Transcript - Tuesday 21st June 2022 - Interview with Stephen Cenatiempo, 2CC Breakfast

Tuesday, 21 June 2022

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: 
Joining us is the Shadow Treasurer and Member for Hume Angus Taylor. Angus, good morning. 

ANGUS TAYLOR: 
Good morning, Stephen.  

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: 
So disgraceful performance by the Leader of the Greens yesterday, I think.

ANGUS TAYLOR: 
Yeah, look, I'm an Aussie flag kind of guy, Stephen and I have to say that what is really hurtful in this, is demonising the Australian flag and Australia. I stood out there, as I do every year, with thousands of people on ANZAC Day. People who are proud of our country, people who are proud of people who have fought for our country and died for our country and I think many thousands of those people would find Adam Bandt’s behavior and comments very hurtful. So, it's time to be proud of our country and I’ll always stand in front of an Aussie flag.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: 
Good on you. Now the Australian economy is in an interesting position at the moment. I mean, whilst there were obviously issues throughout the pandemic that forced the previous government to make some decisions that many of us might agree with or disagree with, but we are now in in the wake of … we have this perfect storm ahead of us, rising inflation levels, increasing interest rates. The Prime Minister says he's confident that Australia can continue to grow, which means we won't head to a recession. But there are many economists out there that think we are heading to at least a mild recession. What are your thoughts on that?

ANGUS TAYLOR: 
Well, I'm not going to predict what's going to happen. What I am going to say is we left the economy with a strong growth rate, 3.4% growth rate, 0.35% cash rate, very low interest rates, and of course, 3.9% unemployment rate and we just got figures that came in last week showing us just how strong the job market is. So that's how we've left it. There are clearly pressures around the globe on inflation, on interest rates and the question is how Labor will respond to those. You know, if you want to manage inflation, if you want to manage interest rates, you have to manage your budget. So we'll be watching very closely as Jim Chalmers brings forward his budget later this year. It is incumbent on the government to make sure they manage their money very, very carefully. Traditionally, Labor governments haven't done that. Let’s see. 

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: 
One of the big concerns that a lot of business owners have is the decision by the Fair Work Commission to increase the minimum wage by 5.2%. Now nobody would begrudge our lowest workers a pay rise, but whether or not this turns out to be an inflationary pressure is going to be the big concern here.

ANGUS TAYLOR: 
Well, that's right. I mean, we all want to see higher wages, make no mistake about it. Australia has been successful as a country because we've been able to sustain and maintain high wages relative to most countries in the world and it's been very, very good for us. But you need high wages to be built on productivity and so the sustainability of wage rises really depends on being able to help workers without having to work harder just to be able to produce more and so that will be absolutely crucial. But as I say, Stephen, what really matters from here is how that the Labor Government manages its budget later this year, because that will determine whether we're going to have really serious inflationary breakouts. If you fuel the fire of inflation with lots of government spending, with unconstrained and unconstrained budget, then you're going to have rising interest rates, you're going to have rising cost of living, and that's what we can't afford.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: 
I guess the problem that this government's got is that it’s heading into those international headwinds. Do you have to cut them a little bit of slack here?

ANGUS TAYLOR: 
Well, you know, no one, no one missed the fact that Albo, all the way through the election campaign told us he was going to take responsibility and he said it many, many times, Stephen and you can't take responsibility for international inflationary pressures, obviously, that's outside of the hands of the government, but you can take responsibility for how you respond to it and there is a great deal that government can do to respond to these pressures. I mean we had to respond to something completely outside our control, which was the pandemic and Australia came through that better than almost any other country in the world. Lots of debates, lots of tough issues there will be for this government, but it's how you respond that counts and we'll be holding the government to account on that. There is a lot they can do to manage inflation and interest rates. Right now the capital markets in Australia, which are a pretty good indication of where it's going, are saying interest rates, cash rates will be hitting above 4%, which is mortgage rates of 6.5 or 7%, Stephen and the way to manage that is, is to get the budget under control. Now we turned the budget around by $100 billion in the last, just before the election. It'll be up to Jim Chalmers now to make sure he builds on that good work to put downward pressure on interest rates.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: 
Now you must be champing at the bit to get your opportunity to hold the government to account but that's not going to happen until the 26th of July and then the sitting … I’m one of these people that thinks you guys should spend more time in your electorates then you do here in Canberra, but for a government that criticised the previous government for the number of sitting days, they've certainly turned it on with a fairly light-on sitting calendar haven’t they? 

