Speaker 1: From Schwartz Media. In seven Am, I'm Ashlin McGee. This
Speaker 1: is the cost inside the living Crisis. This week Jim
Speaker 1: Chalmers delivered a budget he's worked around the clock to
Speaker 1: pull together, with the future of a labor government and
Speaker 1: the country's cost of living crisis on the line. Today,
Speaker 1: he joins seven Am to discuss his vision for the
Speaker 1: future of the economy and whether the government's done enough
Speaker 1: to win the living crisis. It's Friday May seventeen, Treasurer,
Speaker 1: welcome to seven Am.
Speaker 2: Hey, thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1: So I want to take you back to last Sunday
Speaker 1: night first before the budget, if you can remember. Back then,
Speaker 1: you're in Canberra, you're finalizing your speech, You've done kind
Speaker 1: of a round of media interviews during the day and
Speaker 1: then you're off for dinner at the lodge with the
Speaker 1: Prime Minister and the Finance Minister Katie Gallaher. What was
Speaker 1: the mood like that dinner?
Speaker 2: Pretty casual, pretty relaxed. There are a few other colleagues
Speaker 2: there as well, but we do that relatively regularly and
Speaker 2: Anthony is not a kind of super formal guy, and
Speaker 2: so we have a good yack. We don't hang out
Speaker 2: forever We're not those guests where people are kind of
Speaker 2: looking at their watch at eleven thirty wondering when they'll,
Speaker 2: you know, what kind of hits that the host needs
Speaker 2: to drop. So we're only there for a little while.
Speaker 2: We have dinner, We have a lovely chat, good chat, relaxed,
Speaker 2: and we talk about the week ahead, primarily the budget,
Speaker 2: which at that point was, you know, almost exactly forty
Speaker 2: eight hours away.
Speaker 1: Was it all locked off at that point or were
Speaker 1: there some little tweaks going on still?
Speaker 2: No, it's locked off, definitely. The decisions are locked off,
Speaker 2: the printers are kind of whirring. The last thing that
Speaker 2: we have to put to bed is the speech because
Speaker 2: that gets printed last and bound last. And so the
Speaker 2: good thing about knowing you've got a you've got a
Speaker 2: plan for dinner is you use that as your deadline.
Speaker 2: So I literally hit send on the last version of
Speaker 2: the speech and then I leave to walk down to
Speaker 2: Anthony's house.
Speaker 1: So when we move on in a sect, but I
Speaker 1: just want to be a little nosy first. Was it
Speaker 1: a champagne or red wine kind of moment or a
Speaker 1: soft drink?
Speaker 2: It was a kind of It was mostly a mineral
Speaker 2: water gig I think certainly for me, I gave the
Speaker 2: wine away and the beers away, well a long time ago,
Speaker 2: now four years maybe so sparkling water for me and
Speaker 2: the other colleagues made their own decisions.
Speaker 1: And so when you're chatting about the budget, what kind
Speaker 1: of headline topics came up? What were the big things
Speaker 1: that you were all talking about.
Speaker 2: Well, the most important thing that took a lot of
Speaker 2: our time or two most important things were cost of
Speaker 2: living help, you know, trying to work out how can
Speaker 2: we do the most we can and it's still be
Speaker 2: responsible in the context of the budget. So that was
Speaker 2: probably the main definitely the main near term kind of priority.
Speaker 2: And then the big longer term piece was this Future
Speaker 2: Made in Australia agenda, which is really about how do
Speaker 2: we make Australia indispensable to the big global net zero
Speaker 2: transformation and how do we make sure that creates good
Speaker 2: jobs and opportunities for people in Australia.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure you discussed it in those very words.
Speaker 2: Mostly well that's how we thought about it, But I'm
Speaker 2: trying to make a realistic guess. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: maybe hundreds of hours of discussion go into a budget
Speaker 2: and the big pieces cost living, help and future made
Speaker 2: in Australia with the two biggest but also a big
Speaker 2: housing package, a big care economy package and a big
Speaker 2: universities package. There would have been hundreds of hours of
Speaker 2: discussions that led to that.
