SAMANTHA ARMYTAGE:
Good morning to you Treasurer.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Good morning Sam.
SAMANTHA ARMYTAGE:
Obviously Australia is watching this rollout in the UK very closely, a significant milestone?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Very much so, this is a very positive development, noting that the UK situation is somewhat different to Australia. They’ve had more than one million infections and around 60,000 deaths and as we speak, there is not an Australian in an ICU unit or on a ventilator as a result of COVID. So the situations are very different, that being said, we are progressing through our own approval processes, the vaccine, which we hope to conclude by the end of January and all things going well, if the vaccine is safe and effective, then it will be distributed to the community from March.
SAMANTHA ARMYTAGE:
Okay. That is good news. Now also Treasurer, some good news for the economy this morning, consumer confidence has risen to its highest level this year. Obviously great, great news in the lead up to Christmas. What state is the economy in right now?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well it’s certainly recovering, the comeback is on. 13 out of the last 14 weeks, we have seen consumer confidence up, business confidence is also up, the jobs are coming back as 178,000 jobs were created last month. We have seen a significant fall in the effective unemployment rate and as the restrictions are eased, as the virus has got under control, people are being able to get about their normal daily lives. We saw recently in the September quarter a big jump in Australia's GDP growth of 3.3 per cent. So all the signs are pointing in the right direction, but we know that this virus always looms large. We don’t know what’s around the corner, we have to be vigilant, there’s no room for complacency and the recovery will remain long and hard into next year.
SAMANTHA ARMYTAGE:
Yes. Although with the vaccine coming next year for us, economists are really across the board warning against withdrawing Government support too early. Are you listening to that, or with the vaccine coming is that, sort of, a non-issue?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well there is record Government support continuing to go into the economy. Just the other day, we announced an extension of the HomeBuilder program which has seen thousands of people get into their own homes and creating thousands of jobs across the construction sector. We provided additional support for travel agents who are doing it tough with the international borders being closed. Of course JobKeeper runs until the end of March, but there are two million fewer Australian workers on JobKeeper in October compared to the month prior in September. So the economy is recovering but we continue to provide that important support across the country.
SAMANTHA ARMYTAGE:
Treasurer, on another topic, today you are introducing new legislation that will force Google and Facebook to effectively pay Australian news outlets for their content. Just talk us through briefly, how this new legislation, how this new media code will work?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well Sam, this is a world first and the world will be watching. It’s the culmination of three years of hard work by the Government and the competition regulator, the ACCC who produced a ground breaking report which showed that there was a very concentrated online advertising market and the power of Facebook and Google saw them in a very dominant position over traditional news media businesses who weren’t being paid and fairly compensated for the original journalistic content that they provided. So what we are introducing into the Parliament is a mandatory bargaining code where the parties need to negotiate in good faith, hopefully they can reach a commercial agreement, but if they can't, then it will move to an arbitration process. They’ll both put in their best offer. Arbitrators, who are independent, will choose that best offer, but the money can only go one way. The money can only go from the digital platforms, Google and Facebook, to the traditional news media businesses and this, we hope, will create a sustainable and viable Australian media landscape.
SAMANTHA ARMYTAGE:
Right. Just quickly, because we know you have to go. Facebook is only threatening to not show Australian news content in response to this. What consequences could this new media code possibly have in the Australian media?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well there are significant penalties for non-compliance with the code, but what we have sought right throughout this process is to reach a fair and a balanced outcome. Every party can't get everything that they want. But we do know that for every $100 that is spent on online advertising, $53 goes to Google and $28 goes to Facebook and that the traditional news media businesses that are generating that original journalistic content, which is in the public interest, are not fairly getting compensated for that. That is why we have taken this move to introduce new legislation into the Parliament and as I say, other countries have tried solutions but they haven’t found an effective and long-term one. We hope that this will help lead the world.
SAMANTHA ARMYTAGE:
We certainly do. Treasurer, Josh Frydeneberg, Thanks for your time, we appreciate it.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
My pleasure.