Sydney and more of it comes down here?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well the programs to date have always been targeted, they’ve been scalable, they’ve been proportionate and they’ve been using our existing systems. And that…
ALI MOORE:
But they’ve also been very, very broad.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
…in the sense that they’ve gone to people and to businesses that are in need, because they’ve had eligibility criteria and tests and as you know, with the restrictions being eased in other states, people are coming back into work, businesses are starting to open, and that’s not necessarily the case in Victoria with our six week lockdown and they’re the sort of factors that we’re taking into account. I also want to point out it’s not just the economic support that the Commonwealth is providing into Victoria, we’ve got more the 220 Defence Force personnel and the offer remains there for Victoria for the ADF support. We’ve also got more than 800 Commonwealth officials who are on the ground helping with the health task and other logistic tasks and community engagement. So there are a lot of things that we’re doing, not just on the economic side, but also with our Defence Forces, with our Commonwealth officials and we’ve also funded 28 respiratory clinics that have provided more than 55,000 tests in Victoria. So we’ll continue to do, Ali, what is required, because that’s what we’ve done from the start of this pandemic.
ALI MOORE:
And can I just ask you on those ADF, and this is a little off topic, but as a Victorian, do you wish that Daniel Andrews would take up the offer? Yes, we have some ADF personnel, we don’t have as many as we could have.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well that will be decisions for the Premier, but he does know that the offer is there. And he said publically, that whenever he has asked Scott Morrison for assistance, the answer has been an unequivocal yes. And we do know that there are shared responsibilities here. There’s also particular resources and skills that we can bring to the table and they’ll continue to be on offer to Victoria.
ALI MOORE:
So the 23rd, that’s the day?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
The date for the fiscal and economic update and obviously it’s going to bring together the numbers for the economy, give people a sense of where we are as well as the futures of JobKeeper and JobSeeker. What this second wave of cases in Victoria shows, Ali, is, we’re not out of the woods yet, this is a terrible pandemic that we’re facing with very severe health and economic consequences and everyone needs to be patient and vigilant.
ALI MOORE:
Alright, Josh Frydenberg thanks for talking to us.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Always good to be with you.