Mr Albanese, good morning.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good morning, Tom. Good to be with you.
ELLIOTT: Now, I don’t know how much about tonight’s Budget you can tell us, but cost of living is the first, second, third and fourth most important thing in people’s minds.
PRIME MINISTER: It sure is.
ELLIOTT: What are you going to do to make life easier for all of us?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we will have cost of living relief in tonight’s Budget. The first thing, of course, is $107 billion of tax cuts for every single one of your listeners who pays tax, rather than just some. That is by far the largest measure that we have in tonight’s Budget. But there will be more cost of living support tonight. And of course an important part of that is we had to sit down and work out how do you provide cost of living support whilst continuing to moderate inflation? We’ve done that. People will see that tonight and have seen that in the Treasury figures that have been released. But also of course, a $9.3 billion surplus will assist in those processes because it will be the second surplus in a row. It shows that fiscal policy or budget policy is working with the monetary policy of the Reserve Bank.
ELLIOTT: Well okay, now just quickly on the tax cuts. So, we’re talking about the stage three ones that were reworked a few months ago, correct?
PRIME MINISTER: They were, and you might recall when they were announced the Opposition said they’d reverse them. Then the Opposition Leader said that we should have an election on them they hated them so much. We’ll wait and see on Thursday night whether they have any alternative proposals. But they have passed the parliament. They are good measures which make sure that people aren’t left behind whilst addressing issues like bracket creep. So by reducing that first rate from nineteen cents to sixteen cents it flows right through the system. And we’ve also increase the top rate, where it kicks in from $180 to $190,000, which the first time in more than a decade that’s been adjusted.
ELLIOTT: Now as you say, you’ve got the twin goals. You want to address cost of living as much as you can, but not stoke inflation. Why not do what former Treasurer Josh Frydenberg did and just cut the excise on petrol prices? You would A, make it easier for just about everybody who drives a car, which is almost all of us, and B, if you lopped twenty or twenty five cents a litre off petrol prices, you would lower the rate of inflation too.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, what Josh Frydenberg did was to do that just for the period in which there was an election.
ELLIOTT: Well do it permanently. Do it permanently.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, he didn’t do that. He didn’t do that, Tom. And importantly, he left us with a $78 billion deficit that we turned into a $22 billion surplus. He left us with a trillion dollars of debt. What we’ve been doing by producing surpluses is put that downward pressure on inflation. And inflation is half of what it was when we came into office. Inflation peaked in the last quarter in which Josh Frydenberg was the Treasurer – 2.1 per cent in just one quarter. Now the annual figure is 3.6.
ELLIOTT: Ok, so no cut in petrol prices or the petrol excise?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, you’ll have to wait and see tonight. But we have put in place measures that provide support whilst putting that downward pressure on inflation. And when Mr Frydenberg did that of course, it was very temporary. There were a range of measures. Cash was flowing out because of the May 2022 election. That’s one of the things that put pressure on inflation.
ELLIOTT: All right, well what about power prices? I mean, I think it was Chris Bowen promised before that election that under his modelling, you know, the average family would be $275 a year better off in terms of power prices. That hasn’t happened. Is that going to happen soon?
PRIME MINISTER: Well we, of course, have done relief when it comes to power prices in previous budgets. People will see tonight the consideration that we’ve given to those measures. Of course, we’ve had a once in fifty years global spike in energy prices, the biggest spike since the 1974 OAPEC oil crisis that occurred, and so we’ve been dealing with that. The measures that we’ve put in place have very much moderated the energy prices in the last year, and that is a direct result. Also at the same time, it has lowered inflation.
ELLIOTT: Well yeah, but I mean our power in Australia, apart from if we ever had to import gas, is generated here. I mean for example, in Victoria, we mainly burn brown coal to make electricity. Now we don’t even export that. There is no real export market in brown coal. I don’t understand why we can’t just have lower power prices here. I mean for example, if we built new coal fired power stations, that would lower the price of power in this state.
PRIME MINISTER: Well no one, it wouldn’t because it’s a more expensive form of new energy, which is why no one, in spite of the former government’s rhetoric Tom, not a single hole was dug on a new coal fired power plant in the entire time, the decade they were in office. And while they talked about it and funded proponents to have a look at it, nothing happened because no one was prepared to finance it. So what we’re seeing over a period of time is that coal-fired power stations are reaching the end of their life. It’s important that we continue to provide certainty going forward. We had our gas strategy released last week because that will be important for firming as we go forward.
ELLIOTT: That’s a good strategy. That’s a good strategy, except the state government here in Victoria wants to ban gas. Like they don’t allow gas appliances to go into homes anymore. So I agree with your policy, let’s firm up our gas supplies. But here in Victoria, the state government won’t actually allow it.
