BEN FORDHAM:
Treasurer, good morning to you.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Good morning Ben, good morning listeners.
BEN FORDHAM:
You’ve got a message to Australia today; where you can, we need you to spend.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Our message today to Australians is that there is hope, that there is a cause for optimism, and that we will get through this once in a century pandemic together. This Budget last night was all about jobs, helping, Ben, those who are out of work get into work, and those who are in a job to stay in a job. We obviously brought forward by two years our legislated tax cuts which will see the creation of 50,000 jobs, put more money into people’s pockets, we’ve undertaken unprecedented amounts of incentives for businesses, big and small, to invest and therefore to create jobs and boost the productive capacity of the nation. There are payments to pensioners, to veterans, to others on income support and then there’s a record infrastructure spend which will also create jobs but move product from the paddock to the plate a lot quicker. So there’s a lot of measures in this Budget that no doubt will be unpacked over coming days.
BEN FORDHAM:
The wage subsidies for younger workers are great, but not so good if you’re an older worker. So if a boss is tossing up between someone who’s say 32 and 42, they get a wage subsidy for the 32 year old but not for the 42 year old. So why would you hire anyone over 35?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well we have other programs that are designed to get seniors into work, Ben, and obviously also we’ve got the broader measures to support economic activity that will create jobs for Australians of all ages. But we look back at the experience of previous Australian recessions, both in the 1980s and the 1990s, and it took a long time to get people off the unemployment queue and back to work. So in the 1980s it took six years to move the unemployment rate down below six per cent from where it started and in the 1990s it took a full decade, ten years, to get unemployment below six per cent from where it started. So we want to move a lot quicker and young people are more vulnerable, and they have been hit hard through this crisis, they’ve been represented in those sectors like tourism and hospitality and these measures are designed to help them get into work which will be good for them but also good for the national economy.
BEN FORDHAM:
Okay, just on those who are vulnerable, let’s talk about JobSeeker. There’s no permanent increase to the JobSeeker rate, so once the $250 bonus ends in December it will go back to $565 a fortnight. So you live in an expensive city, Melbourne, just like my listeners do in Sydney, you couldn’t get by on $280 a week could you?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well as for the JobSeeker Coronavirus Supplement, both the Prime Minister and I have made clear that closer to the end of the year we will make a decision about the future level of that payment. And that will be based on an understanding of where the labour market dynamic is, because obviously you want to get that payment at the right level so that it encourages mobility in the labour market and people moving into jobs where they’re available. So, yes it has transitioned from its earlier higher rate which was at the peak of the crisis, just as the JobKeeper payment has transitioned, but the other measures, Ben, that we announced last night are designed to stimulate activity across the economy and to create jobs. And in Treasury’s forecast, the unemployment rate comes steadily down and that is good news for the economy.
BEN FORDHAM:
Okay, so the JobSeeker bonus is still a live issue, but if I can go back to my question, $280 a week, living in Melbourne or living in Sydney, do you agree that that’s unsustainable?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Look, cost of living has gone up and what we’ve sought to do is to bring it down in areas where we can control like with energy, with the measures that we’ve taken there which has delivered lower energy prices and a more stable grid. The investments in child care to reduce the costs there. Obviously you’ve seen the price of petrol come down globally as a result of increased supply into the market. There are a lot of things that are happening that effect the cost of living, but yes, if you are unemployed it is very challenging and therefore we’re trying to seek to cushion the blow and we’ll make a decision about that JobSeeker payment closer to the end of the year.
BEN FORDHAM:
When it comes to debt, net debt, $703 billion this year. It will nudge a trillion in 2024. Can you hazard a guess when we’ll pay that back?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well obviously it’s going to be important to stabilise our debt position but we can only do that if we’re having an economic recovery and we can only do that if we’re having a jobs recovery. So we were very successful in bringing back the fiscal discipline after we came back into government, and we were able to balance the Budget for the first time in 11 years. We got welfare dependency down to its lowest levels in 30 years and we got unemployment down from 5.7 per cent when we came to Government, down to 5.1 per cent from February of this year, prior to the real impact of COVID. So we’ll have to climb that mountain again, Ben, it’s a function of the challenge that we are facing, but we can do it and last night’s measures will help do that.
BEN FORDHAM:
The self-funded retirees, Sam is calling in saying we don’t get anything. You’d be hearing a lot of that today.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well again, self-funded retirees benefit from a stronger economy, whether it’s their investments in fixed interests investments, or whether it’s in the stock market and the measures that we announced last night will make for more profitable companies that will create more jobs. That’s our focus, to create more jobs and get the private sector driving our economic recovery. They’re responsible for eight to nine of every ten jobs across the economy and by giving them the confidence to invest we will create more jobs, that will be good news for self-funded retirees and it will be remiss of me not to remind every self-funded retiree listening in this morning, that if our political opponents got in, they would’ve been hit with a retirees tax and changes on franking credits and that would’ve been disastrous and even doubly disastrous as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
BEN FORDHAM:
Well I just want to replay an incident that unfolded on TV this morning. You were live on the Today Show when a protestor started running towards the spot you were in.
[Played excerpt: Today Show]
BEN FORDHAM:
Police took him away. Now I know you’ve been working out a lot during lockdown and you’ve beefed up a bit. Do you feel as if you had his number to bring him down if need be?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
I’ll leave the Federal Police to do that. I’m not commissioned for such activities but I have to tell you that we are well represented, the Prime Minister and I, by our security detail. They do an incredible job, like all our men and women in uniform and some have lost their lives in the line of duty and to them and their families we acknowledge the risk that they take. And that demonstrator didn’t look too dangerous but obviously decided he was going to get his 30 seconds of fame.
BEN FORDHAM:
Yeah turned out to be about 19 seconds so he was short changed but we weren’t last night on the whole even though, as I said, some people who are a little bit older feel like they would love a bit more love but that’s the way it works, we’re in the middle of a crisis at the moment and thank you so much for joining us this morning.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Always good to be with you Ben.