JIM CHALMERS MP
SHADOW TREASURER
MEMBER FOR RANKIN
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
101FM LOGAN
WEDNESDAY, 12 MAY 2021
SUBJECTS: Budget 2021
IAN ‘BLUEY’ GEORGE, HOST: Dr. Jim Chalmers how are you this morning?
JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: I'm going okay Bluey, I've missed you!
‘BLUEY’: Right! There you go! See that's what happens when you go and live part-time in Canberra, anyone? Well, you don't live there part-time because you're there most of the time aren't you?
CHALMERS: No, no, no, I knock around Logan most of the time, Bluey!
‘BLUEY’: Fair enough. Fair enough. I tell you what I sat and watched the Budget in its entirety last night, all 43 minutes of it.
CHALMERS: (laughter)
‘BLUEY’: No, seriously! It started at 7:30pm and eight o'clock come and I thought here he goes, I'm going to commend the Budget. And nothing happened he just kept on talking!
CHALMERS: It's supposed to finish at eight o'clock, but he went on a bit didn't he?
‘BLUEY’: Yeah well the ABC were running around pulling their hair out by the roots wondering what are we going to fill this next 10 minutes with! You know, we've got to get this out, get over to Leigh Sales, get her doing her thing, but I guess the Budget was, I actually thought and I probably agree, it was like and Ekka showbag wasn't it?
CHALMERS: Yeah, that's what Albo said the other day!
‘BLUEY’: (laughter)
CHALMERS: He said it's a bit like a showbag in the sense that it looks nice and flashy, but it doesn't last long. And I think that's a pretty good summary.
‘BLUEY’: (laughter)
CHALMERS: I think your listeners probably would understand that what the Government's done here, they're thrown a lot of money around to get them through an election.
‘BLUEY’: Yep.
CHALMERS: But at the end of the day, what do we have to show for that trillion dollars in debt that they've racked up? Probably not enough.
‘BLUEY’: Jim it was a real political fix wasn't it, when you think about it? Okay, so they put the election coming up next year and said righteo this is what it is, let's see how we go. I don't see much in the way of infrastructure spending right now. We have been singing out for years to do something with the the duplication of the of the M1 down to the Gold Coast. The people up on the Sunshine Coast have been screaming their macadamias off, because they have been really under the pump with regards to the duplication of the railway line up around the Beerwah Landsborough area.
CHALMERS: Yeah, I think infrastructure spending is a really good example of what people raise with me in our part of the world all the time. But you have the government good at getting headlines. They're good at getting announcements out the door, saying they're going to do all these wonderful things, but then they fall over in the delivery. And in infrastructure, in the lead up to the Budget they said 'oh, this is going to be a big infrastructure Budget'. When we actually went through the numbers and details we discovered there's actually a cut to infrastructure funding, a multi-billion-dollar cut to infrastructure funding. And as Cameron Dick, the Queensland Treasurer who's done a great job of highlighting over the last couple of days, Queensland gets dudded in the infrastructure Budget, less per head of population than the other states and so on. As always with these characters, it's not what they say that matters it's what actually happens. And I don't think our part of the world's done real well out of the Budget when it comes to infrastructure.
‘BLUEY’: Now in the Budget last time around JobMaker created just 1,000 jobs of the promised 450,000. So when Australians come back and say, okay 1,000 out of 450,000, it's not a good record, is it?
CHALMERS: Imagine you owed your mate $450 Bluey and you say here's $1. I'm going to come good on every 450th thing that I've promise that's effectively what they've done.
‘BLUEY’: (laughter)
CHALMERS: And it was the centrepiece of the last Budget! The Budget was only six months old, the last one!
‘BLUEY’: Yeah.
CHALMERS: They said 450,000 jobs, they delivered around 1,000 jobs. And I think what that means is you take all the rest of these job forecasts with a grain of salt, it calls into question all these other predictions that they make about their policies and what they mean for jobs.
‘BLUEY’: I can talk to you about lots of things, but one that is very close to my heart and to my home, is aged care. Now there is an absolute age care crisis, both in the way that aged care is handled in this country and the way that the funding goes out, and the amount of funding. To me, it reeks of well, we'll throw a pittance that way. When you've got a 94-year-old mum with dementia in a nursing home, it's not an easy fix.