PRIME MINISTER: Well of course, there are eight states and territories, they have different policies around the country. What we’re doing is making sure that we have a framework that encourages investment in new energy, in particular in renewables. Gas does have a role to play in firming. For example in central Queensland, Rio Tinto have just signed the biggest energy deal for renewable energy anywhere done in Australia in our history. But they will need gas in the short term to assist with that. As we go down the track, green hydrogen will be an enormously important source of energy. It’s somewhere where Australia has real comparative advantage as well and will enable us to help to power manufacturing. A part of tonight’s budget is about dealing with those immediate cost of living pressures, but also having an eye on the future. How do we build future economic growth? How do we build a future made here in Australia?
ELLIOTT: Well, just on future economic growth. At the moment a lot of our economic growth seems to depend on very high immigration levels. I think net immigration in the last twelve months is around 600,000. Now are you going to, as promised, are you going to cut immigration next year and the year after? And if so, by how much?
PRIME MINISTER: Yes, we are. We want to bring it down to around about half of where it peaked. You’ll see a range of measures in tonight’s budget aimed at doing that, including a clamp down on integrity issues when it comes to higher education – that’s really important. The students travelling to Australia to get an education is an important economic resource, it’s also a way which we assist people in the region. Good for Australia, good for those people who are getting a proper education. But we don’t want the system to be gamed so that it becomes a way where people aren’t getting proper training, or proper skills, proper education, because that undermines the entire system and does not bring credit to Australia. So you’ll see tonight, in tonight’s Budget, as part of our Higher Ed Review, a range of measures supporting higher education, including that area as well.
ELLIOTT: Now, speaking of higher education, last night at Monash University, there was a clash between two groups of protesters and, well, this is what was being chanted.
CLIP OF UNIVERSITY PROTESTORS: From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free. From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.
ELLIOTT: Now that was in front of, there was a group of Jewish students who were there commemorating Israeli war dead and then they were having the pro-Palestinian chant, ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’. You’re on record, I believe, as saying that that’s a form of hate speech. Should someone be done about, or something be done about those protesters?
PRIME MINISTER: Well unfortunately, what that chant says essentially, is that there should be one state. Now from time to time, some people have said that one state should be Israel. And in the case of those people chanting, they’re saying that one state should be Palestine. And the tragedy here is Israelis and Palestinians have a common interest in being able to live in peace and security. And I think that, one of the really disappointing things is that I reckon if you asked those people chanting it, heaps of them wouldn’t have a clue, wouldn’t be able to find the Jordan on a map. And you know, this is a complex issue, but the sort of slogans which are being used, I have heard another chant that was used last night as well, in which I featured heavily in. Why would a group of people deliberately go towards, in this case pro-Palestinian protesters, go towards a group of Jewish students, so deliberately those groups were brought together. It’s a provocative act, and it’s just like the people who went near the synagogue –
ELLIOTT: Well, should we do something about it? I mean for example, during the lockdowns, the police here in Victoria were very capable about shutting anti, shutting down anti lockdown protests. Could we say that it’s hate speech, it’s not allowed, therefore we’ll shut these protests down?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, it certainly is a matter for the authorities, for the police. I think that, look, we in this country have a right to protest. That’s really important. It’s important, but it’s important as well that it be respectful. And I say this to people, how they protest reflects on whether that protest is winning support or losing support. And when people see division like that being deliberately done, for the Jewish community, suffering from increase the rise in antisemitism, they’re going through an incredibly difficult period. And for people who have relatives in Gaza, I get that this is a distressing time as well. It’s important that there be respectful debate in this country and what we’re seeing at the moment, and you only have to look at any of my social media feeds to see what is hatred, what is ignorance, what is divisive. And it doesn’t have a place. You can have different views about the Middle East, and people do, and they should be conducted though in a peaceful and respectful manner. And it’s beyond me why people would think that it advances their cause to engage in the sort of behaviour that we are seeing.
ELLIOTT: All right, final question. A lot of us will hear the Budget tonight. Will we wake up tomorrow morning feeling that we are better off? That the government has listened to our concerns?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, they’ll wake up tomorrow morning knowing that the Budget’s in surplus, knowing that that’s not easy. No government did it for 15 years before last year. They’ll wake up knowing that if they’re a taxpayer, they’re getting a tax cut on July 1. They’ll wake up knowing if they’re a student, we’ve cut $3 billion of HECs debt. If they’re doing a course to become a teacher or a nurse, that their prac will be paid. They know that the government now has $32 billion of investment in housing. That we’re investing in infrastructure. That will have increased number of Urgent Care Clinics, once again strengthening Medicare. And that the government has a plan to make more things here, for us to stand on our own two feet, for us to be more resilient as an economy, and that’s a good thing for manufacturing jobs.
ELLIOTT: All right, thank you for your time. Anthony Albanese there, the Prime Minister.
