NEIL MITCHELL:
Package of pain this weekend. JobKeeper ends, a number of subsidies - state and federal, even the congestion tax relief ends this weekend. I guess the upside is that the black hole isn't as deep as expected. The deficit in fact is $23.5 billion less than expected because the economy has kicked up and tax take has improved. There is still going to be tough times ahead. Everybody seems agreed on that. On the line federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg. Good morning.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Good morning, Neil. Good morning listeners.
NEIL MITCHELL:
Can you use that $23.5 billion to offer some relief now?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, we're still borrowing money to meet the expenditure that we've committed through COVID. What we're seeking to do is to target our spending, post JobKeeper to particular programs, whether that's the aviation and tourism package that we announced, as well as the cheap loans that will be provided to businesses that back themselves to get to the other side of this crisis. Yesterday, we announced an additional $125 million in what are called RISE grants to support live entertainment, the music, touring shows, theatre and the like. So we're using our precious resources in a targeted way to help businesses post JobKeeper.
NEIL MITCHELL:
Okay but you are $23 billion better off than expected and I take the point it’s still borrowed. So you put all these packages together you are talking about, how much do they cost?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, the package we announced yesterday was $135 million, 125 were directly for these grants and then $10 million was for a group called Support Act, which provides additional resources to people in financial hardship. There's a whole series of different programs, like our tax cuts that are rolling out already $9 billion, another $12 billion to go. We've got the JobMaker Hiring Credit, we’ve got infrastructure projects, and so forth.
NEIL MITCHELL:
Okay. Now, the Secretary of Treasury had some comments at a Senate committee this week, Dr. Stephen Kennedy.
[Excerpt starts]
STEPHEN KENNEDY: The end of the JobKeeper program will lead to some businesses closing and jobs being lost.
[Excerpt ends]
NEIL MITCHELL:
You agree some businesses will close and jobs will be lost?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, there will be a transition…
NEIL MITCHELL:
Oh come on, transition, these are people’s livelihoods.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Absolutely and that's why the fact that the unemployment rate at 5.8 percent today, instead of the 15 per cent that the Treasury thought it could go to, means hundreds of thousands of Australians and now back at work. So I understand that these are not numbers on a page Neil, these are actually jobs….
NEIL MITCHELL:
So will jobs go? Will businesses close?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
There are definitely going to be businesses, they're going to struggle after JobKeeper. But what the Secretary of the Treasury did say in his full statement was that JobKeeper needed to end because it has a number of adverse characteristics that would prevent the economy strengthening on the other side of COVID. He also did say that there's other support measures that are rolling out and that the unemployment rate will continue to trend down over time. I think that's important for your listeners.
NEIL MITCHELL:
But what do we also say to our listeners, if their business is about to go through a wall and you're about to lose their job? What do they do?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, the first thing I'd say is JobKeeper is not the only economic support program that the government has announced. There are many other measures that continue to roll out. The second thing I'd say is that the economy is strengthening, that economic activity is building and that the jobs are coming back. We know that there is $240 billion in household balance sheets, as well as business balance sheets, that was not there this time last year. That is money that will be spent as the restrictions are raised. So the fact that you can get 75,000 to the footy, the fact that you can now travel interstate more freely, the fact that you can now go out to a pub or a restaurant, that's going to help bring those jobs back. But JobKeeper was always a temporary program Neil and that had to come to an end.
NEIL MITCHELL:
I understand, except Victoria will probably be the worst hit than anybody.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, Victoria at the moment has about 389,000 people who are on JobKeeper. Now in the original phase it was over a million. So there's been a 65 percent fall. In places like Ballarat the fall has been more than 70 per cent. Same in Bendigo, same in Geelong, same in northwest Victoria. But there is going to be pockets of the economy that will continue to do it tough and the CBDs will do it tough until more people go back to work in the city and because there's so many businesses that rely on people being in offices, whether they are in the cafes and restaurants or the hotels or indeed on the transport system.
NEIL MITCHELL:
So what are your estimates? What number of people in Victoria or across the country for that matter will lose their jobs? JobKeeper goes, they won't go back to work, they'll be on unemployment benefits, how many people?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well we don't look at it per state like that. What we do is look at it nationally and the next update will be in the Budget. What I did put out in the end of last year, was the most recent forecast, was that the unemployment rate would be seven and a half per cent in the March quarter, it's actually 5.8 per cent. So we have been surprised very much on the upside by…
NEIL MITCHELL:
Sure but I'm getting estimates from unions and bosses that could be 150,000 people without jobs as of next week. Is that right?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well the unemployment rate in Victoria has fallen to 5.6 per cent and in the month of February we saw 26,000 jobs created...
NEIL MITCHELL:
But that will go up now, it will go up now.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well this is the challenge Neil…
NEIL MITCHELL:
What do you think there's a chance it won't?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well no I didn't say that at all. I've actually prepared colleagues and prepared the public for these challenges in the labour market going ahead and then you heard, as you said, from Stephen Kennedy about the number of people and the number of businesses that will continue to do it tough after JobKeeper. But that does not mean we don't end that program. We still have to end that program but what we do is we put other support mechanisms in place. But as long as we get this virus under control, jobs are going to come back and we're putting additional support in.