Speaker 1: As we've just talked about your fram this budget in
Speaker 1: two really clear ways. So on one hand it's about
Speaker 1: inflation and not adding to it, and on the other hand,
Speaker 1: it's about what the government is doing to support people
Speaker 1: who are struggling. So to go to that a little
Speaker 1: bit more, how would you describe the gap between the
Speaker 1: rich and the poor in Australia right now? Can you
Speaker 1: give us a bit of a scorecard of how you
Speaker 1: see things.
Speaker 2: Well, obviously it's a concerning gap and that's why it's
Speaker 2: one of the big motivations behind what we did when
Speaker 2: we change the tax cuts, for example, And anybody who's
Speaker 2: kind of followed the bouncing ball of the last few
Speaker 2: years of income tax policy knows that there was some
Speaker 2: tax cuts which were legislated which we're going to go
Speaker 2: overwhelmingly to people on the highest incomes, and we took
Speaker 2: a political risk to say we're going to rewrite those
Speaker 2: tax cuts so that everybody gets a tax cut, including
Speaker 2: people who were going to miss out before, which was
Speaker 2: low income earners and which are with a much bigger
Speaker 2: emphasis on people on middle incomes and low incomes. And
Speaker 2: so we did that in January because we had to
Speaker 2: legislate it in plenty of time before the changes come
Speaker 2: in in July. And so that is us I think
Speaker 2: acknowledging that our role is to where we can make
Speaker 2: things a bit fairer in in my portfolio, the tax
Speaker 2: system is an important way to do that, make multinationals
Speaker 2: pay their fair share of tax, you know, crack down
Speaker 2: on tax avoidance, that people of wealthier people are more
Speaker 2: likely to be engaged in all of those sorts of things,
Speaker 2: so we can fund things that matter to people who
Speaker 2: might be struggling. You know, more rent assistance is in
Speaker 2: the budget. You know, cheaper medicines is in the budget.
Speaker 2: Trying to do give people a better deal in the
Speaker 2: hex's student debt systems in the budget. And all of
Speaker 2: this is really about trying to make sure that our
Speaker 2: budgets and our economy are a bit fairer, but recognizing
Speaker 2: that there's more work still to do on that front.
Speaker 1: So just go to one of the specifics here, because
Speaker 1: I think this is the one that a lot of
Speaker 1: people are struggling to get their heads around, and that
Speaker 1: is the energy rebate that goes to every single of stratagon,
Speaker 1: not just those that say the lower or the middle ends.
Speaker 1: Help us understand why the people at the top end,
Speaker 1: why you think they need it as well well.
Speaker 2: The people on the highest incomes aren't our focus in
Speaker 2: what we're doing here. They're not our they're not our concern.
Speaker 2: But there's a couple of reasons why we've designed it
Speaker 2: the way we have. Last time we did it in
Speaker 2: a more targeted way. We provided energy bill relief to
Speaker 2: people who are on pensions and payments, and that was
Speaker 2: really important. We're very proud of what we're able to
Speaker 2: do there, but I think we have to recognize that
Speaker 2: even people on kind of middle incomes, there's a lot
Speaker 2: of people who are struggling as well. You know, people
Speaker 2: who might have mortgages who you are dealing with these
Speaker 2: higher interest rates, for example. And once you decide that
Speaker 2: you're going to go beyond the pensions and payment system,
Speaker 2: which the energy retailers who we work with to provide
Speaker 2: the relief because it comes off your energy bill. They
Speaker 2: have information about who's on pensions and payments, but they
Speaker 2: don't have information about your income. The energy retailers do
Speaker 2: not know how much you earn, or how much I earn,
Speaker 2: or anyone else, and so we would have had to
Speaker 2: design a whole new system of data sharing between these
Speaker 2: tax office and the energy retailers. And a lot of
Speaker 2: people wouldn't want their income information shared with their energy retailer.
Speaker 2: And so there are a whole bunch of important reasons why.
Speaker 2: You know, it wasn't possible to kind of quickly and
Speaker 2: cheaply do a means test, so primarily we wanted to
Speaker 2: provide the support broadly. But secondly, there are mechanical reasons,
Speaker 2: logistical reasons why it would have taken too long and
Speaker 2: cost too much to devise an entirely new system which
Speaker 2: would have seen energy retailers have access to your salary
Speaker 2: and wages.
