GARETH PARKER:
Federal Treasurer is Josh Frydenberg and Treasurer, before we talk about that, I must get your reaction to Mark McGowan's announcement last night. Good morning.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Good morning. Well, obviously, that is an announcement that the Western Australian state government has made, and for them to explain it. I can understand why many people in Western Australia may be disappointed with the news as they were making their own arrangements and plans for the borders to open. And no doubt many of them are asking, if not now, when we are in a new phase of the virus with the Omicron variant, it's 75 per cent less severe than previous strains. It's obviously highly transmissible, and we need to learn to live with the virus. Obviously, these are decisions that the Western Australian government have taken. It's not a state versus federal issue, but I'll leave it to the Premier to explain.
GARETH PARKER:
Do you agree with it?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
What I've seen is that other states have opened up their borders and are now safely and effectively managing the health and the economic priorities that they need to balance. And look at Queensland, for example, Gareth. Weeks ago, their border was closed. Then they announced that there would be PCR tests required before travel. Then they changed it to RAT tests. Now they've removed the need for even RAT test before travel. So other states have made indeed, at the Labor states have made adjustments in accordance with changing circumstances. I think that is certainly in the best interest of the economy, that some of these border barriers come down and we live as one single nation.
GARETH PARKER:
The problem is that, for many West Australians, they'll be listening to the radio this morning, and they'll say that New South Wales reported 46 COVID related deaths today, and they'll say, I don't want any part of that.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
I think the notion that you can eliminate or live in a zero COVID world is a fallacy. You can't, you can certainly mitigate the risks. But the latest variant is highly transmissible. And even if people try to avoid it, it's very difficult to do so. But, of course, you've got to manage the health impacts and the pressures on the health system, and no one is understating what is occurring in some of the other states in terms of that pressure. But the Western Australian people have been wonderful throughout this whole pandemic. We as a federal government, the Morrison Government has provided more than $14 billion of economic support from day one, whether it was JobKeeper or the Cash Flow Boost or the COVID disaster payment. We've been providing that economic support and the health support, and we'll continue to have the back of Western Australians. Hopefully, in due course, the barriers from Western Australia to the rest of the country will come down and we can live as one.
GARETH PARKER:
Coming to the job numbers, so as I said before, 3.4 per cent, it's an incredible number for Western Australia. It seems that that's the biggest challenge that you or anyone else is going to have to say well, you should open the borders for the economy. People go, hang on. And how could we go any better than 3.4 per cent?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
The reality is that the whole country has seen the unemployment rate improve very strongly so you're right, Western Australia is doing very well at 3.4 per cent. South Australia is just marginally higher at around 3.7 per cent and we've seen all the states see that their employment levels have been better than what they were going into the pandemic with. This is a good news, good news outcome for all states and territories and it does underscore Gareth, the resilience in the economy despite the pandemic and everything that's been thrown at us, despite the fact that Treasury thought early on in the pandemic the unemployment rate could reach as high as 15 per cent. Our economic support has been very, very effective and as a result more jobs are being created and what was particularly pleasing about yesterday's job numbers is that of the 65,000 new jobs, two‑thirds of those were full time and more than half of those jobs were actually for young people aged 15 to 24. I'm pretty optimistic and confident about the economy even in the face of the challenges that we see right now.
GARETH PARKER:
Treasurer, thanks for your time. I appreciate it.