NEIL MITCHELL:
But that figure, is that realistic? Is it possible that 150,000 more people will lose their jobs?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
That's Treasury's best estimate, so that's the best estimate that has come to me. But what he also said in that statement is that not all those people will necessarily translate to the unemployment rate because there will be other jobs across the economy that will be created.
NEIL MITCHELL:
Okay so just on another area. You've been critical in the past of the way Victoria was handing things and rightly so. We're now going back into international flights and back into hotel quarantine. Do you have confidence we can get it right this time?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
I hope so and I do welcome the fact that restrictions are being eased. More people are going into the CBD in Melbourne, more people are going to live entertainment venues that is really positive. Let's hope that we can keep that momentum going. I mean last night I was at the footy, Carlton - Collingwood, got the wrong result for the Blues, but I was there and it was amazing to see more than 50,000 of our fellow Victorians at a sporting event. That's not happening around the world.
NEIL MITCHELL:
What percentage of the people we bring in should be as the Acting Premier said yesterday, the economic cohort? In other words tourists, international students, people working here
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well obviously we're going to give a priority to Australians coming home but where there is an opportunity to bring those international students in through a pilot program, for example South Australia's planning that, Northern Territory has already exercised that and implemented that, where we can bring in skilled workers - and I know Victoria worked with the Tasmanian government to have a particular program, that's welcome as well. Because we need those fruit pickers and those other workers to fulfil those roles.
NEIL MITCHELL:
Should be looking at restricting people from India until they sort out this double mutation that's terrifying people. I mean, we declare Northern Sydney or Northern Beaches a hotspot, why not declare India a hotspot and say no, not yet?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Neil, I'll defer to the medical experts as you'd expect on an issue such as that. There have been other variants of the virus and that's created challenges but Australia has been so much better than the rest of the world on both the health and economic front.
NEIL MITCHELL:
Have you caught up yet with the interview between Tracy Grimshaw and your Prime Minister?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
No I haven't.
NEIL MITCHELL:
Okay. Are you a feminist?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well if that means promoting women and equal opportunity, yes.
NEIL MITCHELL:
Are you aware of this situation down at Warrnambool, at the school, which made the boys stand during an assembly and as an apology to the actions of their gender. Do you think that's fair?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
I saw a report of that this morning. I mean schools will make their own decisions as to as to what events and what is required of their students. My general point though is that we need to build awareness and we need to educate our young men and women about their responsibilities about respect, treatment of their fellow students, and if you can build that respect young then you build lifelong habits. Then you end up reducing violence. Let's face it Neil, domestic violence, violence against women is prevalent in the community. The statistics are actually quite horrifying. When you think one in four women have experienced some form of intimate partner violence, it's something we have to stop.
NEIL MITCHELL:
Have you ever had to call out anybody in Canberra, inside or outside your office for what you considered unacceptable sexist behaviour?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
I haven't.
NEIL MITCHELL:
That's fortunate given what we're hearing from Canberra, it sounds like everybody's running around behaving like gorillas.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well I mean, obviously I had a period where I worked for John Howard and Alexander Downer and I was a staff member there, but I was probably in the office far more than probably most. As a member of parliament over the last decade I've been in early, out late and I haven't sort of fraternised in the bars or anything like that. So when those revelations came to the fore they had nothing to do with me.
NEIL MITCHELL:
Now something a bit brighter, last night last night was a huge night in your life, why?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well I became Carlton’s number one male ticket holder, joining a lady called Vivien Kerr who's been the number one female ticket holder at the club. I followed Sam Smorgon who sadly passed away and he held that position for nearly 30 years. Other people who have held that position include Sir Robert Menzies and Malcolm Fraser, so it’s a huge honour.
NEIL MITCHELL:
Well two things there. I don't think you can put in the same money that the Smorgon’s have over the years, but the other point, now there's a bit of a trend here, isn't it? I mean you’re replacing two former Liberal Prime Ministers, how is Scott Morrison looking?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
He’s looking very strong. You know he's the Sharkies man, I'm a Blue man but I'm also a Melbourne Storm person as well. I'm very proud to be associated with that club as well.
NEIL MITCHELL:
There’s an interesting bloodline there as well, you know Malcolm Fraser, Bob Menzies, both Carlton number one members, both Prime Ministers. Josh Frydenberg, Carlton number one member, what's next?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
What's next? Carlton to get some runs on the board because disappointing, we’re zero and two to start the season.
NEIL MITCHELL:
You reckon being number one member is almost as good as playing for Carlton, you probably could have got a go in last night?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well you know they were a bit disappointing to fall short again. But look I think we saw enough there on the ground of the talent that's coming through, it’s going to be...
NEIL MITCHELL:
Oh come on, you've had your spin. That's enough of that rubbish.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Come on the Blues are looking better than last year and we'll give you a shakeup, the Dees, don't worry about that.
NEIL MITCHELL:
Thank you very much for your time. Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg