AARON STEVENS: PM good morning to you.
PRIME MINISTER: Good morning, Aaron.
STEVENS: Just so much of this Budget relies on a recovery from the health impacts of COVID-19 and a vaccine late next next year. How confident are you that that’s actually going to happen?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, none of the measures that are in this Budget are dependent on there being a vaccine next year. There are assumptions that are made in every Budget about everything from resource prices through to other issues like the ones you’ve mentioned. But the tax cuts come with or without a vaccine. The bring forward for investment allowances with or without a vaccine. But of course, the outlook in terms of where the Australian economy is heading, of course, will be impacted by many things. Both our continued relative success in dealing with the health challenges, but also what’s happening with the global economy, and how we’re able to open up our economy over the next six to 12 months and, and into the future. There are always uncertainties when you put any Budget together and of course, during what is the most significant and the hardest hitting global recession that we’ve seen since the Great Depression. Then, of course, it’s an uncertain environment. But the information in the Budget is based on the best assessment as we know it right now.
STEVENS: So you do think we’ll have a vaccine by late 2021?
PRIME MINISTER: We certainly hope to. And the balance of advice we have currently is that that is a reasonable prospect, but it will obviously be determined by the trials and all the things that we know are variables.
STEVENS: Things like big infrastructure projects obviously, they rely on our health safety going forward?
PRIME MINISTER: They rely on the Government actually doing it, which is what we’re going to do. And again, whether it’s, you know, it’s the Bridgewater Bridge or the Bass Highway upgrades or the Murchison Highway upgrades or the Tasmanian freight rail revitalisation, all of that is going ahead with or without a vaccine. Because these are important parts of our economic plan. See, this Budget is about cushioning the blow. It’s also about an economic recovery from COVID-19 by getting things brought forward, whether it’s bringing forward the tax cuts, which were part of a longer-term plan. We’re bringing that forward. We’re bringing forward investment decisions in the private sector with the investment allowance, and the loss carry backs. We’re bringing forward hiring decisions through the JobMaker, hiring credit. This is all about getting things happening now, bringing forward those decisions and then having the rebuild plan for our economy over the medium term. And that’s everything from energy in particular things like Marinus Link and new technologies. Ensuring we’re getting the gas to support our manufacturing industries, the training programmes that we’re now putting in place, a great partnership with the Tasmanian Government there and all states and territories through JobTrainer, 12,000 new higher education places for next year. There are longer-term changes that we’re making to make our economy stronger.
STEVENS: Marinus Link it’s a key project, will we see funding for Marinus Link?
PRIME MINISTER: Well you will. We’re still in the process of working that through with the state government. We’ve already committed serious dollars as an envelope to deal with a number of quite significant transmission projects, and that is one of them. And we’re working through those details. But we’ve been committed to this for for some period of time now. And I’m pleased that it’s making such good progress. And we’ve got a great partnership with the Premier there. He and I speak about it often, as does Guy Barnett with the, with of course, with Angus Taylor. And it’s an important part of our ongoing plan.
STEVENS: Do you have a timeframe you can give us?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, when we’re ready to make that announcement, we will.
STEVENS: Okay. Tax cuts. Is it true that people earning under $90,000 won’t see those tax tax cuts straight away?
PRIME MINISTER: No, that’s not true. I mean, there are a couple of things that always happen when you have tax cuts. They’re, first of all, they’re backdated to the 1st of July, and providing there’s the support of the parliament. Then the tax schedules are then produced by the tax office and then the accountants, and the accounting systems update their software and they they adjust the pay packets of Australians. And that’s how it always works with any with any tax change. So that will move, I hope, as quickly as possible.
STEVENS: Okay. Older Australians are feeling left out of this budget, Prime Minister?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I don’t agree with that assessment. I mean, what people forget is back in 2017, we actually put the Restart Programme in place. Now, the Restart Programme was where you can receive a $10,000 GST inclusive subsidy for employing someone who’s a job seeker aged over 50-years-old for 12 months. What we’re doing for younger workers is what we’ve already done for older workers, and younger workers were the ones most impacted by the COVID-19 crisis. As were women, we’re seeing a lot of those jobs come back. Now, 760,000 jobs have come back from the pit of the COVID-19 recession. 60 per cent of the jobs on measured employment, that have come back are for women. But we’ve already had programmes like the Restart Programme, which had been there to support older workers. Those 340,000 training places around the country that have been put together with the states and territories. There as much more older workers as they are for younger workers. And older workers will be accessing those if they have to move between industries because of perhaps in the hospitality industry or the aviation industry, those in travel agencies or things like that. If there’s a retraining process, then that’s there for them also. And then, of course, for much older Australians who are on the pension. We’ve got the two $250 payments that are coming in over the over the next nine months. And that comes on top of the $1500 payments that have already been received since April of this year. So the Government has been working right across all age groups. And at the end of the day, it’s about creating jobs. And when there are jobs out there for people to get then I’m fully expecting that those opportunities will be there whether you’re 55 or 25.
STEVENS: You’ll be aware we’ve got a problem in this state with the harvest season coming up and getting the workforce there. There are people on aged pensions who are happy to go back to work, but obviously don’t want it to affect their pension. Is there something we can do for these people?
