Interview with Stephen Cenatiempo, 2CC Canberra - Tuesday 4th February 2025
Topics: Labor’s cost of living crisis; Labor’s homegrown inflation; Labor’s negative attack ads; skyrocketing energy prices
E&OE
STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: We’ll talk about all those things and many others with the Shadow Treasurer and Member for Hume, Angus Taylor. Angus, good morning.
ANGUS TAYLOR: G'day, Steven. Good to be with you.
STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Look, the Labor Party are running ads now. You'll be worse under Dutton. I mean, it's almost an admission of how bad things are.
ANGUS TAYLOR: What nonsense. I mean, it's just extraordinary, isn't it that this is the best they've got? This is a Labor Party that promised before the last election lower energy bills. It promised cheaper mortgages, a lower cost of living. Of course, it's delivered none of those having completely failed to do what it promised to do. What it's doing is just attacking Dutton. And this is Anthony Albanese's playbook. It always has been. Attack the man and not the ball. He's not really interested in attacking the ball. And right now, that is the cost of living and the standard of living crisis we've got right across this country where we have seen the biggest hit to our standard of living in our history. I was out in Queanbeyan yesterday at Saint Benedict's. It's a food bank or a support group that provides support to people who are really doing it tough in that part of the world with Father Michael and his team. And you see the real tragedy that's going on right here on the ground, Stephen, as you just talked about in your editorial. And it is very, very real when you go to places like that. I make a point of going to places like that all around Australia. And we're seeing the same pattern. People coming in and looking for help, embarrassed about it in many cases. They're worried about the stigma attached to asking for help because they've got nowhere else to go, they can't pay the bills.
STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: I think the point is, and what I was trying to get at here is that the inflation rate might be coming down. Now we know that there's smoke and mirrors with how inflation is determined and which figure you look at, et cetera. But if the inflation rate's coming down, it doesn't mean prices are and prices are still rising. Everything is exorbitantly expensive. We were only talking about it here in the office, amongst a few of us the other day about the price of an ice cream. Now if you go to the servo and grab an ice cream on the way home, it's five or six dollars. Where back when we were kids, it might have been 50 cents or a dollar. This is what real Australians are experiencing each and every day that I think sometimes those people who work up in that big building with you don't get?
ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, the Treasurer runs around telling people how good they've got it and how government is the answer to everything and how well he's done as Treasurer. The truth is the complete opposite. This is the biggest hit to our living standards in our history, Stephen. We've never seen this before, not on this scale. Prices aren't coming down. You're absolutely right. For the average working family, prices are up almost 20% since Labor came to power. And we'll get those numbers out on Wednesday and let me tell you, they will not be flattering and they're not coming down. They're not coming down. Mortgage costs, of course, $50,000 of extra mortgage payments since Labor came to power for a typical mortgage holder. This Treasurer and Prime Minister just don't seem to be talking to anyone other than themselves and their supporters. That's why they're deluded into thinking that things are all tickety-boo. Well, they're not, they're not. They're not even close in so many places.
STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: The thing that strikes me, Angus, is that the Reserve Bank has been explicit for quite some time now and it's unusual that the Reserve Bank is as pointed as it has been under Michele Bullock. Where they've said you need to get government spending under control, that's what's driving inflation. We've had almost every economist say that, at least for the last 12 months. We've now got the independent food distributors coming out and saying you guys need to start to get your own act in order because our prices are going through the roof and its lack of efficiency that's leading to that. You wonder how many warnings are required.
ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, they just don't listen because they think they've got all the answers and it's just more government doing more, spending more. On the energy side, which is what that article was referring to, it's clear that their policies are a complete disaster. And we had the head of the Small Business Association coming out today, two small business associations coming out today, saying their renewables only strategy will fail. And they've got to move to what we've been saying for many years, which is the broad mix of fuel sources, you shouldn't restrict it to renewables only. Australians are paying off high price for their complete and utter failure, having promised a $275 reduction. We're not even close to that. There's no small business seeing that. They're seeing instead huge increases, and I see that wherever I go.
STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: Well, that's it. That article we're talking about with the independent food distributors, they're talking about increases of over 50% over the last short while. I don't know how any business survives like that. We've now got the business council and a bunch of CEOs coming out and saying, we need to really tighten things up, get efficient, maybe look at an Elon Musk style. I'm not suggesting we do what the Americans do, but surely we've got to start looking at trying to run a little bit leaner.
ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, it's getting back to basics. It's the things we learned last time we had a broad-based economic crisis. Not on this scale, I should say, but many of us, many of your listeners will remember the 70s, the 80s into the 90s, where we beat low inflation by reining in wasteful spending that fuels inflation, reducing red tape and the control of union bosses over small businesses. We drove cheap energy. The key to this will be now ensuring a balance of mix, including more renewables, but critically more gas and replacing our retired coal plants with zero emissions, nuclear energy. Affordable homes by funding the critical infrastructure, the pieces that will allow us to get more homes built and so on. Save the communities by getting tough on violence. This is all back to basic stuff to get back on track. We know how to do it; we've done it before. Labor simply won't go there because it's not part of their playbook.
STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: But Angus, I think we need to look at structural change too. And this is something that nobody's talking about on either side of politics. You know, a, root and branch restructuring of our tax system. The fact that when you go and buy a schooner at the pub, most of it is taken up by tax these days. We've got to look at better ways of taxing Australians. Now, nobody's disputing that we need tax because you can't pay for anything otherwise. But you know, do we need to rip up the tax act and start again and come up with a simpler, fairer system rather than just keep tinkering around the edges?
ANGUS TAYLOR: I always say that if you want lower taxes, and we do, and we've committed to a cap on taxes as a percentage of the economy, then your starting point is to make sure there's no wasteful spending. You tax because you need to spend, and you don't need to tax as much if you avoid wasteful spending. We've seen wasteful spending under this government en masse. The failed referendum that divided Australians, half a billion dollars down the rathole. That is typical Labor wasteful spending. We've seen the Treasurer setting up his $40 billion spin unit and the list goes on. We're all seeing unnecessary wasteful spending at this time. That's the key to getting tax down. And it's true, we need to have a sensible debate about which are the worst of the taxes. But I'll tell you what we're not going to do in government. We're not going to put a tax on unrealised capital gains. So small business people are forced to sell part or all of their small business in order to pay tax. I mean, that's the kind of thing that only a Labor Party Treasurer could come up with because, frankly, they hate small business. They don't believe in it; it can't be unionised and they're very happy to see the record levels of insolvencies we're seeing right now.
STEPHEN CENTIEMPO: Yeah, which is absolutely frightening. Angus, good to talk to you. We'll catch up in a couple of weeks.
ANGUS TAYLOR: Good on you, Stephen.
ENDS