Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister, Assistant Minister for the Public Service, Assistant Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations
GERALDINE MELLET, HOST: And in the blue corner, we have Senator Dean Smith, Shadow Assistant Treasurer. And in the red corner, we have Patrick Gorman, Assistant Minister to the PM. I don’t know, do you have your boxing gloves on? Because it sounds like it’s that kind of – that kind of gig.
PATRICK GORMAN, ASSISTANT MINISTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER: No. Very peaceful here. We’re both in the Canberra studio after some pretty intense parliamentary sittings.
DEAN SMITH, LIBERAL SENATOR FOR WA: On our best behaviour. We’re sharing the same studio, Geraldine. So, the cameras are on, people can hear.
MELLET: Okay.
SMITH: We are on air, as it says.
MELLET: Lovely. Well, thank you for joining us. Look, Patrick, starting with you. July 1st, we all get a tax cut, but the fuel excise is being staggered. Are we kind of not taking from one hand to give to the other a little on that?
GORMAN: Look, what we wanted to do was to make sure there was more support for those motorists who are relying on that fuel excise reduction. So, that’s still 16 cents a litre, and that’s for the rest of this month. That has made a huge difference to households, not just in my electorate, but across Australia. And we’re proud to support that, just as we are proud that as of today, that first tax bracket is now down to 15 per cent. It was 19 per cent of every dollar that people earned in that tax bracket, going into the pocket of the government. Now it’s down to just 15 per cent. That is a huge change – 15 cents on the dollar.
MELLET: We were talking yesterday with one of our money men and I think he was saying it’s about $5 a week. Is that right?
GORMAN: What it is, cumulatively, with all of the tax relief that we’ve put in our budgets over the four years we’ve been in office, it saves the average worker $2,800 a year. So, that’s really meaningful for households in my electorate. And it comes along with the work we’ve done to get wages up. For the first time as of today, for minimum wage workers in Western Australia, the minimum wage for a full week’s work is above $1,000. It’s $1,004. I’m really proud that we’ve done a lot of work to lift wages up. At the same time we’re bringing taxes down, and for average workers, that’s putting a lot of money in their pocket and there’s more to do. I don’t want to say that we don’t want to get wages continuing to move over time and we’ve got more work to do on bringing taxes down. But we’ve been doing the work and it’s making a difference.
MELLET: Well, Dean, over to you. You also know very well how people are hurting, dealing with the cost-of-living pressures. So, are the paid parental changes and the tax cuts the necessary relief that you also support?
SMITH: Well, I think whenever the Government wants to talk about cost-of-living, it’s an excuse to not talk about inflationary pressures in the economy. So, in Western Australia – and I’ve mentioned this previously on this show – that we know that average weekly earnings have risen by about 18 per cent. But the CPI costs for WA families have grown by 27 per cent. So, these things need to be seen in the cumulative. Inflation is the most important and urgent economic challenge that Australia faces. The question for Patrick, and Jim Chalmers and others, is why are they resisting the urgent need to get inflation back under control. So, for the life of this Government, the inflation rate has sat outside the RBA’s preferred range of 2 to 3 per cent. What that means is that there’s pressure on interest rates. So, the RBA is forced to push up interest rates. That affects the disposable income of Western Australian families. So, we would say that the priority, the economic challenge at the moment that must be addressed is the inflationary challenge. And if the Government is going to continue to spend at record levels, that is going to drive inflation up and drive interest rates and cause more financial stress for Western Australian families.
MELLET: And if you were in office with these cost-of-living pressures, would you be able to resist making changes like these?
SMITH: Well, I think what’s important here is how – what is the first principle that you adopt when you seek to make changes in regards to government spending? And I think the fuel excise that you raised with Patrick in the first instance is a very, very good example of this. Angus has made it – Angus Taylor has made it very, very clear that when the Coalition is bringing forward new spending initiatives, it will be necessary to find offsets-
GORMAN: Cuts.
SMITH: -in government spending as a result, as a way of reducing the inflationary pressures. If you are only spending more money and this Government is spending $16,000 per person more than the Government did when it came to government. That is inflationary. So, it actually doesn’t matter, Geraldine, how much cost-of-living pressures, relief you give to families or in what form you give it to families. If you are increasing the size of government spending, you are in the end making it more difficult for them because of the inflationary experiences. And the RBA released the minutes of the most recent RBA meeting just yesterday, and they made it very, very clear that interest rates will continue to rise unless inflation is tackled in the economy.
MELLET: Fourteen minutes to four, and you’re listening to our two – I was going to say contestants. Sorry. Our two politicians behind party lines who are sitting very peacefully together in the Canberra studios. Patrick Gorman, Labor MP and Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister and Senator Dean Smith, WA Liberal and Shadow Assistant Treasurer. Just had a question from Michael on the SMS line. “Have you ever advocated for a pay rise for workers on the minimum wage?” And I gather that was to you, Senator Smith.
SMITH: Have I ever advocated for – well, we would support improvements to minimum wages for workers, because that’s a fair thing to do. Have I personally, I don’t think I have. Not in the positions that I’ve had, nor in the roles that I had when I was a parliamentarian. No, that’s not true. But as someone who had various part-time jobs when I was a young person before. While I was at university, various jobs before I came to Parliament. I understand how important it is for people to get a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work. Absolutely.
GORMAN: Michael, if I can just say to you, the Labor Party does advocate for increasing the minimum wage. We actually put in a submission to the Fair Work Commission who are looking at this. Our submission, and every submission we’ve put in for four years, said that we support a real wage increase for those on the minimum wage. And then for other workers in areas where we know there’s been historical underpayment, we have put in additional funds to help people who work in the childcare centres across Western Australia, or indeed in aged care across Western Australia. We’ve put in additional funds to make sure that they get a fair day’s pay and to help with the huge challenges we had with workforce. Now, when earlier Dean talked about finding savings in the Budget, these are the sorts of things that – maybe not Dean himself, but many of his colleagues hate –
SMITH: NDIS reforms, which we agree with, Patrick. We agree with NDIS reforms.
GORMAN: Well then vote for them in the Senate.
SMITH: You’ve just extended the committee reporting period. So, we have said we will work constructively with the Federal Government on NDIS reforms, while at the same time wanting to make sure that people with genuine disability needs get properly supported in the community. There’s very, very clear expectation from Australians that that happens. But I use – but the NDIS reforms that we as first principle both agree with, right, is a demonstration that there can be sensible savings found in the Budget. If you are saying to WA listeners now that every cent of Commonwealth money that is spent is spent wisely, well then that is just not true. The challenge for Labor – why do wage increases matter if they’re only going to be eaten by inflation? Inflation is Labor’s invisible tax. This is the economic priority because everyone is feeling the cost-of-living pressures. You recognise that yourself by providing cost-of-living relief. But that relief is not going to make life easier for people unless the Government tackles the inflationary demon.
GORMAN: And if I can just say on that, Dean. One of the things that you miss in that story is – I know you’re a student of history, but let’s just go to some modern history. This Labor Government under Treasurer Chalmers has delivered two surpluses. Now, those surpluses weren’t in the forward estimates when your colleagues left office. We did the hard work on finding savings and responsible spending –
SMITH: The cumulative impact of Labor’s Budgets is we now have government spending at a 40 year high outside the recession and outside the pandemic. That is a historical fact and it’s demonstrated in the tables in the Budget. In addition to that, the tax revenue that this Government is taking from Australian families and businesses is the highest it has ever been as well, so – but that doesn’t disguise the real issue, Patrick. And that is what will you do –
GORMAN: I would have thought you remembered the Howard Government being –
