Topics: Indigenous Voice to Parliament, RBA decision, Labor’s broken promises, Newspoll, ACCC gas report.

E&OE

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO:

Joining us as he does on a fortnightly basis is one of those members of the Federal Parliament. He's the Shadow Treasurer and Member for Hume, Angus Taylor. G'day Angus,

ANGUS TAYLOR:

G’day, Stephen. Thanks for having me.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO:

Sometimes we focus on the wrong stuff in this country, don't we?

ANGUS TAYLOR:

We do and I think we're going to see a lot more of it with a Labor/Green Government at the Federal level, just as we've had one at the ACT level. Symbolism trumps reality of practicality. You know, the potholes, as you rightly point out, the police system, dealing with crime law and order – these things all take second priority to the symbolic acts and initiatives that Labor governments and Green governments love and that's my concern for our country as we go into this period where mostly across this country, we have some combination of Labor/Green governments in every state and territory with a couple of exceptions but not many.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO:

We're seeing that now with this argument about the Indigenous Voice to Parliament and regardless of what your thoughts, whether you think it's a good idea to have this Indigenous voice or not, it's a little bit, you know, it's all about the vibe and the Prime Minister coming out and saying, well, we don't want to keep the system, the question simple and it largely comes down to trust us, we're politicians. Well, I don't know there's a lot of trust left in politicians.

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Well, I think that's right, Stephen. It's unfortunate and as a politician myself, I feel the pain of that. But it is the reality. People want the practical problems that are in front of them solved. Now we want to see the gap closed for Indigenous Australians. We have long supported the principle of constitutional recognition. But what we have in front of us now on the Indigenous voice falls well short of anything that we can really come to a view on. Who will be on this voice? How will these people be chosen? What will it do? How will it respond to the practical issues that Indigenous people face? We don't have answers to those questions and there's no sign of us getting those answers. We need that if we’re going to come to sensible decisions on something like this.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO:

Absolutely. Now, today, the RBA is expected to hand down a rate rise of somewhere around half a percent. Now, I'm not convinced this would be any different had you maintained Government at the last election, but this Government certainly told us that everything would be different if they were elected.

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Yeah, that's right. Look, half a percent. That'll be over $200 a month if you're on a flexible rate on a typical sized mortgage. More with a bigger one. That's in addition to the increases we've seen over the last little while, so it'll be about one and a half percentage points since the election that it’s gone up. Now, what we asked for last week from Jim Chalmers was a plan – a plan to deal with rising inflation and rising interest rates. We got a picture, not a plan. That's not what we need. We need a plan and it is very clear, Stephen, that in the absence of action from the Government to deal with rising inflation and interest rates, the Reserve Bank will have to go further than it otherwise would and that's the concern we have. Not to say that the Reserve Bank didn't need to raise interest rates, it's to say that they will have to go further than they otherwise would and that will cause more pain than is necessary. That's why we need to see a sensible, coherent plan from this Government to deal with those inflationary pressures, those rising interest rates. And there's a range of things they can do. We put a number of initiatives on the table that we think would make a difference but we've heard absolutely nothing from Jim Chalmers.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO:

Yeah. It's been extraordinary, particularly given the campaign that the now Government ran in the lead up to the election about cost of living pressures and keeping interest rates low and making sure that we had higher real wages and almost immediately the Treasurer coming to power, it's all been, oh forget all that. It's just not going to happen.

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Yeah, look, they have now accepted in their forecast that they will deliver no meaningful increase in real wages in this term of Parliament. Sharp reductions this year and barely compensating increases in the subsequent two years. So real wages is off the table. They've given up time and time again, on recommitting to their $275 electricity price reduction. I don't know how they were ever going to deliver that in the ACT by the way, with the ACT Labor/Greens Government doing what it's doing. But these are commitments that I think were central to the election campaign. They were central to Labor's victory and they're walking away from them and what they're becoming specialists in is finding excuses. We don't need excuses, Stephen, we just need solutions. It's true. These circumstances are not all of the Labor Party's making. There’s significant global pressures driving this, but what they can do is respond proactively. When we were faced with the pandemic and a whole series of challenges we had to respond proactively and they call us out if they felt we haven't. Now they're ignoring all that. They should take their own advice and get on with the job.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO:

Yeah. I wonder though, is any of this resonating? I mean, given the recent Newspoll, and we know that every government goes through a bit of a honeymoon period, but some extraordinary numbers there. Is any of this actually hitting home with average Australians?

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Well, I think it will. I mean, I think, you know, obviously you're always going to give the Government a go and it's completely understandable that Australians would do that. But Australians are also faced with a set of pressures they haven't seen for a long time. This rising inflation, rising interest rate environment will hit hard over the coming months and years, it's only just getting going and we saw in the 70s and 80s, just how big that impact was, I felt personally, the pain of that rising interest rate and inflation environment. And people do expect governments to act. If they don't act, I think there will be real political pain for them. But the most important thing is that there will be pain for Australians, so that's what counts.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO:

The ACCC has been a little bit damning of the Government's failure to keep the gas companies in line. This is … I mean this has been a long time coming. We've always known we've had infinite, well, not infinite, but fairly generous gas resources in Australia that we don't necessarily take advantage of.

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Well, we did do, when we're in Government, I mean, we got gas prices down significantly. We put the Australian Domestic Gas Security Mechanism into place. We got that to work. Most importantly, we worked with the gas producers to get more supply out so they could put more supply in to the domestic market and they did and we saw very significant reductions in gas prices and very significant reductions in electricity prices. Now, if you're demonising the gas industry, they're not going to help you and this is the problem that Labor has got itself into. Chris Bowen, the Energy Minister, can't bring himself to say he needs to work with the gas producers. He has called a focus on gas, B.S. B.S. So how can you work with the companies to get a sensible solution when you put yourself in those circumstances. So he's had to outsource his job to Madeleine King. You've got to get that supply out and they will, they can be expected then to put the supply into the market. I've said that from right after the election. It's time to get on with it. That's what Labor needs to do.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO:

The New South Wales and Victorian government's probably need to play their part as well. Angus, always good to talk to you. We'll catch up again in a couple of weeks.

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Good on you. Thanks, Stephen.

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO:

Angus Taylor, the Shadow Treasurer and Member for Hume.