Topics: Release of foreign criminals from immigration detention into the community, Wages, Cost of living      

E&OE

 

GREG JENNETT:

Angus Taylor, always good to have you joining us on the program. Welcome back. You've come from Reps chamber - we've described the session there this afternoon as probably the most heated or spirited of the year so far. The Prime Minister's flying out to APEC, in full flight, fending off this suspension of standing orders that was moved by your leader He accused the Coalition of weaponising anti-Semitism. Question is why did you couple up events in the Middle East right now, with matters concerning immigration detention?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Our point was very simple, which is social cohesion. Community Safety is incredibly important, Greg, and we've got several things going on. We didn't couple those things up, but they're all affecting community safety. And one, of course, is we want to make sure that we don't see some of the conflict that's going on in the Middle East, being transported here to Australia. And I think Australians feel very strongly about that. A lot of Australians left that behind, and they don't want to see it here. The second point, though, is that we've got a government that has released over 80 people from detention and amongst them rapists, murderers. I mean, these are tough issues. And frankly, they have absolutely no answers as to how we're going to make sure that we keep the community safe having done that, and this is a very significant issue. There is no legislation that we've seen. And frankly, Anthony Albanese should be sorting that out and then going off to APEC, once you've sorted it out. We've said we'll work closely with them on this.

 

GREG JENNETT:

Okay. We’re awaiting legislation that the government's flagged, we don't know when it's coming. But by conflating both the highly sensitive matter internationally of the war in the Middle East with a politically charged, purely domestic matter on immigration detention, don't you risk denigrating or diminishing the importance of the Middle East war?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Not at all. I mean, these are community safety issues – they’re different community safety issues, but they both matter. And, you know, the point that community safety, that it’s got to be a top priority for government, I think that's well accepted across the Australian community.

 

GREG JENNETT:

Alright, let's move on into your domain as Shadow Treasurer, the government said it wanted to get wages moving again. And lo and behold, it has at an annual 4% growth clip at present. This isn't accidental, says Jim Chalmers, he seems pretty proud of it, a promise fulfilled. Workers will be grateful, won't they?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Well, he's ignored inflation, Greg. And, you know, the ABC has been very good on this. Because at the end of the day, inflation is invisible to Jim Chalmers - to the Treasurer - but it isn't invisible to Australian households, because they know that the only thing that matters with your wages is what they can buy. And they can buy substantially less than they could a year ago.

 

GREG JENNETT:

But they’re less far behind than they otherwise would have been because we were moving wages along only at 2% - not so great…

 

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Greg, inflation is going faster than that. For a typical working family, we've seen a reduction in the purchasing power of the pay packet of 5% in the last 12 months. Now we know from analysis that's been done from OECD data over the last little while, their household living standards have dropped also by 5% in the last 12 months. Australians are going backwards. I don't need to see this data, by the way, to know that Australians are going backwards - they know they're going backwards. And Jim Chalmers and the Prime Minister are both telling Australians that they're going forwards. Well, they're not. And the ABC factcheck has said that the way Jim Chalmers is looking at this is misleading.

 

GREG JENNETT:

Thank you for highlighting that. I know you've been enthralled by that particular publication for a few weeks now. But on wages strictly measured as they are by the wage price index out today - It's the market at work, isn't it? I note that they rose more commonly for workers in the private sector than they did in the public sector. So this is what happens when you've got a tight labour market.

 

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Yeah, but I mean, the prices are going up faster. And the only thing that matters with what you receive in your bank account for the work you do is what that money can buy. And it can buy less, Greg, and this is the great deception of this Labor government - they're ignoring that fact. It's as though inflation was invisible. Well, it's not invisible to the Australian public.

 

GREG JENNETT:

Do you acknowledge that this move at 4% is pretty much in line or totally in line with the forecasts of both the budget and the Reserve Bank.

 

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Well, whatever the forecasts inflation has been worse than was expected. It's more entrenched than was expected. You know, that reduction in living standards I just talked about - the worst in the advanced economies in the world. We've also – according to The Economist - got the most entrenched inflation of the major economies they've looked at in the world. This is a diabolical set of circumstances. And you know, that data, all those numbers, just line up with what we're seeing on the ground, which is Australian families really hurting particularly those in mortgage belt areas, those hard working families who are trying to get ahead, that have bought a home, that are seeing their interest rates going up, that are seeing the price of everything they're buying going up. They’ve got a Christmas coming up, where it's going to be incredibly hard for many of those families to make ends meet. I get out to food banks across the country and I see a situation where people are turning up at food banks, double income families who just can't make ends meet

 

GREG JENNETT:

No, it's not a comfortable existence for so many. What should be done about it, though? I note that on the question of fuel excise as we move into sort of mid year budget update, and then budget next year, Coalition talks a fair bit about it, raising the example of what you did when last in office. Does that mean you're endorsing a cut to fuel excise?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR:

What we're endorsing is a cut to inflation – it’s getting inflation down, because the problem is, prices are rising across a whole range of different things - groceries, insurance costs, council rates, you name it, obviously, electricity, gas. These are really sharp increases across many, many different categories. And that affects every Australian. So if you start throwing money around to one little group, or on one particular product, the problem is everything else is still going up.

 

GREG JENNETT:

But if it was good policy when the coalition was in charge, why not now?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Because the main thing that had gone up was the petrol price. So it's changed. We've now got endemic across the board inflation, it's much more prevalent in services than in goods. It's worse in Australia than other countries in the world. This is coming from Canberra. As I say we're at the back of the pack when it comes to solving this problem. And so we need a government that's focused on beating inflation, on fighting inflation. We know how to do it, because it's been done before - back to basics economic agenda, don't make a bad situation worse, and yet we're seeing policy after policy from Labor that is making a bad situation worse.

 

GREG JENNETT:

Alright, well, we've got the mid year budget update coming along fairly soon. We're a bit overdue in talking to you, I think Angus Taylor, so we appreciate you coming back today and we might do it again before the year is up.

 

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Good on you, thanks Greg.

 

ENDS.