TOM CONNELL:
Joining me now, Assistant Treasurer, Stephen Jones. Thank you, as ever, for your time. Are you confident from now, the only path towards the band – the target band for inflation – is down? We’re not going to see any more upward ticks in inflation?
STEPHEN JONES:
Look, we welcome today’s news. Obviously, inflation at its lowest level in quite some time, we’ve halved the rate of inflation since where it was when we came into office. So, the trend is good. Obviously, our economic policies are having the desired effect. Responsible spending, providing some relief to households on energy bill and childcare relief. But, Tom, I’m not going to pop any champagne corks yet, mate. Very volatile. Inflation has been sticky right around the world. No different here in Australia, but pleasing to see for households, that rate of inflation coming down over the last month.
CONNELL:
So, you still have concern it’ll be bumpy, that it could tick up again?
JONES:
Look, I’m just looking at observing what’s going on around the rest of the world. I’m confident that the policies that we’ve put in place are working – fiscal restraint, ensuring that we’re banking the majority of the new money that’s coming in, ensuring that we’ve got real discipline on the spend, ensuring that where we are spending new amounts, it’s enhancing productivity or providing household relief in childcare, in energy bill rebates. So, our policies are targeted at dealing with the problem. And I’m pleased to see that on the basis of today’s figures, that things are trending in the right direction. It’d be a very brave person that claimed job done, because it’s not.
CONNELL:
All right. No, I wasn’t saying job done, but look, fair enough. You’re allowed to be circumspect. I had a couple of goes and you’re allowed to give the answers you’d like to. Let me ask about the big aspect of this. Yes, energy prices have come down. This is the rebate that you were talking about. In terms of what matters for the RBA, though, they’ve essentially indicated they’ll ignore this, won’t they? We need other things coming down. That’s almost a sugar hit if you like, it’s headline, it’s not underlying. So, that aspect, you can argue it helps households. That’s not going to help in any way rates come down, is it?
JONES:
There’s 2 aspects to this. There’s the RBA’s, the independent RBA’s job, and they’ll look through any volatility and any one‑off factors that’s clear, whether it’s rebates or other issues. But for households, the thing that matters to them is how much money they’ve got in their wallet after they’ve paid all their bills. And as a result of the energy bill rebates and the other changes that we’ve put into place to provide some relief to households, there’s a little bit of relief there. I’m not claiming that we’ve solved everything, we haven’t. But those $300 energy bill rebates are providing relief to households and that’s what they’re intended to do.
CONNELL:
Greens out there with some headline‑grabbing policies today, they’re actually calling these Robin Hood tax policies. So, let’s look at one of them. They’re saying that excess profits, in particular in terms of supermarkets, that they’re going to tax them, is this sort of putting a nice populist spin and maybe something that attracts voters on what Labor’s spoken about. You said supermarkets basically are gouging and the Greens have got something to probably make people feel as though they’re doing something more about it.
JONES:
Look, it’s almost like Adam Bandt saw Max Chandler‑Mather out there yesterday on the CFMEU podium and thought ‘hold my beer, I can do one better, I can grab a headline even better than that’. If the Greens want to support fairer taxation policies, then they should get behind our program around multinational taxation. They should get behind our program to make superannuation taxation more sustainable. There’s some practical things they can do right here and right now. If they want to do something about ensuring that we have got a fairer tax base in this country, they really are getting ahead of themselves, I’ve got to say, putting up programs about what they might do in a year or so’s time. It’s quite clear to us that there are 3 anti‑Labor Party’s in this country. There’s the Coalition, there’s the National Party and there’s the Greens. And increasingly, they’re looking more and more like each other as they oppose sensible policies, whether they’re economic policies, whether they’re housing policies, whether they’re industrial relations policies, whether it’s from the extreme right or the extreme left. They’re teaming up and opposing centrist policies that are being put forward by the Albanese Labor government.
CONNELL:
Are you worried in particular on housing? Because the Greens have got a lot of policies out there on this. Labor’s stuff is basically stuck in the Senate. And if you look at people out there, in particular renters, renting has got more expensive and more difficult while Labor’s in power. So, you can talk about policies you have, but how they are now compared to the start of the term, it’s harder.
JONES:
Yeah. Look, I am worried about housing. I am worried that the policy that will get more houses built, more roofs over people’s heads, and will bring housing price relief, whether you’re a renter or a first home buyer to the Australian people is being opposed by political reasons, by the Greens on the far left, because they oppose housing everywhere except in their own electorates. So, they support more housing, but when it comes to a practical proposal about what’s going to get more houses built, they oppose that. And from the Coalition, who are just opposing everything that Labor does, because that’s their form, the left teaming up with a right to ensure that we’re not getting a practical plan for more houses built in this country. Am I worried about that? You bet I am. Because it’s renters and it’s first home buyers who are suffering.
CONNELL:
Ok, not quite how I asked it, but look, we’re nearly out of time, so you can get away with that one. Let me ask you about Scam Awareness Week. I know this is something very much on your radar. So something, if you could get every Australian to do one thing, to stop scamming, one behavioural type that they don’t do enough, what would it be?
JONES:
Look, I always. I know you want one. Can I give you 3?
CONNELL:
If they’re quick.
JONES:
Don’t press those bloody blue links you get on your messages. Don’t do that. Don’t let somebody remote access into your computer and don’t give your information out to an unsolicited call, because that’s what scammers do. All of these things are the tricks of the scammers. We’re losing too much money, billions of dollars a year. If consumers do these things, put together what we’re doing as a government, we can bring that number down and bring it down significantly.
CONNELL:
Some of those links, I’m not saying to click on them, but some of them are real. I’ve had to go through that myself before and call up the company. So, there’s another issue to deal with there with the companies, but anyway, another day. Stephen Jones, appreciate your time. Thank you.
JONES:
Good to be with you.