Speaker 1: It sounds like a logistical nightmare, But put that aside
Speaker 1: for a moment, does it, Nicoli you a bit that
Speaker 1: you know the top twenty percent who like essentially they
Speaker 1: have about six times more disposable income than the rest
Speaker 1: of us that they're getting this three hundred dollars bump.
Speaker 2: Well, it's you know, like I said before, you know,
Speaker 2: we didn't we didn't design this policy to you know,
Speaker 2: with them in mind. You know, we designed this policy
Speaker 2: with people on low and fixed incomes and middle incomes
Speaker 2: in mind. You know, the people who are genuinely st
Speaker 2: There's a lot of help that is provided broadly in
Speaker 2: the economy, and people have got views about that, and
Speaker 2: that's good. But also remember, and this goes to the
Speaker 2: kind of political argibardgie about this very question that you're asking.
Speaker 2: You know, when we said to the highest income and is, look,
Speaker 2: we don't think you should get a nine thousand dollars
Speaker 2: tax cut. We think you should get a smaller tax
Speaker 2: cut about half of that. We're talking there about fifteen
Speaker 2: times this energy rebate, we're talking about four and a
Speaker 2: half thousand dollars. And so I think that sheds a
Speaker 2: bit of light on what's really happening in the political
Speaker 2: criticism about this. You know, some of our political opponents
Speaker 2: didn't think it was fair that we haved Gina Einhart's
Speaker 2: tax cut, and now they're saying, oh, it's outrageous that
Speaker 2: this is which is one fifteenth of the tax change
Speaker 2: that we made, so I think we need a little
Speaker 2: bit of perspective. People know we are bona fide is
Speaker 2: when it comes to helping people on middle incomes and
Speaker 2: low incomes. We showed that in the tax system. But
Speaker 2: in this instance we're providing the support broadly for a reason,
Speaker 2: and there's also a logistical reason why it would have
Speaker 2: taken longer and costs more.
Speaker 1: So I just want to test out a couple of
Speaker 1: quick things on you, because there's a whole lot of
Speaker 1: ideas that float around in the lead up to the budget,
Speaker 1: but given the wealth disparity, I just want to check
Speaker 1: with you why these things were ruled out. So the
Speaker 1: first is free and universal access to childcare. Why rule
Speaker 1: that out right now?
Speaker 2: Well, we are working towards universality in the early childhood
Speaker 2: education system. You know, the Prime Minister has said before
Speaker 2: that a country like ours should have that aspiration, and
Speaker 2: in the three budgets I've handed down, one of the
Speaker 2: biggest investments I've made in any of those budgets is
Speaker 2: in making early childhood education cheaper. Billions and billions and
Speaker 2: billions of dollars invested in our first budget for that.
Speaker 2: But we believe in the transformative capacity of early childhood education,
Speaker 2: so making it cheaper in the first budget. And the
Speaker 2: other thing I did in this budget is we Vision four.
Speaker 2: You know, we made room for billions of dollars in
Speaker 2: higher wages in the care economy, whether it's age care
Speaker 2: wages or early childhood educators, because they have been underpaid
Speaker 2: for too long. And so once we get the decision
Speaker 2: out of the Fairwork Commission about pay in the care economy,
Speaker 2: we've made room in the budget to make sure that
Speaker 2: we can fund our part of that.
Speaker 1: The other one I just really quickly want to touch
Speaker 1: on is more support to help people go electric in
Speaker 1: their homes and with their cars. There seems like there's
Speaker 1: some huge benefits financially to that. Why not offer more
Speaker 1: direct incentives to households.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I take from your question about direct incentives that
Speaker 2: you're probably aware that we had in an earlier budget.
Speaker 2: We've got a system of concessional loans to help people electrify,
Speaker 2: which obviously a super important objective that we get. You know,
Speaker 2: if people want to electrify, we want to make it
Speaker 2: as easy as possibly want to get emissions down, and
Speaker 2: households have got a big role to play in that
Speaker 2: what we have considered, you know what next steps we
Speaker 2: might want to do in that front. We've got a
Speaker 2: pretty open mind to doing more in the future, you know,
Speaker 2: when we can do that in a kind of responsible,
Speaker 2: affordable way.
Speaker 1: Tell me are about that? That sounds like an interesting
Speaker 1: point to pick you up on there.
