Source: Australian Treasurer
STEVE MARTIN:
It’s not often that I get to talk to the federal Treasurer, and it’s almost never that the federal Treasurer is sitting across from me in the studio. Jim Chalmers, good morning.
JIM CHALMERS:
Thanks for having me on your show, Steve.
MARTIN:
Why are you here?
CHALMERS:
I’m here because Catherine King invited me, and I go where Catherine King tells me to go. She’s a wonderful local member and Cabinet colleague. But more seriously, I wanted to be here to engage with some of the business leaders but also to spend some time at Ballarat High, which I’ll be doing later on this morning.
But what we try and do as Cabinet Ministers is make sure that we govern for the whole place, and that means spending time in the wonderful regions of this country, including this beautiful region of yours in Ballarat and the South West.
MARTIN:
All right. What are you doing at Ballarat High School?
CHALMERS:
I’m going to speak to some of the students about the economy. This is one of the most enjoyable things I get to do as Treasurer. I’ve done a lot of it lately actually, because I like the sense that there’s a lot of intergenerational interest in what’s happening in the world. The world’s a difficult place right now. We’ve got a lot of important decisions to make about the future of our own country in that context, and I find knocking around with young people and taking some really often difficult, always smart, intelligent, well‑motivated questions is a really good thing to do when you’re in communities like this one.
MARTIN:
Okay. I want to stick with students at the moment, Jim Chalmers. What do they ask you? What do young people want to know about the economy, and are they, broadly speaking, engaged in that sort of part of the political debate?
CHALMERS:
More than they get credit for as a generation. People are incredibly engaged at that level. The main questions I get is what’s happening in the world – Russia, Ukraine, the Middle East – what’s happening closer to home in our own region – China and the US – so a lot of really top shelf questions about what’s happening in the world and where we fit.
But from an economic point of view, like a lot of Australians, they want to know how are we going to get on top of these cost‑of‑living challenges that people are confronting right around the country, every generation, and in particular, housing. They are a big motivation for the tens of billions of dollars that we’re investing as a government in building more homes so that they can find it easier to find somewhere to rent or buy when the time comes.
MARTIN:
Is it right that you’re also going to be having a look at some of the properties involved in the First Home Guarantee while you’re in Ballarat? Is that part of your visit?
CHALMERS:
That was in prospect, but not on this occasion. I’m looking forward to doing that, but not on this occasion.
MARTIN:
Okay. Cost of living does come up endlessly at the moment because things are tough. Do you think that you have made a difference?
CHALMERS:
Definitely –
MARTIN:
– in what way –
CHALMERS:
– but in saying that, I don’t pretend that the fight against inflation is over. I know that people are still doing it tough even at the same time as inflation by some measures has more than halved since we came to office. But I do understand that for people who are under the pump, they don’t want to be told necessarily that everything is fine when it’s not.
People are still doing it tough. That’s why the tax cuts are so important, the energy bill relief, cheaper early childhood education, cheaper medicines, rent assistance, getting wages moving again. Really our highest priority as a government has been to try and provide that cost‑of‑living help in the most substantial and meaningful way that we can, but also in the most responsible way that we can, which means doing that as well as, not instead of, delivering those couple of surpluses that we’ve been able to deliver at the same time.
MARTIN:
I wonder, with the surplus, I recall when that was announced, and generally that would be considered to be good news politically, but to quote Twitter –
CHALMERS:
That’s a dangerous practice, Steve.
MARTIN:
I know. I realise that, but the most common response it seems on Twitter is, ‘You can’t eat a surplus.’ So while people think that’s great at one end things are happening, but at the business end for most of us it’s not filtering through.
CHALMERS:
I’m really grateful you raised that, because we don’t see a surplus as an end in itself either. The fact that we’ve been able to deliver back‑to‑back surpluses for the first time in almost 2 decades in this country is not an end in itself, it’s how we make room to provide all of that cost‑of‑living relief that I just ran through. It’s how we make sure we avoid paying too much interest on all that debt we inherited from our predecessors.
Also in the context where the global economy is really uncertain, we want to get the budget in much better nick as a bit of a buffer against that global economic uncertainty, because if things do turn down then we want to have more room to respond if we need to. So those are the reasons for the surplus.
I say to those people who raise that issue that you’ve raised from social media, but I get it out and about in communities like this one, if we were choosing between a surplus or cost‑of‑living help, I would understand that. But we’ve found a way, because of our responsible economic management, to deliver surpluses and cost‑of‑living help, and we think that’s a good thing.
