ALEX CULLEN:
Australia's central bank has revealed one in fifty borrowers are enduring severe financial stress, working more hours, spending less and dipping into their savings to cope with those steep interest rate hikes. Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones joins us right now in Canberra. Assistant Treasurer, thank you so much for your time and thanks for being with us. Thirteen rate hikes in recent times. Is your government doing enough to ease this cost of living pain, especially before Christmas?
STEPHEN JONES:
Look, the independent Reserve Bank is responsible for interest rates. It's our job as a government to ensure we're doing everything we can to keep employment strong, so that all of those Australians who we acknowledge are doing it tough, have a job. And in that respect, you'd have to say, very good job there. Over 500 million jobs. Sorry, over 500,000 jobs, I should say, created over the last 18 months. Fourteen million plus Australians in the workforce. So, that bit of the story is good. We've got to keep pressure, we've got to ensure that our fiscal strategy is right. If we do the things that a lot of Australians might want us to do, which is post cheques out, spread money around, that'll have the absolute opposite impact of what we need to do. It'll put inflation up and pressure on the Reserve Bank to increase interest rates again.
So, it's why the measures that we are taking are about addressing the underlying problems. So, targeted relief in areas like medicines, in the areas of childcare, in the areas of energy bills, at the same time as trying to invest in those supply chain constraints that are leading to inflation. So, whether that's skills in the workforce, whether it's rebuilding our energy system, or whether it's ensuring that we have high quality childcare. These are the things that we're doing to try and provide, and housing, building more houses, of course, is the things that we're doing to attempt to remove those inflationary pressures, but not make a bad situation worse. And that's the key message I wanted to deliver to you and your listeners. We can't be throwing cash around. That will make a bad situation worse. Our job, keep a lid on fiscal policy, keep a lid on government spending, keep jobs growing while the Reserve Bank does its bit and some of these international factors which are bearing down upon us start to ease. We expect these sort of inflation pressures should start to come off, as they already are, over the course of the next nine months.
CULLEN:
All right, Stephen. Speaking of pressure, a lot of pressure on families before Christmas and also these scams. Australians have got to stay vigilant. Just tell us about these and how, I guess, Australians can avoid these scams coming on to the Christmas holiday period.
JONES:
Yeah, lots of Australians out there doing their shopping. A lot of them online at the moment, trying to grab a bargain for a loved one or in the post‑Christmas area, jumping in on the sales. A couple of things to look out for. Scammers are smart. They know what people are looking at, knowing what they're focused on. They'll often set up fake websites that look like a legitimate brand or a legitimate outlet, a legitimate shop. And then they'll set up social media ads and Google ads to promote that website. Direct people towards them. People think they're making a legitimate purchase, but they're not. Here's a few things to look out for. If it looks too good to be true, it probably is. So, if everybody's selling a product for $100 and this website's selling it for $15, probably a scam.
CULLEN:
Okay.
JONES:
A couple of things you can do to protect yourself. Don't press those bloody blue links that you get in your SMS’s and your social media feeds. Go to the website that you know is legitimate. That way you won't be directed to one of these scammers' websites, which are designed to rip you off.
CULLEN:
Assistant Treasurer, good tips right there. And hoping, fingers crossed we don't get a fourteenth rate hike. Thanks so much for being with us.