GARETH PARKER:
On the line, the Federal Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg. Good morning.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Good morning. Nice to be with you, Gareth.
GARETH PARKER:
It’s fair to say we’re not going to see as good a news next month you would suggest?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, I think that the impact of the New South Wales lockdown and the Victorian lockdown will weigh on the labour force data in the months ahead. But what we did see yesterday was the unemployment rate fall to a 12-year low, as you say, 4.6 per cent, with nationally 2,200 jobs being created. Good news for your listeners in Western Australia is that you saw six and a half thousand jobs created across your state. But it really was a data set that showed the tale of two different cities – Melbourne and Sydney. Because in Melbourne, they were emerging out of the lockdown in that survey period, and we saw a nearly 10 per cent increase in the hours worked in that state. Whereas in New South Wales the survey period took into account their second and the third week of their lockdowns where the hours worked fell by a full 7 per cent over the month of July. And so we do believe the economy will bounce back strongly, as it did in Victoria in that month, but to do so you need to suppress the virus and see restrictions eased.
GARETH PARKER:
So, Treasurer, does this show that Mark McGowan has been right all along? I mean, he has been criticised by many from the east and some in this state, including me from time to time, for being obsessive about COVID zero. But do these figures show that he’s absolutely right to be obsessive about keeping COVID out of the state because it protects jobs?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, it’s absolutely important to get on top of COVID. When outbreaks do arise, as they’ve done in Western Australia as in other states, you need to have contact testing and tracing and a very effective isolation process. But at the same time, with all your restrictions, you’ve got to weigh up lots of different factors. You’ve got to weigh up the wellbeing of your citizens, you’ve got to weigh up the economic impact of your citizens. And, of course, you’ve got to weight up the health outcomes that you’re striving to achieve. Now, Mark McGowan was just re-elected with a strong majority in Western Australia. The decisions he takes are matters for him in terms of the public health orders. But I’ve got a broader point with respect to the premiers and the chief ministers – it is that they’ve signed up to a national plan based on the Doherty Institute modelling. And that plan very clearly says that vaccination rates of 70 and 80 per cent, in their words, stringent lockdowns become unlikely. The transmissibility of the virus reduces, so, too, the number of people who are getting severe illness. And at that point have to give our public hope that there is going to be an easing of restrictions, that we are going to get back to living the virus in a very, you know, COVID-safe way. If you look at the UK experience, they’ve got a 75 per cent vaccination rate. Yet they’re seeing 30,000 cases in any one day and more than 100 deaths. Now, we can’t avoid the hard questions, the hard discussions, that living with the virus means that there will be deaths. It means that there will be serious illness. It means that there will be new cases. But everything that I’m told by the medical experts indicates that we’ll be living with COVID for some time to come. That’s why we have to be practical. That’s why we have to get people vaccinated. And that’s why we have to be very much upfront with the public about what the future looks like.
GARETH PARKER:
But, Treasurer, in this state we have gotten used to the idea of no COVID, of zero COVID cases, and, therefore, of zero COVID deaths. And the quid pro quo is that we cannot leave our state for the vast majority of us – and certainly your government has imposed rules that make it extremely difficult for anyone to leave the country. Is that a better outcome than the outcomes that you’re seeing in New South Wales or, indeed, in other countries like the UK, which you’ve just cited?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, clearly Western Australia hasn’t had the extensive lockdowns that you’ve seen, particularly in Victoria with more than 200 days since the pandemic began in lockdown and in New South Wales more recently. Clearly that is a very important metric for the Western Australian government and, indeed, for the Western Australian community. But at the same time we have to understand that the vaccination rate is the key for the country – not just the state of Western Australia or the states of Victoria and New South Wales – it’s for the country to learn to live with the virus and to come out on the other side stronger than when we went in. And the 70 to 80 per cent targets are ones that all states have signed up to. And there should be no expectation from any state or territory that the Commonwealth’s significant emergency economic support will continue as it is today at the same scale when we get to those 70 and 80 per cent targets. We have to tell the public as it is about the virus, but we also have to tell them that we’re working towards our plan – a plan that we will stick to.
GARETH PARKER:
Okay, so if I can pick up on the Premier’s comments first made on Sunday and then elaborated on during the course of the week on that, he has said that he reserves the right to close borders and to introduce lockdowns even after 80 per cent. Are you saying that if he does that then the commonwealth will not be as forthcoming with emergency economic payments and the like?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, decisions about borders and internal lockdowns and health restrictions have throughout this crisis been matters for state Premiers and territory Chief Ministers because they are controlling the public health orders. So no-one’s seeking to change that. But what I’m saying is that we have a plan. And it was a plan that was agreed to with the Prime Minister. And the public expect us to stick to that plan. And our economic assistance, which has been substantial to Western Australia, and, you know, continues. And we’re having very productive discussions right now with the Western Australian government about providing in partnership with them on a 50/50 basis some economic support for businesses that have been impacted by the lockdowns in the other state, particularly your tourism businesses that are not getting those interstate travellers as they previously would. So we’re ready there to support Western Australia, as we have from day one. But we also need the public to understand that we can’t live in a lockdown mentality forever. We can’t live with locked down state borders forever. We have to at some point live with the virus, and that’s why the plan agreed to at national cabinet is so important.
GARETH PARKER:
Treasurer, do you think that lockdowns work against Delta, given what we’ve seen in New South Wales and Victoria and increasingly New Zealand?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, they certainly work in terms of the suppression of the virus when used effectively. Obviously there’s stringent restrictions that come with it. But they work in terms of suppressing the virus. But, again, it comes down to this point of whether you can eliminate the virus. And I think it’s a fallacy to think that you can. That’s why states and territories and governments right around the world are adapting to a situation where we will be living with the virus. And the best way to mitigate the significant health impacts of living with the virus is that you get people vaccinated. And the good news yesterday is that 309,000 people around the country got vaccinated. That’s 215 every minute. And when you break down the numbers, Gareth, it’s really interesting because more than 40 per cent of those 309,000 vaccinations were with AstraZeneca. And around half or nearly half of those jabs were for people under the age of 60. So the AstraZeneca brand damage that we saw early on following the ATAGI advice I think has been, you know, whittled away. And I think people are now more willing to get both the AstraZeneca vaccine and the Pfizer vaccine. And people in Western Australia need to go and get vaccinated, even though you haven’t had an outbreak like New South Wales or Victoria. And I think there’s a very strong message that needs to be conveyed to the people of Western Australia – please get vaccinated to protect yourself, your family and, of course, to support the opening up of the economy.
GARETH PARKER:
Treasurer, thank you for your time.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
My pleasure.