Speaker 2: What are you thinking, Well, well, we don't think it's
Speaker 2: a bad idea, but we've got to make everything out
Speaker 2: up and so you know, one of the big jobs
Speaker 2: of budgets that your followers and listeners would understand is
Speaker 2: that there are more good ideas than you can fit
Speaker 2: into a budget, and so you've got to work out, Okay,
Speaker 2: what are we going to do now, what are we
Speaker 2: going to try and do later, What are we going
Speaker 2: to try and do after that. That's not an unusual
Speaker 2: thing in all kinds of different professions and that's the
Speaker 2: same for us. And so we think household electrification is
Speaker 2: a very very important objective. We've made some investments in
Speaker 2: that in the past. We've got an open mind about
Speaker 2: doing more in the future.
Speaker 1: After the break what a humble pineapple has to do
Speaker 1: with intergenerational inequality, So treasurer for our sins, we went
Speaker 1: back and looked at the last fifteen years of budget
Speaker 1: night speeches.
Speaker 2: That is madness. That is the maddest thing.
Speaker 1: I have definition of manners right there. Look, it was
Speaker 1: just a little free time entertainment. And the thing that
Speaker 1: we found interesting was that the only time that young
Speaker 1: people really get mentioned in these budget night speeches is
Speaker 1: when it's to get them into more apprenticeships or to
Speaker 1: let them use their superannuation to save for a house.
Speaker 1: Your budget seems like and certainly your speech had more
Speaker 1: of a focus on young people, So I wanted to
Speaker 1: ask you about why that in particular was important to you.
Speaker 2: Well, I feel like to use what is probably a
Speaker 2: very Queensland saying, I feel like young people too often
Speaker 2: get the rough end of the pineapple. And I think
Speaker 2: that's true of I think that's true in the way
Speaker 2: that the hex step was calculated last year. That's why
Speaker 2: we fixed that. I think it's true in the rental market,
Speaker 2: that's why we're trying to build heaps more rental properties
Speaker 2: and providing rent assistance. I think it's true in the
Speaker 2: tax system. You know, one of the main motivations when
Speaker 2: we rewrote the tax cuts was because too many young
Speaker 2: people were missing out under the old one, and many,
Speaker 2: many more young people benefit from the new tax cuts.
Speaker 2: And so, to be honest with you, I'm really pleased
Speaker 2: that you notice that, because we were very deliberate about
Speaker 2: trying to say young people often feel disproportionately these cost
Speaker 2: of living pressures, and we've got some opportunities here to
Speaker 2: try and do a bit better. And so that's why
Speaker 2: they were a bigger part. Younger people were a bigger
Speaker 2: part of the budget speech than usual.
Speaker 1: For people who already have a home, they're really nervous
Speaker 1: about future rate rises.
Speaker 2: What can you say to them, Well, I go out
Speaker 2: of my way. I try really really hard not to
Speaker 2: say anything that gives that pretends that you know, I
Speaker 2: have You know, I'm a decider here. You know, this
Speaker 2: is decided independently by the Reserve Bank governor and her board,
Speaker 2: and I don't like to make predictions or preempt that.
Speaker 2: I like to take responsibility for my part of it.
Speaker 2: My part of it is to do responsible budgets that
Speaker 2: help people with the cost of living and put downward
Speaker 2: pressure on inflation, because that's one of the things that
Speaker 2: the Reserve Bank Board considers when it meets to decide
Speaker 2: the future movement of interest rates. There's lots of views
Speaker 2: about it. I understand that people are under pressure because
Speaker 2: of these rate rises, but it's not especially helpful for
Speaker 2: me to tell the governor of the Reserve Bank how
Speaker 2: to do her job, and she doesn't tell me how
Speaker 2: to do my job. We talk frequently, we compare notes frequently.
Speaker 2: I know where she's coming from, and she knows where
Speaker 2: I'm coming from, But I don't tell her how to
Speaker 2: do her job.
Speaker 1: What happens if inflation doesn't get down below three percent
Speaker 1: by the end of.
Speaker 2: The year, Well, that's the best estimation, you know, that's
Speaker 2: the best forecast of the professional economists that work in
Speaker 2: the Treasury Department in Canberra. They come up with their
Speaker 2: best estimate of where they think inflation is going to head.
