CHRIS KENNY:
I caught up with Treasurer Josh Frydenberg in Brisbane just a few minutes ago, and I started off by asking whether Australia's free speech arguments against China are undermined by these instances, such as the Djokovic case and the shutting down of the Peng Shuai protest.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, Australia has certainly been at the receiving end of economic coercion, Chris, from China when they've targeted our exports, and now we’re the receiving end of political interference with the Prime Minister denied access to the WeChat platform, as he should be allowed to use it, just as the leader of the opposition is currently using it. So we need a level playing field there, and it does really smack of political interference. With respect to the tennis player, Peng Shuai has gone missing. That is obviously of great concern. There's been sporadic appearances from her, but certainly nothing that would indicate she's living her life free and happy and content. So I think that people who bring attention to that issue are absolutely right to do so.
CHRIS KENNY:
Yeah my point is, though, that Australia makes the right arguments about freedom of expression for Olympic athletes when they go to China about WeChat, about political censorship by China, but we have to live our values. And Australia has just kicked out Novak Djokovic because of his views, not because of any law he's broken. And we've allowed Tennis Australia to shut down a very justifiable protest about Peng Shuai at the Australian Open. Free speech is not looking so good in Australia, is it?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, with the greatest respect, Chris, I think you're conflating two very different issues in Novak Djokovic and then what's happened with Peng Shuai, or indeed, what's happening on WeChat. With respect to Novak Djokovic, Greg Hunt, the Health Minister, wrote to Tennis Australia very clearly back in November last year as to what the criteria, what the conditions were, for somebody coming into Australia unvaccinated. Namely, they would need either a specific exemption or they would need to do their two week quarantine period…
CHRIS KENNY:
Just to interrupt Treasurer, we know the Minister deported him in the end because of his views. That was it. It's about his views. It was not about him breaking those vaccine mandates. So it's a freedom of expression issue, isn't it?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, we want Australians to get vaccinated. We want them to get the booster shot. We know that's an important line of defence against the virus. And someone like Novak Djokovic could have come through into the country if he had that relevant exemption, if he had done that two week period. But he ran the gauntlet of our legal system, and the Immigration Minister made a very clear determination that was upheld by the full court of the Federal Court unanimously.
CHRIS KENNY:
All right. We'll get on to the economy, but I'll keep up on these free speech issues in the future because they are important. Now you'll be focused very intently, of course, on your upcoming Budget scheduled for the end of March. An election will be following that in May, presumably, but you must have one eye into the near future, into perhaps next year. With a lot of concerns about inflation, with inflation in Europe and the US now running at 30 year highs, how worried are you about runaway global inflation?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, the inflation rate today is now, for the first time since 2015, in that target band that the Reserve Bank sets of 2 to 3 per cent. Some of the pressure that we're seeing on inflation is coming from global supply chains, whether it's in relation to timber or steel, and of course fuel prices as well, and that is impacting on the inflation numbers. But we are not seeing the level and the pressure on inflation here in Australia that they've seen in the United Kingdom and that they've seen in the United States. So we will monitor that very closely. Cost of living pressures are real, though, but somebody who has a standard $500,000 mortgage today is paying $600 less a month in their interest bill than they were under Labor. So matters of interest rates, matters of inflation will be those for the Reserve Bank. But quite clearly, we're in a situation right now where people have benefited greatly from that low interest rate environment.
CHRIS KENNY:
Yeah, that's why increased interest rates will be of such concern, because a lot of people haven't experienced rising interest rates. A lot of people in the financial sector haven't experienced it. The Wall Street Journal has talked about how once the inflation genie is out, it's hard to control. With all that debate going on and looking at those global movements, will you be keen to constrain spending in this budget? And you'll be very tempted to spend wildly, of course, in an election year on the eve of an election. But do the inflation concerns constrain you when it comes to your spending expectations?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, let's put everything in context. Back in March of 2020, when the pandemic hit, we were faced with an economy that was going into hibernation, and we were faced with hundreds of thousands of Australians who were making their way to Centrelink, joining the queues, having lost their jobs. There was great fear across the community, so we spent what was required at that time. And Chris, as you know, Australia's second longest serving Prime Minister, someone I had the privilege to work for, John Howard, said to me "At times of national crises, there are no ideological constraints". And that was a green light for a program like JobKeeper, which helped save 700,000 jobs. And we now have an unemployment rate at its lowest level in more than 13 years, at 4.2 per cent compared to when Labor left office. So we had to spend where we did. But going into the pandemic, we balanced the Budget for the first time in 11 years. Now Labor wanted us to keep spending. They wanted JobKeeper to keep going. They wanted the covid disaster payments to keep going. We actually brought those emergency support measures to an end while at the same time providing tax relief. We have actually seen an improvement in the Budget bottom line, particularly because of the very strong labour market outcome. So we actually saw in the Final Budget Outcome for 2021 an improvement of $80 billion compared to what we thought when we actually announced the Budget initially in October 2020. And the reason being is that more people were in work, therefore more people were paying tax and less people were on welfare. So I can see a pathway for a stronger economy to a better Budget bottom line and that is through creating more jobs, which is what we're doing.
CHRIS KENNY:
Let's hope that's the case. Fewer restrictions and open borders in 2022. Thanks for joining us, Treasurer.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
My pleasure.