Interview with Richard King and Kim Bauer, 2GB
8 October 2020
Richard King: We’re joined now by our Prime Minister, Scott Morrison. Good morning Prime Minister.
Prime Minister: Good morning, Richard.
King: Thank you very much for your time and, look, I’ve got to say, you’ve obviously been busy as all get out in the last 48 hours or so, not that you haven’t been for a long, long time. But I’ve been in and out of this game a long, long time and I don’t think I’ve seen such a concerted effort by a government to sell a Budget. But you’re really going overboard, I’ve had calls from different ministers asking if we would like a chat and I have never experienced that before.
Prime Minister: Well, we’ve got, we’re trying to get the message out for the simple reason that we want to encourage Australians that at a time of great national crisis and economic crisis, at a global scale we haven't seen since the Second World War, that we're here and we're backing Australians in. We're backing Australians in to get back into jobs, we’re backing them in, in particular those heavy, more heavy industry regions. And, you know, the Hunter is a good example of that. But I know the Hunter has a much more diverse economic base than that. But I want to let everyone know that we know you're doing it tough and the Government is turning up and has been throughout this crisis and will continue to get people back into jobs to help the economy recover. Eight out of 10 people work in the private sector, not in government, and it's in those private sector jobs where we need businesses to have that confidence to invest, bring forward decisions to hire more people. We've got to get that unemployment rate down and particularly the youth unemployment rate down, which is twice what the national unemployment rate is. And so getting younger people back into jobs, in particular. So if you’re coming out of school or you’re coming out of training or university and you spend time out of work for enough period of time, your chances of just then becoming a welfare client for the rest of your life go up.
Kim Bauer: We understand that, Prime Minister. A lot of our listeners are older, and they are very, very concerned that they now have to compete with someone who is basically getting a subsidy versus an older person who's unemployed. We have to work until we're at least 67 to get the pension. We figure we're lost. We've not got any chance now.
Prime Minister: Well, some budgets ago, I introduced a measure called the Restart Program. And that is actually a wage subsidy for people who have been unemployed more than six months and over 50, and they get a $10,000 wage subsidy. And that's got 50,000 Australians over the age of 50 into work. So the idea for dealing with what is a very high rate of youth unemployment actually came from getting those over 50, we can call them older Australians, I’m in that category. We could call them however you like to describe it. But we've got the older apprentices, the adult apprentices scheme. That's a $4,000 wage subsidy for people changing. The 340,000 places that we've put in place for training this year is not just for those who are young. It's for those who might be having to shift industries, maybe workers who are in the hospitality industry who maybe are now wanting to get into a different sector, the care industry, for example, where there are a lot of jobs coming forward. So this is a Budget for all Australians and it's designed to get all Australians into work and to deal with particular challenges in some areas. And, you know, we're already seeing a lot of jobs come back. And one of the ways we’ve got to see those jobs come back is ensuring that the energy we need to drive a lot of these industries, particularly those in the Hunter, whether that's in the renewable sector where we had record investments in that area or in particular when I was up there recently and I outlined our gas strategy to get more gas into the energy grid, but also into powering up manufacturing across the country, but particularly up there in the Hunter. And there was even money in the recent Budget for the Vales Point Power Station, some $8.7 million there. So we’ve got to the power down, the costs down. It's got to be reliable, it’s got to be low emissions. All of those things. But that's what's got to secure jobs in the Hunter and I think people in the Hunter can be of no doubt that we're backing an energy plan that will secure their jobs.
King: As far as I can see, there wasn't any allocation for the gas fired generator that's being proposed for Kurri by the Snowy Hydro, Prime Minister.
Prime Minister: Yeah, that is done separately in the Snowy Hydro balance sheet. That is a company which is owned by the Commonwealth Government. And what was set out there very clearly is by April of next year if - and it’s AGL - if they do not make a final investment decision on going ahead with their 250-gig plant, then we will go ahead with ours. And so that will be a decision that will be done through the Snowy Hydro board. They are doing all the prep work on that out at Kurri and they'll be ready to go on - sorry, not at Kurri, that’s a different project.
King: Yes.
Prime Minister: But we'll be ready to go.
King: Right.
Prime Minister: But it is conditional on whether AGL goes ahead with their plant. We just want to see the plant.
King: Ok. Now, $920 million, which is a great deal of money committed to the Singleton bypass, the final stage of the Newcastle bypass, which is terrific. But not the $67 million for the upgrade of Newcastle Airport. And local member Meryl Swanson is absolutely outraged about that and had this to say.
Audio, Meryl Swanson: In all honesty, I thought it was a done deal. I really did. And that's why I described it as the single biggest treachery that I have seen out of this government.