Speaker 2: It's a difficult job. It's not always four carts aren't
Speaker 2: always perfect, and it's especially difficult when times of volatile
Speaker 2: like they are now. But that's their best estimate. And
Speaker 2: my job is not to you know, I don't write
Speaker 2: those four casts. I don't kind of my job is
Speaker 2: to do what I can to get inflation down as
Speaker 2: soon as I can, as quickly as I can. And
Speaker 2: on that front, I might not feel like it out
Speaker 2: in the community necessarily yet, but inflation has come down
Speaker 2: really substantially. It had a six in front of it
Speaker 2: when we came to office two years ago. Now it's
Speaker 2: got a three in front of it. Still too high.
Speaker 2: We need it to go lower, and the budget's going
Speaker 2: to play a role in making sure that it does.
Speaker 1: What is it that keeps you awaken that treasurer?
Speaker 2: Well, pretty much that at the moment these cost of
Speaker 2: living pressures, you know, and I come from a community
Speaker 2: which has got its fair share of challenges, and some
Speaker 2: of them are economic challenges. You know, people are under
Speaker 2: the pump. And what I try to do as Treasurer
Speaker 2: is not kind of locked myself away. I try to
Speaker 2: be really engaged with my local community. I try to
Speaker 2: engage as much as I can more broadly. And the
Speaker 2: inescapable conclusion of all of those hundreds of conversations you
Speaker 2: have in real communities with real people as that they're
Speaker 2: under pressure, and you know, as the treasurer and as
Speaker 2: a local representative as well, obviously that weighs heavily on
Speaker 2: my mind. And that's why we do what we can,
Speaker 2: and we do as much as we can in these budgets.
Speaker 1: So you're a politician who's spoken about big, bold ideas
Speaker 1: in the past. Are you proud of this budget.
Speaker 2: I'm really proud of this budget, and I'm proud of
Speaker 2: it because it's difficult sometimes, in whatever line of work
Speaker 2: you're in, it's difficult sometimes to devote the right amount
Speaker 2: of attention to the here and now and the big
Speaker 2: fu you know, even if it's ten or fifteen years
Speaker 2: down the track. And the thing that I feel most
Speaker 2: confident about and proud us about in this budget is
Speaker 2: the way that we've said there are two jobs in
Speaker 2: this budget, not just one, and they're both important. The
Speaker 2: first one is super important in the here and now,
Speaker 2: help people with these cost living pressures, but to not
Speaker 2: neglect our intergenerational responsibilities at the same time trying to
Speaker 2: build an economy which is making a great contribution to
Speaker 2: the net zero transformation. And to be able to do
Speaker 2: both of those things in the see it come together
Speaker 2: and what I hope other people will see as a
Speaker 2: kind of a coherent fashion. You know, That's what I'm
Speaker 2: proud of.
Speaker 1: Treasurer. Thanks so much for your time today.
Speaker 2: I really appreciate the chat. Thanks very much.
Speaker 1: Also in the News today, one of the country's biggest
Speaker 1: suppliers of digital prescriptions for medication has been hacked, with
Speaker 1: both personal and health data of Australians being ransomed by
Speaker 1: the hackers. Medi Securer identified itself after Australia's National Cybersecurity
Speaker 1: Coordinator Michie McGinnis confirmed that a major Australian health services
Speaker 1: company had been attacked, and Labour and the Coalition are
Speaker 1: voted together in the Senate to pass a motion condemning
Speaker 1: the phrase from the river to the sea, Palestine will
Speaker 1: be free after a Labour senator used the phrase in
Speaker 1: a statement that broke ranks with the government. WA Senator
Speaker 1: Fatima Payman gave a statement on Wednesday night to SBS
Speaker 1: News saying that after feeling uneasy about the government's position,
Speaker 1: she wanted to say publicly that quote this is a
Speaker 1: genocide and we need to stop pretending otherwise. Seven Am
Speaker 1: is a daily show from Schwartz Media and The Saturday Paper.
Speaker 1: It's produced by Kara Jensen, McKinnon, Shane Anderson and Zalton Fecho.
Speaker 1: Our senior producer is Chris Ngaid. Our Technical producer is
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Speaker 1: for your company this week. We'll see you again on Monday.