TONY JONES:
Treasurer, good morning.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Good morning, Tony. Nice to be with you and your listeners.
TONY JONES:
Thank you for coming on, again. Confirmation yesterday that, you don’t need me to tell you, that we’re in a recession. There was just no getting out of this one, was there?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
They were devastating economic numbers but they revealed the true severity of the impact of COVID-19. As you know, there were restrictions through that June quarter, April, May and June, around Australia which meant that people couldn’t go out and shop or couldn’t go out to their local cafe or take a taxi to visit their friends, or whatever the case may be. That led to be a big fall in household consumption, the biggest fall on record and that was the main reason behind the set of numbers yesterday. There is a road out, there is hope and the national economy is really operating at two speeds right now. There is Victoria and then there is the rest. And outside of Victoria the jobs have started to come back. Of the 1.3 million people who lost their job or saw their hours reduced to zero since the start of the crisis, more than half, around 700,000 are now back at work. Obviously the situation in Victoria is a lot more challenging, so we all look forward to seeing a fair-dinkum roadmap out of this crisis from Daniel Andrews when he reveals it this Sunday.
TONY JONES:
Have you seen the leaked document in the Herald Sun this morning? I assume that you would have.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
I saw that and obviously that seems to be a leaked document as opposed to what we’re going to get on Sunday which will be the real document. So, I will wait and see what transpires on Sunday. But the roadmap out is absolutely critical to maintaining confidence not just among the community, but also among businesses in our state, because we want them to be able to have the certainty and the confidence to invest, to open their doors, to bring people back to work. It’s not just important for our economic recovery, it is also important to people’s mental health and wellbeing. You know as well as I do that the impact of being locked up in your home 23 hours a day, not moving more than 5 kilometres from your home, being subject to a night-time curfew, all of those are very drastic measures. We all want to get the number of new cases down, but we also want to see a balanced approach. We want to have hope for the future, we want to hear more about the road out as opposed to a longer road in.
TONY JONES:
I mean, you know, depending on what Premier Andrews says on Sunday, how much further can you dig into the coffers effectively before you run out? How much longer can you dig in and prop us up?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well our measures have always been temporary and they’ve been targeted but they’ve also been unprecedented in their scope. We’ve particularly announced changes around JobKeeper, which will benefit Victorians, more than $13 billion of extra funding going into Victoria as a result of those changes. We’re going to see more people from Victoria who are on JobKeeper over subsequent months than from all the other states and territories combined. It’s an unbelievable statistic and it does reflect the damage that is being done to our economy in Victoria by virtue of these stage four restrictions. So I think there’s an obligation on behalf of the Victorian Government to provide a real roadmap out, to give people a sense of hope, to give businesses confidence to invest.
TONY JONES:
Have you had any indication at all from the Victorian Government that that might be the case, there might be a light at the end of the tunnel come Sunday?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
I’ve only heard third hand. And...
TONY JONES:
But surely, but surely you would have an open line to the Premier, given that you’re the one writing the cheques?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well you’d think so. But I have to say, the consultation with the business community was a bit lacking on the way in to this stage four restrictions and what you hear from the business community, it’s a bit lacking on the way out of these stage four restrictions. You need to take business into your confidence, because ultimately nine out of every ten jobs are in the private sector in our country and unless business has that confidence, and it might be a small business, it might be a big business, but unless they have confidence they won’t hire people, they won’t innovate, they won’t grow, they won’t see their future in our state and that’s what we want them to do.
TONY JONES:
But Treasurer, all that aside, I’m staggered that you can’t pick up the phone and ring either Tim Pallas or Daniel Andrews himself and ask for some sort of a heads up so you can plan?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well I certainly can ring Tim Pallas. We talk regularly, and I have to say the relationship between us has been constructive and we sit together on what is called the Council on Federal Financial Relations which meets every fortnight and I chair that meeting of state treasurers and chief ministers. Daniel Andrews...
TONY JONES:
So has he given you a heads up?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
I haven’t heard from him about this detailed plan that we’ll see on Sunday, he knows my phone number so he can provide it. But the reality is, I hear all the time from the business groups that they want to hear from the Victorian Government about the road out. They want a detailed plan, they want a timetable, they want to know which activities will be permitted and which will not, how many people can gather. And we need to have a sense of what is the actual number of daily cases that will satisfy the Victorian Government to open up the economy and that should happen sooner than later.
TONY JONES:
Yeah. I don’t want to get bogged down with pedantics, but I don’t know what is stopping you from actually phoning Tim Pallas.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
There is nothing stopping me and I do speak to Tim Pallas regularly and I will continue to do so and we work cooperatively together. This is the point, it is not our roadmap out for Victoria, it is not our stage 4 restrictions. It is the Victorian Government’s stage 4 restrictions. It has been the Victorian Government’s performance over quarantine which has caused so much concern. It is up to the Victorian Government to put in place this roadmap out. We’re helping to fund Victorians as is our responsibility to do so. But it is up to the Victorian Government to provide a fair-dinkum roadmap out of this crisis.
TONY JONES:
Just one more. Are you surprised that the public holiday on Grand Final eve is still going ahead?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Again,that is a question that the Premier has to answer. What I do find surprising is that we’ve got four hundred AFL officials and the like going up to Queensland and being able to sit by the pool bar, at the same time Queensland’s strict approach to borders has meant that a Grandmother of seven who has just had brain surgery is being forced to isolate in a hotel room, as opposed to isolate in Queensland in her home. There have been many perverse outcomes of these strict approaches to borders and it has been very unfortunate as to the impact it is having on real people’s lives. There needs to be a more flexible approach to borders and when it comes to the AFL, think of Grand Final Day at the MCG Tony, 100,000 people, four MCGs full of people on Grand Final Day, is the number of Victorians who will lose their job as a result of these restrictions.
TONY JONES:
Yes, alright, Treasurer, thank you very much for your time this morning.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
All the very best.