E&OE TRANSCRIPT
PRESS CONFERENCE
MELBOURNE
FRIDAY, 11 OCTOBER 2019
SUBJECTS: Meeting of Commonwealth and State Treasurers; the Government has no economic plan; infrastructure; interest rates; climate change.
JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: The states are absolutely right to point out that the Morrison Government doesn't have a plan to turn around the economy which is floundering on their watch. When Josh Frydenberg sees this avalanche of concerning economic data, Josh Frydenberg's highest priority isn't to deal with weakness in our economy, it's to blame somebody else for it. All of this blame-shifting and finger-pointing won't distract from the fact that under this Government we've got the slowest economic growth in a decade and wages are stagnant, productivity and living standards are going backwards and we've got record household debt. All of this blame-shifting and all of this finger-pointing won't distract from the substantial failures of this Liberal Government, now in its third term and its seventh year in office. Australians know that finger-pointing and buck-passing won't get the economy growing again. Finger-pointing and buck-passing is no substitute for an economic plan. Unfortunately Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg have got a political strategy to blame everybody else for their failures but they don't have an economic policy to turn things around. They've got an approach which is to shift the blame but they don't have a policy which is to shift the needle on growth which has been flagging in our economy now for some time.
If the Treasurer was doing his job then the states wouldn't be piling on the pressure for him to bring forward infrastructure spending. If the Treasurer was doing a good job we wouldn't have the slowest growth we've had in this country for the decade since the Global Financial Crisis. If the Government was doing a good job on the economy the Reserve Bank wouldn't have to cut interest rates to the lowest they've ever been, which is less than one per cent for the first time ever, and just one quarter of what rates were during the Global Financial Crisis.
Every new piece of data which comes out shows that the Government needs a plan to turn things around. Every day that the Government delays in coming up with that plan the workers, and businesses, and families, and pensioners of this country suffer from a Government which is sitting on its hands while the economy flounders.
This week marks the 27th week since the Budget was handed down. Remember that the Budget was brought forward. It was handed down earlier this year to make way for the election. Since Peter Costello introduced the Charter of Budget Honesty the average length of time between a budget being handed down and the mid-year update is 27 weeks. We are now at more than 27 weeks - the longest it's ever been since the Charter of Budget Honesty is 33 weeks. If the Government waits as they usually do until the middle of December - or even later - that will be more like 37 weeks since the Budget was handed down. So I'll make this point: the Government needs to bring forward the mid-year update to hand it down as soon as possible and to take the opportunity to use the mid-year update as an economic plan to boost the economy, to turn around the economy which has been floundering on its watch. It's long past time for the Government to stop sitting on its hands. It needs to stop blaming the states, blaming Labor, blaming everybody else for their own economic failures. They’re now into their seventh year and into their third term; it's time to take responsibility.
JOURNALIST: [INAUDIBLE]
CHALMERS: Clearly the fact that the Government has delayed to this point is costing Australian workers and businesses and we see that in the slowest growth in 10 years, stagnant wages, record household debt, productivity and living standards are in decline, and we see it as well in the very bad consumer confidence figures which were released earlier this week. So the sooner the better. The Government needs to bring forward their budget update so that they can responsibly and affordably fund a plan to turn things around. There’s no point imposing arbitrary deadlines on the Government when what we need to see instead is for them to put the necessary thought into a proper economic plan to turn things around and sooner rather than later would be best. Instead we have a Government which sits on its hands while the economy flounders.
JOURNALIST: [INAUDIBLE].
CHALMERS: Josh Frydenberg is always looking for an excuse to do nothing. We've known for some time that the Australian economy is weaker than it should be and weaker than it need be and that's because the Government doesn't have a plan for the economy. What Josh Frydenberg is saying again today is making all of these kinds of excuses for not doing what the rest of the country - including the Reserve Bank, including the states, including real people in real communities right around Australia - is they want to see some infrastructure investment brought forward because that means jobs, and jobs means money circulating through local economies.
Now the Treasurer's excuse about skills shortages, it doesn't cut the mustard for the following reasons: skills shortages in infrastructure do not prevent the Government from bringing forward some projects. If there are skills shortages in some areas, there are not skill shortages in every area. The Government's excuse not to bring anything forward because of pockets of skill shortages again doesn't cut the mustard. As Ernst and Young have pointed out, as the Reserve Bank have pointed out, there is a huge capacity for local communities to engage in medium-sized infrastructure builds and to do maintenance and upkeep. Remembering, as my colleague Catherine King has pointed out, that the Government has underspent on maintenance like blackspot programs and the like by $5 billion over the last six years. The Government has the capacity to bring forward infrastructure spending. The Government should take that opportunity. They should respond to the states’ legitimate and understandable calls and from the RBA, and Labor, and communities right around Australia, and do the right thing and bring forward some of the infrastructure spending which they've committed out on the never-never.
JOURNALIST: [INAUDIBLE].
CHALMERS: Absolutely. The Reserve Bank wouldn't be contemplating such drastic action if the Morrison Government had a plan to boost the economy. That is I think the overwhelming view, the mainstream view of economists and commentators and business people and others right around Australia. The Reserve Bank has had to do drastic things; cut rates to their lowest ever, and contemplate even further steps because Josh Frydenberg and Scott Morrison are in denial about weakness in the economy or they just don't want to do anything about it. They shouldn't be leaving the Reserve Bank to do all of the heavy lifting. We need to see the Government get off its backside and do something about an economy which has weakened substantially on their watch and weakened substantially even since the election.
JOURNALIST: [INAUDIBLE].
CHALMERS: I think it's important in the aftermath of an election that a party has a discussion about the policies that it took to the election and how they can be improved upon as we work up a new policy agenda for the next election. I think it's important that Labor is the party of real action on climate change. I think that's important for the economy, as well as being important for the environment. It's very concerning that Josh Frydenberg intervened to prevent the Reserve Bank talking about the substantial economic risks that climate change presents us here in Australia and around the world. Climate change is an economic challenge. It's already costing the Australian economy billions of dollars. The Morrison Government is in denial about that but in Labor we believe in doing something real and meaningful about climate change. The exact form of that, and the nature of that, and the specific detail of that is something that we have almost three years to come up with. Thanks very much.
ENDS
