KARL STEFANOVIC:
And Josh Frydenberg joins us now from Canberra. Treasurer, good morning to you. Nice to see you. The economy, it might be singing at the moment, but many Aussies are struggling to afford groceries and fuel. How on earth are you going to get inflation under control?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, inflation is higher than was initially thought, and that’s being largely driven, Karl, by international factors. Obviously, the tensions across Europe and the developments in Ukraine have seen oil prices spike. There’s also been real pressure on global supply chains, which means freight costs have gone up, and that’s passed through to everything from food to other goods that people may purchase, whether it’s TVs or motor vehicles. What we are seeking to do is to alleviate, reduce, those cost‑of‑living pressures by putting more money into people’s pockets with tax cuts. We’ve seen electricity prices come down by eight per cent in the last two years, and we’re investing more than $10 billion a year into childcare, which is helping to address those costs as well.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
When will things get cheaper, though?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
We’ll have more measures in the Budget.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Okay.
ALLISON LANGDON:
You’ve got the drama at the moment, of course, because you’ve got petrol costing, I think it’s $15 more a week than it did a year ago, and that is a big slug on someone’s budget. Is it something you’re looking at making that $1,080 payment to low‑income earners permanent?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, Ali, you could ask me that question many different ways, but I’m not going to get on the sticky paper just a week out from the Budget. There’s a lot of swirling speculation about what’s in and what’s out. I can just confirm to you, though, that there will be a trajectory where our debt as a size of the economy will peak lower and earlier than initially thought, as recently as December, just last year. Things have really improved across the Australian economy. Yesterday we saw an employment rate of 4 per cent, the lowest in 14 years, and really significantly, female unemployment is now at its lowest level since 1974, and there are 377,000 more Australians in work today than at the start of the pandemic. That’s a better outcome in terms of employment, and also output for our economy, than any major advanced economy around the world, including the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Japan and others.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
The RBA will also obviously play a role in trying to control inflation by lifting rates. That will, maybe, happen earlier, but the banks are already doing it. What impact do you think that will have and when?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, as you know, the cash rate today, Karl, is at a historic low and that has been important for the economy because it’s been in sync with what we as a Government have been doing in being able to spend on different initiatives. But the Reserve Bank has also been cautious about lifting rates. They’re waiting to see wages go up, and they’ve also been wanting to see the inflation rate stabilise and, hopefully, you know, see it come down. So, I’ll leave those decisions to them, but they have been cautious about the timing of their interest rate decisions.
ALLISON LANGDON:
You were talking there about all the positive things around the economy at the moment, low unemployment and you mentioned women coming back into the workforce, should point out a lot of those are very low‑paying jobs and not all of them are permanent, of course. But when you’re talking about those positives, it’s not what families are sitting around the dinner table talking about. People don’t feel like the economy or their families are in a good place.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, a couple of things. Firstly, let’s not forget what this economy has gone through over the last two years, Ali. You remember those images back in March 2020, where hundreds of thousands of Australians were lining up outside Centrelink having lost their jobs, small business owners were convinced that they were shutting their doors permanently and losing their life savings. We responded with programs like JobKeeper, which actually saved the economy. And now we’ve seen a very strong economic recovery. Now, you’re right. Cost‑of‑living pressures are real. That’s why we’ve been taking steps to reduce them. That’s why we’ll take further steps in the Budget. But Australians can be very proud of where their economy sits right now, particularly when you look around the rest of the world and you see that their employment numbers haven’t recovered since the start of the pandemic, whereas Australia has seen more people in work today than since the start of the pandemic.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
I would like to give Ali $5,000 to repeat that question, verbatim?
ALLISON LANGDON:
That was like a 10‑point turn.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
It may well done I thought.
ALLISON LANGDON:
It was a tight cul‑de‑sac.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
I didn’t know where she was going, but she got there.
ALLISON LANGDON:
Neither did I.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
One final thing. The front‑page news of the Daily Telegraph today, more claims of bullying in the Labor Party. Do you think that’s got any legs at all?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, obviously these claims are very distressing, no doubt for the family, but also for the friends of Kimberley Kitching. I certainly counted her as a friend. I thought she was a lovely person, a person of real conviction, a patriot and somebody who cared deeply about human rights issues right around the world. Look, I’ll leave that to Anthony Albanese and the Labor Party to answer, but, clearly, she, Kimberley Kitching, before her untimely death, had made clear her concerns about her treatment by her colleagues.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Do you support an inquiry?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
That’s not a decision for me, Karl. That’s a decision for the Labor Party and their own internal processes, but what I do want to focus on is remembering a wonderful parliamentary colleague. She was across the political divide, but that didn’t stop many of my colleagues having the greatest deal of respect for her and what she was able to achieve while in the Parliament.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Good on you, Treasurer. Thank you.