King: The single biggest piece of treachery she's seen out of this government. Prime Minister?
Prime Minister: Well, I think that is quite [inaudible] to be honest, particularly as you just mentioned $560 million for the Singleton bypass, $360 million for the Newcastle inner city bypass. I mean, she represents a party who wants to shut down the coal industry in Australia and doesn't want the gas turned on to fire up the manufacturing jobs. I'd call that treachery to jobs in the Hunter. But putting that aside, I mean, that project yet is not at a go phase. It's not off the table. It is a project that our teams are still working on, taking advice from the various agencies and the Defence Force who also uses facilities in the area. So that it's not off the table, it's just not at the position where we can proceed with it at this time.
King: But as I understand it, Defence do regular upgrades, but they only do it every two decades. It's got to be done in the first half of next year. So unless there's a commitment of the Newcastle Airport upgrade, it might not happen for another 20 years.
Prime Minister: No, I don't accept that. And I think things are in a much more favourable position than that right now.
Bauer: Now, PM, you know, obviously a lot of money coming back into our pockets via the tax cuts with the expectation that we're going to be spending that money to grow businesses and the economy, as you've outlined. We got some feedback yesterday saying, you know, we're not going to spend it. We are actually going to hang onto it because we don't know where this pandemic is going to go or end and they would rather save the money. How are you going to get them to open up their pockets and spend the money as you are hoping?
Prime Minister: Well, the majority of the tax cuts go to those who are earning less than $90,000 a year and that's why we've targeted that way, because we know people on those incomes will spend the money and that's been the economic experience. I mean, this is my fifth budget as either Prime Minister or Treasurer, and one before that as a member of the Expenditure Review Committee, and that's a well understood response that people on those lower and middle incomes are more likely to spend it. Now, how people spend it, though, I want to be really clear - that's their business. It's not for me to tell people how to spend their own money. This is a tax cut. And this is even more significant because a tax cut isn't money the government is spending, it's money that someone else has earned. And we're saying you should keep more of what you earn and what you do with your money is up to you. But we know that those on lower and middle incomes are doing it really tough at the moment. And we think this tax cut, which has a boosted lower to middle income tax offset, is going put a bit more money in people's pockets. And that's going to help them get through what has been a very difficult time. And that is also what we saw with the, you know, we had the $750 payments, two of them, payments going to those were welfare benefits and the pension. And there's two more of those payments coming, $250 before Christmas and another one in the first quarter of next year. And that will have a similar effect because, as we know, the pension is indexed, it is tracked, to a series of inflation and other measures. And we know because of the pandemic, that means that wouldn't see a rise otherwise. So we've decided to go over and above that and put these payments into support pensioners.
King: Yesterday morning, very early when we tried to summarise the Budget, we had a caller from, well, Daryl, one of our listeners who had this to say
Audio, Caller Daryl: There's no choice but to spend all this money. They got rid of our manufacturing. That got rid of the car industry. Everything was taken off-shore, all these call centres. Now they’re caught out, that’s the only reason they’re doing anything. Whoever was in government has to do it now. So they don’t deserve any special praise.
King: ‘Well, whoever was in government would have to do. it’ Do you accept that?
Prime Minister: Well, I'm not looking for any special praise. I agree that the necessity of the global recession, which is 45 times worse than the GFC, means that this is the response that's absolutely required. But this is why we put the $1.5 billion manufacturing plan in place, to focus on industries, whether it is the defence industry, space industry, the minerals and resources sectors. This is why we put the money into an energy plan, which includes everything from guaranteeing liquid fuel security, storage facilities for diesel and so on, and in particular, opening up the big gas basins to fire up industries in heavy sectors like your caller was saying. That's what the plan is all about. And that's why we're investing that. That's why I'm disappointed that the Labor Party aren’t for gas. And if you're not the gas, you're not for jobs in manufacturing. Simple as that.
King: And another thing you’re disappointed about is the demise of the Sharks in the NRL 2020 season, as I'm disappointed about the demise of the Newcastle Knights. But are you prepared to pick a winner for the NRL grand final?
Prime Minister: Look, I'd love to see Penrith win it. I think they've been the standout team of the season. And it was great to see, I thought the Knights had a really good season by the way. And, you know, I thought they played tremendously well and I certainly towelled us up there recently and they showed, you know, they're coming back. They've been building, the Knights have been building this side up for the last few years and it's good to see them coming through. And so all the best to them. But it would be great to see Penrith, I think. I think it will be a Penrith-Roosters final, is my pick, but who knows. It's been wonderful just to have the footy on, I’ve got to tell you.
King: And it's been wonderful having a chat. Thank you very much for your time, Prime Minister.
Prime Minister: Thanks very much to both of you, good to talk.