PRIME MINISTER: We’ve got the part-pension, which is also available, and on JobSeeker arrangements I know that’s different to the pension, but for those who want to go out and earn more than we obviously would want to encourage them when it comes to harvesting work. Well, that’s actually quite hard physical work, as people would know. And we’ve been talking to the Premier for some time about access to the sort of labour force needs that are going to be necessary, particularly in the orcharding industry in Tasmania. But to those things to happen, you’ve got to open your borders.
STEVENS: Absolutely, and let’s let’s talk about that because its restrictions on businesses and closed borders that are holding us back. You want us to spend money, it’s obviously difficult when when there’s so many restrictions on businesses. How can we how can we change this situation?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I welcome what Peter Gutwein has already done. And I welcome the fact that he’s brought forward the date for which the Tasmanian borders will be lifted. And I know he’s been watching that health advice carefully. People know my view that I’m keen to see Australia open up as safely, but also as quickly as possible. Because that will obviously have an impact on jobs. I mean, that’s not a criticism. But if you close borders, that affects jobs. And Tasmania has a very significant tourism and hospitality sector. And we want to ensure that Tasmanian tourism businesses and the jobs that they support get access to that domestic market of tourism that won’t be going overseas. It’ll be staying home. And at the moment, the states that will be benefiting from that are in places like New South Wales and South Australia and the ACT and so on. And those as the other states open up, they will benefit, too. So I’m I welcome what Peter has done. And I look forward to that continuing.
STEVENS: Obviously, as you said, there are changes ahead and restrictions being eased. But these restrictions and border closures are in place for under 10 cases Australia-wide. I mean, that’s frustrating, isn’t it?
PRIME MINISTER: We have a definition of a hotspot. And we made that available to the states and territories. Now, whether they choose to adopt that or not is up to them. But I mean, borders, restrictions should only be there for health reasons. And I, I know the Premier has been taking regular health advice on that. And that’s what led him to bring forward that date for opening. And I’m sure if he could bring it forward further, he will. And I, of course, would welcome that if that were the case. I mean, Tasmania I know the Premier has always been had a particular concern, and that’s shared. It’s an older population in Tasmania and the COVID-19 virus has a greater impact on older populations. And I know that’s what has caused some caution in his mind, and that’s understandable.
STEVENS: Tax cuts are meant to get us spending and obviously incentives for businesses to spend, how do you encourage that with so much uncertainty?
PRIME MINISTER: Oh, by the way we target and we’ve targeted the tax cuts to those earning less than $90,000 dollars a year. And we know from experience that those types of tax cuts, letting people keep more of what they earn for people in those income ranges, they’re more likely to spend it. And that’s why we’ve brought forward stage two of our tax plan, not stage three. Stage two has been brought forward. As I said, our recovery plan is about bringing things forward. These were all part of plans that were into the medium term. They needed to be brought forward because of the circumstances we now face. And that’s what we’ve done.
STEVENS: You’re obviously aware of the travel voucher scheme here in Tasmania. It’s been so successful. Was it considered maybe using these tax cuts to deliver vouchers so that money could be spent where you’d like it to go?
PRIME MINISTER: Oh look, at a national level those sorts of schemes can be very difficult to implement and administer. And I welcome the fact the states are doing what they’re doing. I mean, the Reserve Bank Governor himself has said that he wants to see $40bn of greater investment in the economy coming out of the states and territories. Tasmania is actually leading the pack when it comes to the investment that they’ve put into their economy as a state government compared to other states and territories. They’ve been quite forward leaning. Around the other states and territories in some cases, less than 2 per cent of their state economy is being invested back in to support their state economies. You’ve got one state government that’s actually boasting about having a surplus, in the middle of a recession. But in Tasmania, I think the Liberal Government there has been quite forward leaning to provide that support. I mean, one of the reasons so far I think we’ve had the relative success we’ve had, is we’ve channelled our programmes through existing arrangements. We haven’t dreamt up fanciful programmes because they inevitably come to grief. And we saw that with, you know, the overpriced school halls and we saw it with the Cash for Clunkers. And we we saw it with cheques off to pets and deceased persons, and insulation batts which you had to pay to put them in, and then pay to pull them out. That’s what we learnt from what Labor did during the GFC. They showed us what not to do in a crisis. And I think as a Government, we’ve demonstrated what you should do in a crisis.
STEVENS: I know I have to let you go, Prime Minister. Just finally, some frightening figures in the Budget. Do we have reason to be concerned as Australians?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, it is a big burden. The Treasurer said that last night. But to be honest, as we made the decisions that led to that, the alternative was even more stark. And we, of course, are concerned about the burden that we’ll now carry. But the burden that, had we not acted would be even more significant. It would be businesses never reopening people who never got back into jobs. The scarring that would come from this recession of young people living a life on welfare was not an outcome that we were prepared to contemplate. It required action in proportion to the challenge. And we believe that’s what we’ve done in this Budget with what is a very strong economic recovery plan. And we’ve been careful about every cent, 90 per cent of the additional spending happens this year and next year. So it’s very targeted and it’s very temporary. And then we get back to the Budget as normal as possible. And the longer term structural spending, we still got record health spending, record hospital funding, record schools funding. But what we haven’t done is bake in long term stimulus programmes like happened before, which are very difficult to deal with when you’re looking to repair a Budget, after you get past the crisis.
STEVENS: Prime Minister, appreciate your time this morning. Thank you.
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks a lot, Aaron. Good to talk to you.