CHALMERS: And I think what the Government doesn't really understand is, it's not just people in aged care homes that care about this, but all of us should care about it. Because we want not just our family members, but older Australians more broadly, to get the care that they need and deserve. And one of the really disappointing or distressing things really about the Aged Care Royal Commission was stories about people who had maggots in wounds and weren't getting the meals that they needed and all the rest of it. So they had this Royal Commission, it made a series of recommendations. The Government did something in the Budget last night but they fell well short of what the Royal Commission was recommending that they do. Which is obviously a problem for not just older Australians but the country more broadly.
‘BLUEY’: Now, I can't say that I have witnessed any of that sort of stuff where my mum is at the moment because they do an amazing job at keeping these people focused and on track and make sure that they are clean, tidy, and well looked after health wise and mentally as well. Because that's the other big one, is that sometimes with dementia there isn't enough mental assistance, dementia care assistance available, and that is just an absolute crime that has not been looked after. And I gotta say, honestly, when I go and talk to Kenny and I go and talk to Selma, they say to me, mum doesn't say much because she can't remember, but you've got to get something happening because this has got to be fixed. And I don't care how much infrastructure you want to spend money on. How about we look after Australian people first, because it's an absolute disgrace.
CHALMERS: Yeah, I'm pleased to hear your mum's getting good care. That's what we want. And I should say, as well, there are good places for people.
‘BLUEY’: Yep.
CHALMERS: But there's a lot of ways where the system is letting people down. It's one thing about the level of investment, but also the kind of investment into the system. And so whether it's dementia as you just mentioned or other aspects around the workforce, there's a lot that needs to happen in aged care to give people a good standard of care. A lot of those aged care workers are doing the absolute best they can, I've met with a whole bunch of them in the last six or twelve months and they're doing their best, they're staying late, they're working around the clock, they care deeply about your mum and the other people living in these places, but we need to give them a better system to work in so that they can do an even better job of looking after people.
‘BLUEY’: I know you and I could talk all day about this. And I'm not going to go down that track. But there's a couple of little things I wanted to bring up. And can I have your permission to do that?
CHALMERS: Of course, go for it!
‘BLUEY’: Okay. We now have 9,000 people in India and if anybody's seen the news in more recent times, India is is really suffering badly. We have 9,000 Australians wanting to come home and 900 of them are in destitute circumstances. They are in the word, vulnerable. Did I get that right, vulnerable?
CHALMERS: There are 140 odd kids I think as well.
‘BLUEY’: 173. Okay, so you could put 173 kids on a Qantas Dreamliner and they will be brought home all in one hit. Right. So we can send over the Dreamliner, then this probably sounds a little bit easy. But we send the Dreamliner over with PPE gear and all the stuff that we can lend them or supply to them and give them and show some sort of empathy toward the plight that they've got and bring the kids home. And then we have the Government messing around. And I've hopped on this bandwagon for the last probably three or four months. Lindsay Fox in Melbourne has an airfield at Avalon and Johnny Wagner out at Wellcamp has an airport that he can bring jets in from overseas and they in a very short space of time could quarantine people in purpose built facilities. What is going on? How long are we gonna put up with this absolute tripe?
CHALMERS: It's a debacle, isn't it?
‘BLUEY’: It's an absolute mess!
CHALMERS: I think people understand we need to manage the borders in a way to keep the virus out. I think everybody accepts that. But one of the reasons why we're in this position, thousands of people stuck there, Australians including kids, is because the vaccination rollout hasn't happened as the Prime Minister promised. We haven't got quarantine sorted. You mention some of those issues around quarantine and mass vaccination and all those sorts of things, they haven't been sorted and they weren't sorted in the Budget either. And for as long as that happens it'll be harder to get people home. And so people will be stranded. Some of them are in vulnerable, quite desperate situations, and the federal Government's let them down.
‘BLUEY’: Jim, I hope you have a good day today. I know you've got a lot on your plate. And was this the first interview this morning, we first cab off the rank?
CHALMERS: I'd like to say that Bluey but I think you're about number twelve!
‘BLUEY’: (laughter)
CHALMERS: I started interviews at 6:03 this morning, Bluey! There's been a few but yours is the most important of course!
‘BLUEY’: I'm glad you said that! Jim Chalmers always good to talk to you, mate. You take care and you have a great day today and we'll catch up in probably three or four weeks time. Maybe you can come into the studio and we can have a cup of tea together and I'll bring in the iced vovo biscuits.
CHALMERS: Sounds good, all right, I'll bring the iced vovos!
‘BLUEY’: Jim Chalmers. He's our Member here and he really understands what's going on as the Shadow Treasurer.
ENDS