MARTIN:
All right. On the SMS Bea has sent this through. As I say, ‘Morning, Steve. Would you ask Jim Chalmers, please, how can we justify $360 billion on a few submarines and $600 million on a PNG rugby league team but struggle to find money to increase mental health services to adequately address demand?’
CHALMERS:
Thank you, Bea, for the question and for listening. I think in every budget you’ve got to find room for all of those things. There is mental health funding, of course, in the Budget. There is national security and defence funding. We are interested in investing in our region, particularly when you’ve got all of this global uncertainty, conflict around the world and economic uncertainty around the world, including closer to home. Some of those investments I know, Bea, can be contentious but we think we’ve broadly struck the right balance – huge investments in health at the same time as we invest in our national defence and national security.
MARTIN:
All right. I want to ask you about an item in the news today, Treasurer, and that is a crackdown on subscription traps and hidden fees. What’s happening there? What’s the plan from the government?
CHALMERS:
We want to crack down on dodgy deals so that we can save Australians money if we can and where we can. Most businesses do the right thing and they’ve got nothing to worry about, but there are these traps which we’re seeing more and more of, whether it’s making it hard to cancel a subscription, different fees at different stages of a purchase, when the price goes up while you’re actually making the transaction, requiring consumers to provide more information than is necessary to buy something, when it’s hard for you to contact the person or the business that’s selling you a good or a service.
There are a bunch of dodgy practices that we are worried about and we want to crack down on them and so we are looking to ban unfair trading practices, and that’s the announcement that we’re making today.
MARTIN:
Okay. So that is with Australian Consumer Law?
CHALMERS:
Absolutely. We’ll do some consultation, as we always do, but look to bed it down at the beginning or the first half of next year. We get a lot of feedback about this, Steve. I’m sure you do as well on your SMS line and out and about. A lot of people, for good reason they do a lot of shopping online or in other ways, and there’s just been these practices which have sprung up which we think go too far. We don’t want people to be taken for mugs. We don’t want to see these dodgy business practices, and so we’re going to crack down on them.
MARTIN:
So that will come into effect next year, after the next federal election effectively?
CHALMERS:
We’ve said the first half of 2025, and we’ll do it as soon as we can. But what we’d like to do is we want to make sure there are no unintended consequences and the like, and so we’ll do a little bit of consultation, but we’ve said today that we’re going to ban unfair trading practices, and we’ll spend the next month or 2 consulting on the best way to go about it.
MARTIN:
Twelve minutes to the next news at 8. We’re talking with federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers. I did say earlier this morning, I had a text from Jamie Vogels, who’s a Corangamite Shire Councillor, and this is in relation to the transition of dairy country to blue gum timber land and the practices of the Foreign Investment Review Board when they look at this.
Now, Jamie Vogels’ question to you directly, Treasurer, is: why aren’t we allowed to know the conditions placed by the Foreign Investment Review Board on the $200 million foreign investment by Munich RE into blue gum plantations that’s replacing that dairy country in Simpson and the Heytesbury? It’s causing economic and job losses, from Jamie Vogels. So why can’t a community know what the Foreign Investment Review Board has and does look at, or is that information publicly available? Because that group sounds like they can’t find out why the decision was made to allow this to happen?
CHALMERS:
First of all, thanks to Councillor Vogels for raising it. I know this is an issue, and in that very important part of our national economy there’s a lot of economic opportunity. The dairy industry is important to us and the timber industry is important to us as well, and we’ve got to strike the right balance.
When it comes to the Foreign Investment Review Board process, we try and be as transparent as we can about the process. But often the fine details for – whether it’s commercial in confidence or other kinds of reasons – often those are kept confidential. So I’ll have another look at that case, I’m confident that we would have provided all of the information that we can. I’m not anticipating that we can provide additional information, but if we can after I have another look, then I’ll do that.
MARTIN:
The community concern, though, Treasurer, is that you’ve got prime agricultural land, not just for dairy; it could be used for other things. You have farm workers, you have houses, you have all sorts of activity going on. And when the trees come in, as much as they are needed, in this sort of land where smaller holdings are more common, you’re losing a community because the trees go in and there’s not nearly as many people moving around. Is that social effect on an area looked at by the FIRB?
