7 July 2021

Interview with Alison Langdon, The Today Show, Channel 9

Note

Subjects: Business roundtable; vaccines; Sydney lockdown

ALLISON LANGDON:

Treasurer, good morning to you.

JOSH FRYDENBERG:

Good morning Ally, nice to be with you.

ALLISON LANGDON:

Yeah, you too. Chilly down there this morning, minus three. So, big business key to speed things up. I imagine you’d take any help you can get wouldn’t you?

JOSH FRYDENBERG:

The Morrison Government's been working very closely with the business community right from day one of this pandemic. As you remember, last year Ally, we were able to achieve a break for mortgage repayments for hundreds of thousands of Australian households. Also, we got rent relief.

That was through a partnership with the business community and it's been very important in building the momentum for our economic recovery. Well, we're now in another stage, the next stage of the recovery plan with the vaccine rollout and engaging business as we will today is a really good opportunity to share ideas, but also to work cooperatively in areas like logistics, transport, premises, communication, as well as community engagement. And all those things where businesses bring a lot of resources to the table.

ALLISON LANGDON:

What does it say that big business feels they need to step in here and speak to speed up the vaccination process?

JOSH FRYDENBERG:

It’s a team Australia moment, it's about every aspect of the community working together, whether it's households, or whether it's businesses, whether it's the not for profit sector or our amazing frontline health workers, everybody has a role to play in not just the vaccine rollout, but in suppressing the virus and beating this pandemic and that's what we're seeking to do.

Around the table today will be more than 30 CEOs and industry group leaders, representing more than 7.5 million Australian workers. The CEO of Coles and the Commonwealth Bank will be there, together with Telstra and Wesfarmers, Virgin and Qantas and many others. We’ll all be engaged in the single same task, which is how do we suppress the virus and roll out the vaccine as quickly as possible.

ALLISON LANGDON:

Well some big hurdles to overcome, obviously in regards to privacy and indemnity, you'd also have to be confident of supply. We've got large amounts of Pfizer due in September, is that certain?

JOSH FRYDENBERG:

We’ve got agreements to have that supply come online. Right now we're getting 300,000 a week. By the end of this month, it's expected to get to 600,000 a week and by October, two million doses of the Pfizer vaccine or mRNA vaccines a week. That's going to help speed up the rollout which is already seen more than 8.3 million jabs being delivered.

And importantly, the most vulnerable cohorts, like the over 70s, have seen more than 70 per cent of people receive the jab, the over 50s more than 50 per cent of people receive the jab and across the eligible community in Australia, more than 30 per cent have received the jab. So we are rolling out the vaccine as quickly as possible. And bringing businesses to the table today will be very helpful in that regard.

ALLISON LANGDON:

Well until we speed things up lockdowns, like we're seeing in Sydney, will continue. As we just heard Sydney and the greater area, extending by a week. Do you think that's the right call?

JOSH FRYDENBERG:

Well, I back Gladys Berejiklian to get on top of the virus. Of all the state premiers she's had the best record to date and she's been very effective in what she has been able to achieve even when there has been outbreaks.

This is difficult, obviously and it's a reminder of the challenges posed by the new Delta variant and of course, it's a hit to the economy as well, whenever you see lockdowns and restrictions like we're seeing in Sydney, like we saw recently in Victoria and Queensland. But this is what the challenges before us are about and that's why rolling out the vaccine is our priority.

ALLISON LANGDON:

Tough for businesses when you've pulled JobKeeper, we had Innes Willox from the Australian Industry Group on the show earlier saying that businesses and I quote, “dying a slow death and that you need to be doing more to provide support and sooner.” Fair call since the slow rollout is on your Government?

JOSH FRYDENBERG:

Well, I saw that, those comments from Innes and he was talking specifically about what was happening in parts of Victoria. And indeed, we've seen in the Melbourne CBD, occupancy rates as low as 26 per cent. But I do remind you Ally, that across the economy, we've seen the unemployment rate fall to 5.1 per cent.

We saw in the month of May 115,000 new jobs being created and we, ahead of any other advanced economy in the world, have seen more people in work today than before the pandemic began and our economy bigger today before the pandemic began.

ALLISON LANGDON:

So no further help for those businesses in trouble right now because of the lockdown?

JOSH FRYDENBERG:

Well, we put in place additional support in the Budget in the expectation that there would be further lockdowns and outbreaks, more than $41 billion in direct economic support. And as you know, we're providing payments of either $500 or $325 to workers who have been subject to a lockdown of more than a week, depending on the number of hours of work per week that they've lost as a result of those restrictions.

The Morrison Government has made an unprecedented commitment of $291 billion in direct economic support. That's around twice what the states and territories have committed combined. So we've done the bulk of the heavy lifting and we continue to provide that support right to the end of this pandemic.

ALLISON LANGDON:

When you've said that we need to learn to live with COVID and we just hear that no Grand Prix for Melbourne for the second year running or Moto GP. That's a huge hit. Australian Open potentially in doubt too. What is the vaccine target in your mind for us to avoid further lockdowns and for us to let people in without quarantining if they're vaccinated?

JOSH FRYDENBERG:

That's exactly the work that the Doherty Institute has been tasked to do by National Cabinet. I want to underline how important I think the agreement was last week by National Cabinet to a four stage plan of learning to live with the virus.

And as we move from the suppression phase to the prevention phase of serious illness, hospitalisation, and indeed fatalities, that's what our goal is and that means changes to the way quarantine and the vaccination rollout and the caps for inbound travellers, all of those things will change over time. And the Doherty Institute is working on precisely those details through extensive scientific modelling.

That that work will come back to the National Cabinet and subsequent decisions will be taken. But it is important that we stick to that roadmap as laid out by the Prime Minister last week.

ALLISON LANGDON:

All right, well, a very big meeting for you today with business leaders. Good luck with it, and I hope you come out of it with a great plan. Talk to you soon.

JOSH FRYDENBERG:

Thanks Ally.