Topics: RBA interest rate rise, energy prices

E&OE

CHRIS O’KEEFE: Angus thanks for your time.

ANGUS TAYLOR: Thanks for having me, Chris.

CHRIS O’KEEFE: It's extraordinary to think that in the budget just last month the Treasurer made a forecast saying that the cash rate would remain stable until it would start being cut. It only took a month for those predictions to be proven false.

ANGUS TAYLOR: The budget has fallen into a hole in record time. Page 56 of the Budget highlighted the expectation that the cash rate will remain at 3.85 throughout this year before it is cut. In fact, three and a bit weeks later, it has completely failed. And it's because the government's strategy has failed. Their plan has been wrong from the start. I've been saying this for the best part of 12 months now, that they're heading in the wrong direction on all of this. The pain that Australians are facing now is extreme. If you've got a mortgage, typical mortgage in Sydney, $22,000 a year more than 12 months ago. I mean, it's extraordinary. And where do you find that? That's after-tax income you've got to find that, of course, Chris. The truth is this is Labor's rate rise. This rate rise belongs to the government. We need a government to take responsibility and that extraordinary press conference from Jim Chalmers showed a complete unwillingness to take leadership on an issue which Australians do need a plan for, and they do need a solution to.

CHRIS O’KEEFE: So this is the twelfth rate rise in 13 months and in the same breath Jim Chalmers is saying oh it has got nothing to do with our budget, he then goes on to thank or congratulate the new Premier of WA and says oh by the way I'm going to New Zealand to strengthen ties, nobody in Australia gives a rat's what you're up to this week.

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, I mean he spent half of his opening to that press conference talking about his plan for the weekend, your dead right. What people want to know is that the government is doing what is necessary to take pressure off inflation and interest rates, and they're doing the exact opposite. He claimed that the budget hadn't caused this, but the truth is that expectations changed as soon as he brought down his budget. We had economists like ANU economist Steve Hamilton saying the Governor of the Reserve Bank just confirmed that the discretionary items in the budget, that’s what the government can control, are expansionary. This is a budget that was the wrong budget for the time. It's a budget that will make middle Australia worse off. Hard-working Australians who are trying to get ahead are paying the price for a government that is not concerned about them, doesn't have their back and they're all going to pay a heavy toll and frankly they're completely unwilling to take responsibility having promised on multiple occasions during the election campaign, they would always take responsibility.

CHRIS O’KEEFE: Have you heard Anthony Albanese once talk about an economic plan on how we're going to get out of this?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, this is right. I mean, he wants to talk about The Voice, he wants to talk about all sorts of other things, but the one thing he doesn't want to talk about is the economy. In fact, it is so bad, Chris, that last week we heard in Senate Estimates that the Prime Minister hasn't sought a single briefing from the Chief Economic Advisor in the Government, the Treasury Secretary, on inflation. Hasn't asked for a briefing.

CHRIS O’KEEFE: Does he care?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Look, he says he cares and then he ignores it, and this is the mark of this government that they say one thing and do another.

CHRIS O’KEEFE: People just want a bit of hope, they just want a bit of hope. They just want to see where are we going and where's the light at the end of the tunnel here.

ANGUS TAYLOR: Exactly. I mean, 12 months they've been in power, and they made a big thing of this. They're wonderful 12 months and how good should we all feel that they've been in power for 12 months. 11 of those months have seen interest rate increases and the fact of the matter is every time we ask a question in Question Time about the cost of living and interest rates, they deride us and say we should be focused on more important things. Well, the truth of the matter is for most Australians out there, most of your listeners out there, I have no doubt this is a huge issue not just interest rates but inflation more broadly.

CHRIS O’KEEFE: It's not a huge issue it's the only issue. It's the only issue anyone cares about at the moment.

ANGUS TAYLOR: Fair point. And I see it on the ground in my electorate which runs from southwestern Sydney all the way out to near Cowra and right across that region, I see this pain because it is very real. The people who are hurting the most are those hardworking Australians who are really trying to get ahead, who believe in this country, but they're not getting what they need to be able to get ahead.

How, if food prices, power prices and housing prices are fueling inflation, where does the RBA expect people to cut back on those three items?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, they run out of things to cut back on. I mean, we said on Budget night, a typical Australian, as a result of this, the government's plan, $25,000 worse off than they were a year ago, after tax income. Where do you find $25,000 after tax income? I mean, and the answer is, I was out today, I'm up in Brisbane at the moment, talking to small businesses. The answer is, they're cutting back on anything discretionary because they've got no choice.

CHRIS O’KEEFE: Yeah, but housing yourself, turning the lights on and feeding yourself, that's not discretionary Angus.

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, that's right, that's right and you run out of discretionary things pretty fast and then you're cutting to the bone and that's where we're getting to. We need the government to treat this as its number one issue, to take it seriously, to stop deriding our focus on it. We've been relentlessly focused on this because we do think it is the only issue as you rightly for most people and it needs that kind of leadership and focus, and we haven't seen it.

CHRIS O’KEEFE: On power prices I spoke to the CEO of Kagome Australia right, his name is Jason Fritsch and they run a basically process about 250 metric tons, 250 000 metric tons of tomatoes, so your tomato paste your tomato sauce and everything. His gas bill is going from $4 million to $8 million. He says that will mean his products are more expensive or he lays off workers. How is that sustainable?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Yeah, and I've heard even worse situations where they've seen their prices triple, electricity and gas prices tripling, it's not sustainable. And we've heard warnings today from energy companies that Labor's energy policies will mean higher prices for the foreseeable future. There's no end in sight on this. You know, I know as a former Energy Minister, you have to fight every day to put down pressure on prices and I achieved that. Up to an eight to 10 per cent reduction in prices in the time.

CHRIS O’KEEFE: Sure, but why, let's talk about the here and now really quickly. Why can't we just tell Santos and your big gas companies, hey I don't care about your contracts overseas, I don’t care about your profit margins. This is how much gas we need in Australia, and this is what you are to sell it to Australians for.

ANGUS TAYLOR: Pump more into the local network and that's exactly what we did, and we saw a dramatic reduction in gas prices. This is not theoretical, this is what we did when I was in the seat and you saw gas prices going, they were up getting close to $20 bucks a gigajoule, we got them down closer to five and it was all about pumping more gas into the domestic network. The gas producers will always work with you as long as you work with them in a constructive way. If you want to destroy them, they're obviously going to take a different view. We work with them in a constructive way. We got those prices down. It can be achieved. But this is a Labor government that's intent on killing that industry. And frankly, this is the outcome you get. Now more broadly, they simply aren't focused on whether it's energy policy, industrial relations, fiscal policy. They're not focused on what is necessary to take pressure off inflation and we will continue to pay a very high toll for that.

CHRIS O’KEEFE: And they wonder why The Voice is on track to fail. Angus Taylor, appreciate your time.

ANGUS TAYLOR: Thanks for having me.

ENDS.