CHALMERS:
It looks at the broader national interest and to be up front with you, typically the focus is more on, national security concerns or concerns around concentration or concerns about one company or another dominating a certain market, and so there are a range of considerations, including the ones that you raise. But primarily, typically, the advice that comes to me, including in this case, the Department of Agriculture was consulted and didn’t raise any issues with this particular transaction, we cast a pretty broad net, but typically the advice is more about managing risks in areas like critical minerals, critical infrastructure, critical data.
MARTIN:
Just finally on this, the member for Wannon did ask for a moratorium on additional land being purchased for expansion of the timber industry until some of the concerns raised in the petition he tabled are addressed. Will you consider that, or is the government even looking at that for a moment?
CHALMERS:
I think the Agriculture Minister, Julie Collins, is a wonderful colleague of ours. She looks at these sorts of issues all of the time. We know that there are contentious issues in farming communities and we know as our economy changes and demand for different goods change over time that often difficult issues like this pop up. So Julie Collins, being the diligent minister that she is, would have these sorts of considerations in front of her from time to time.
MARTIN:
All right. Just on other more general things, I notice that a number of banks are factoring in a rate cut for December. What’s your take on that?
CHALMERS:
I try not to pre‑empt decisions taken independently by the independent Reserve Bank. Treasurers of both political persuasions don’t get into the guessing game about future movements in rates.
My job is to focus on being helpful in the fight against inflation and we have been. Australia’s made really quite considerable progress when it comes to getting on top of the inflation challenge in our economy, less than half what we inherited on the monthly gauge and that’s a good thing.
But the Reserve Bank will weigh that up, they’ll weigh up what’s happening in the labour market, what’s happening around the world, and they’ll come to a decision independently in due course.
MARTIN:
In Queensland, right. I do wonder, just finally, Treasurer, we’ve been through 30‑odd years of pretty good economic times. It started with Hawke and Keating, continued with Howard and Costello, and then, I guess, governments that have followed haven’t been able or as willing to do as much as those 2 governments did all those years ago. That set us up pretty well. There are older people who say we are back to normal, that the current settings we have are more normal. The long‑term interest rate is 7.4 per cent over – I looked this up yesterday, between ’69 and 2004, that’s the long‑term average interest rate in Australia. So has the community got their expectations too high?
CHALMERS:
I wouldn’t say that. I wouldn’t blame the community for that. If you think about that longer sweep of history, yes, Hawke and Keating did a remarkable job setting this place up for 3 decades of economic expansion, absolutely outstanding contribution, history‑making contribution.
If you think about really since the global financial crisis, we’ve had about 15 years of economic upheaval. The global financial crisis in ’08–09, obviously we had COVID, the war in Ukraine sent supply chains basically haywire around the world, and so we’ve had these 3 shocks in 15 years. And so governments of both persuasions, including this one, have been doing their best to manage the here and now – in our case inflation – at the same time as we invest in the future and that’s why our Future Made in Australia agenda, our housing agenda, energy transformation, skills and human capital are so important.
But what we need to do and what we are doing is working out what does the next generation of prosperity look like. And it won’t be the same as the one that Bob and Paul set up so skilfully in the 1980s. It’s possible to admire their contribution and recognise ours will be different.
For us the big thing that we’ll be judged on is nailing this energy transformation. That’s the big economic reform opportunity for our generation. And that’s why we call the 2020s the defining decade in the way that the 1980s were, because the situation calls for a new economy, leveraging all of those traditional strengths that we’ve had and will continue to have into the future, but building new strengths in energy, human capital, technology, services and the like.
MARTIN:
All right. I was going to let you go, but since you’ve mentioned the energy transformation, one last quick topic: what do you say to communities in this part of the world that are bearing the brunt of that energy transformation, with transmission lines, with wind farms, with very large‑scale change over a very short period of time to communities that are feeling completely and utterly overwhelmed by circumstances beyond their control?
CHALMERS:
We are listening to you. We know that the best version of this energy transformation, which is the opportunity of a lifetime for Australia, including for the regions, requires us to take communities along with us. We understand that.
MARTIN:
Well, you’re failing at that, because they’re not coming along with those that are pushing this through.
CHALMERS:
We can always do better. And even in the most recent Budget I funded, I think $20 million from memory, for better consultation with local communities because we see this as an opportunity for local communities, including regional communities. We need to make sure that we are listening and bringing people along with us. If we can do a better job of that, we will.
MARTIN:
Jim Chalmers, thanks for your time.
CHALMERS:
Thanks so much, Steve.
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