E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC AM
MONDAY, 29 APRIL 2019
SUBJECTS: Labor’s childcare policy; Labor’s Medicare dental plan; Newspoll; Morrison’s preference deal with Clive Palmer
SABRA LANE: To further explore that policy and others, I was joined earlier by the Labor Party Campaign Spokesman, the Shadow Finance Minister Jim Chalmers. Welcome back to AM, let's start on childcare. You're offering workers there a pay increase of more than $11,000 on average, and that's on top of any award increases. What is the final cost of that policy?
JIM CHALMERS, LABOR CAMPAIGN SPOKESPERSON: What we announced yesterday, Sabra, to give early educators the payrise that they need and deserve will cost $537 million over the forward estimates, and just under $10 billion over the 10-year period. We'll phase it in. It will represent a 20 per cent increase in their wages above what they can secure via the award process.
LANE: How is that money actually going to be delivered to those workers, given that last time in Government Labor boosted subsidies for families in childcare, but the centres just increased their fees?
CHALMERS: That's a very important consideration, Sabra. And in our deliberations we have put a lot of thought into that. We need to make sure that we do work with the sector to make sure that every dollar goes to the workers themselves. We've got a big problem in early education. We have 37 per cent of workers leaving the industry each year and that's because we have this absurd situation where one of the most important jobs in Australia is also one of the lowest paid and we want to fix that.
LANE: Let's just get back to the mechanics of this though. Exactly how are you going to deliver that money to workers?
CHALMERS: As we said yesterday, we're going to work with the sector. We're going to work with their representatives, we're going to work with the providers to make sure that we can deliver that pay rise. We've said that's what we're allocating to getting these wages up, and we'll work with the sector to make sure that we deliver that.
LANE: Will you pay those workers directly?
CHALMERS: That's one of the options on the table, obviously. But there are other options too. I think when you're in Opposition, the important thing you do is flag your priorities. You make room for that in your Budget, you announce what that will cost, and you indicate that you're prepared to work with the industry to make sure that every dollar reaches the pockets of early childhood educators. They are severely underpaid. 96 per cent of the sector is women. So this is a big problem that we want to address. It's a big choice that we've made. It doesn't come cheap. But we can afford to do it, because unlike Mr Morrison, we won't be giving big tax breaks to millionaires and multinationals.
LANE: On to the dental scheme, you've allocated $2.5 billion to treat older people, but if they use their full entitlements, won't that more than double the cost that you've actually set aside for it?
CHALMERS: The costing has been done by the Parliamentary Budget Office at arm's length in their usual independent way. As I understand it, they are assuming that pensioners will take up most of the benefit available to them, something like $820 I think is the assumption that they have used. But the important thing here, Sabra, before we get lost in the weeds of the costings, is that we have 185,000 older Australians who delay dental treatment each year because they can't afford to go to the dentist. We've got a huge proportion of people who have gum disease and all the associated health challenges that come with that. So yes, this is another choice, because we're not giving those tax breaks to the top end of town. We think that older Australians and their dental care are more important than what Scott Morrison proposes to do at the top end of the income tax bracket.
LANE: Dental care is something that happens at a younger age. One in three people aged between 25 and 44 delay going to the dentist because they can't afford it. What are you going to do for them?
CHALMERS: We need to make sure that everything that we do is affordable and responsible, so what we've said here is our priority is older Australians, where the problem is acute. That's not to say that there aren't other challenges elsewhere in the dental system. Obviously there are, and as a local representative, I hear of them frequently. But there's a scheme already for young people, for kids. We are proposing this important investment in dental care for older Australians; not to deny the other challenges, but to say that's our priority. We've got to do what we can responsibly afford.
LANE: Newspoll shows that one in four voters is opting for independents or minor parties. Why do you think that so many voters are disengaged with the major political parties?
CHALMERS: I think it's a challenge for all political parties, to make sure that the commitments that we make are relevant to their lives. And that's why I'm so proud of what Bill announced yesterday.
LANE: The numbers also show an increased support for the United Australia Party. How likely is it that that party will pick up seats, or is the party a preference farming exercise?
CHALMERS: The real issue there Sabra, when it relates to Mr Palmer is that what Scott Morrison is proposing is a Morrison-Palmer-Hanson Government, which would be a three-ringed circus of -
LANE: Sorry, that's not the question that I asked.
CHALMERS: You're asking whether or not Palmer is a legitimate threat in this election. And what Scott Morrison has done by siding with him is he has legitimised a guy who can find $50 million to spend on ads, but not $70 million that he owes the workers of Townsville, so I am answering your question. And the result of that, of Morrison's dirty deal with extreme right-wing parties in this country that cling to power, is that we would have a Morrison-Palmer-Hanson three-ringed circus of cuts and chaos, and the Australian people should think very carefully before they endorse that.
LANE: And that's the Labor Party Campaign Spokesman Jim Chalmers.
ENDS