ANGUS TAYLOR: 
Forty days. Forty days. Now the average or last year, a pandemic year of course, 67, that was during a pandemic year and we were constantly criticised by Albanese for not having more time in Parliament, and he's down to 40 which is less than has been the case on average in past election years so this is what we're going to see a lot of from Labor. What's good for the goose doesn't seem to be good for the gander and the hypocrisy we're already seeing from Labor on issues like this, you know, we're going to be calling it out, Stephen, because yes, we did lose the election and we've got a lot to learn from it. There's no doubt about that. But on the other hand, we're not going to hold back in holding Labor to account on what it promised the Australian people during the election and most of all they have promised that it would take responsibility. 40 days in the Parliament is not taking responsibility.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: 
Yeah, absolutely and particularly, I think it's a little bit disingenuous for a government that went to an election saying jeez, the current mob, they're managing this economy badly and then you get into government and say jeez, we didn't realise you were managing the economy so badly. Moving right along, now your previous job was Energy Minister. The current Energy Minister Chris Bowen is blaming you for the current energy crisis. I think it's been a little bit of a cheap shot.

ANGUS TAYLOR: 
Well, he's more interested in personality attacks than he is in problem solving. And this is, this is the issue. Here’s the government again, promised it would take responsibility, as soon as it finds it’s in a hard situation, just points the finger. Now what Chris Bowen should be doing is focusing on getting more supply into the market. It's simple. That's what I did. It is not a coincidence we contained this in the lead up to the election. It's hard work and it means getting more supply into the market, more gas, keeping the generators running, keeping Snowy Hydro going flat out. All of these sources of supply and getting new generators into the market, like the Kurri Kurri gas generator, the Tallawarra gas generator, Snowy 2.0. All of these projects, all of these initiatives are all about making sure you've got enough supply that puts downward pressure on prices and it keeps the lights on but it's a continual job. It doesn't stop. Every day, day-in-day out. Chris Bowen’s discovered it's a tough job and his solution is to point the finger. I’ve got to tell you, it's pretty galling, Stephen, that a party that promised it was going to take responsibility has now decided that it's just going to point the finger. But the key now is to solve the problem and the way I've described it, more supply is the way to solve the problem.


STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: 
The problem is, clearly, I believe both sides of politics have got to take responsibility here for a long term demonisation of our traditional forms of energy. Now I know that your side was more supportive than Labor’s side was but surely we needed to create some certainty so that these energy providers could invest in our coal fired power plants that are now part of the problem here because they're in a state of disrepair.

ANGUS TAYLOR: 
I fought every day and including on your program, for new dispatchable supply. Supply you can rely on to come into the market as quickly as possible. And initiative after initiative I was opposed by Labor. The Kurri Kurri gas generator, take that as an example. Labor fought that for a long, long time until Joel Fitzgibbon finally convinced them that at the local level, they needed to support it, but they opposed it for a long while and this was a critical project alongside the Tallawarra gas generator to replace the closure of Liddell. So, the Greens of course, opposed it all the way through. But you know, I never, never stopped fighting to make sure we got more supply into the market and the results worked. Outside of the ACT, sadly because the ACT went down the same path, we saw electricity price reductions across the country of 8% for households, 10% for small businesses, even more for industry. But you can't take the foot off the accelerator, and we have got ourselves in the position where you can't take the foot off the accelerator, but that's what I did. And that's what Chris Bowen should be doing in making sure we've got the supply we need. I've never demonised our coal and gas fired generators, Stephen and I won’t. They play an important role. It's true technologies are changing, no question about that. But you can't wipe those generators out overnight. And gas in particular will have an important role to play for many, many years.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: 
Angus, you’ve got to be fair to the ACT, at least we get to pretend we operate on 100% renewables. 

ANGUS TAYLOR: 
(Laughs) And you can pretend all you like but if New South Wales was to cut the cord, you wouldn't have much at night. But look, at the end of the day what we need is a reliable, affordable system and that means having that dispatchable supply, you shouldn't be demonising it. Chris Bowe’s demonised it for years and now his government needs it.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: 
And continues to do so. Angus good to talk to you this morning. 

ANGUS TAYLOR: 
Good on you. Thanks Stephen. 

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: 
Angus Taylor, Shadow Treasurer and Member for Hume.