Interview with Tom Lowrey, ABC Afternoon Briefing - Friday 6 December 2024
Topics: Labor’s reckless spending; Labor’s homegrown inflation; tax; industrial relations policy; nuclear costings; offshore wind farms
E&OE
TOM LOWREY:
As the battle lines are drawn for the next election, the economy and the cost of living will no doubt be right at the centre. The Treasurer Jim Chalmers acknowledges the economy is weak but has pointed to encouraging signs in areas like wages and inflation. His counterpart, the Shadow Treasurer, Angus Taylor, has a different take and joined me earlier. Angus Taylor, thanks for joining Afternoon Briefing.
ANGUS TAYLOR:
Good to be with you, Tom.
TOM LOWREY:
Just firstly on this week's economic figures, they were, of course, softer than many economists expected. You put at least some of that down to government spending. What would you like to see? What would you like to cut back on, you know, as soon as you took office, what would be sort of top of that list to try and push down inflation?
ANGUS TAYLOR:
Well, Tom, the first thing is to commit to it and to make sure you've got fiscal guardrails in place so you grow the economy faster than you're spending. But we've already put our money where our mouth is, so to speak, and we've opposed well over $100 billion of spending through the Parliament on initiatives that may or may not be the right things to do in different times, but when you've got inflation raging, when you've got interest rates that are stubbornly high, and indeed, you've got an economy which is deeply, deeply sick with GDP per capita going backwards and productivity going backwards, now is not the right time for those initiatives. We've opposed over $100 billion worth whether it's housing initiatives that are not delivering housing, Tom or manufacturing initiatives that are not delivering manufacturing. I mean, these are not the right times to be spending that kind of money but Labor can't help itself. We know that's making the situation worse. Economists are telling us that it's making the situation worse. The balance between supply and demand in this economy is all wrong. The supply side of the economy is broken. We saw that in the collapse in labour productivity. Six per cent since Labor came to power and the result is Australians are doing it tough and we saw that in those nightmarish numbers that came out earlier this week.
TOM LOWREY:
You touched on tax earlier this week as well, arguing that Australians are paying more tax too. The Coalition has been clear it won't be taking a detailed package of tax reform to the election but broadly, what are the principles you'd want to pursue if you did pursue tax changes once in office?
ANGUS TAYLOR:
Well, we're already committed to important tax changes, Tom, for instance, making accelerated depreciation a permanent part of our taxation system for small businesses. I mean rewarding investment is incredibly important. If you want to get productivity back to where it needs to be and that's the pathway to prosperity. That's the pathway to opportunity for Australians whether it's buying a home or being able to pay their bills, we know that it's absolutely essential that you get investment, and that's why accelerated depreciation is something we have committed to as a permanent part of our taxation system. We obviously fought hard for further personal income tax cuts, and Labor has ditched those. We'll also fight against bad taxes. I mean, imposing a tax on unrealised capital gains is not something we can support and in fact, we've been pleased to see others have agreed with that in the Parliament but we'll continue to fight for sensible taxes. We want to see lower, simpler, fairer taxes, Tom. That's how you get the economy moving forward and we'll continue to fight for that.
TOM LOWREY:
On income taxes, though, do you still … would you still like to pursue something along the lines of the stage three tax cuts, in line with those original principles?
ANGUS TAYLOR:
What we want to see lower taxes, and we don't want to see people punished for working hard and having a real crack, whether it's investing in their business and making money from that, or investing in their careers and doing well there. We want to see Australians aspiring and succeeding and that's why we proposed the stage three tax cuts after the stages one and two, and they were important tax cuts that have been fully implemented, of course, Tom. Labor doesn't agree with those underlying principles about aspiration and opportunity, so they changed them. But look, we'll continue to fight for lower taxes, and as we have done and as we have already announced in some of those announcements I've already outlined to you a moment ago.
TOM LOWREY:
What about IR? You've pointed to Labor's IR changes around labour hire, around multi-employer bargaining as a drag on the economy. In office, would you like to simply unpick those or would you want to go further and make your own sort of IR changes too?
ANGUS TAYLOR:
Well again, we've announced important IR initiatives that we would implement in government, bringing the ABCC back. I mean, in the construction sector now we have corruption which is endemic. We have seen deep links between the CFMEU and criminal gangs, and we are all paying for that in the price of a road, the price of a hospital, the price of apartments. Every Australian is paying the price for the way the construction industry is behaving and we've announced we’d bring back, of course, the ABCC to deal with that. We've also opposed in the Parliament some of the industrial relations which are simply just going to take this country backwards, and we'll continue to announce important policies in this area. We want to see higher real wages. We want to see more prosperity. We want to see that shared by hardworking Australians, Tom and we know in order to have that, you've got to have a good IR system, and you can't put union officials in charge of our workplace, taking us backwards, but that's what Labor is doing.
TOM LOWREY:
Can I just touch on the nuclear costings we're expecting from the Coalition next week. We are seeing some numbers banded around already around the half a trillion dollar mark for the total cost of the policy. Can I just confirm with you, will it be lower than the $640 billion that Frontier Economics has costed on behalf of the Coalition for the government's renewables plan and is that $500 billion figure in the ballpark?
ANGUS TAYLOR:
Well, Tom, the one thing I'll say and I've said it before, is I'm not going to make an announcement here today on this wonderful program but I am going to say that the costings of our plan will be lower than Labor's and the reason, the reason for that is that Chris Bowen's plan is a renewables-only plan. Our plan includes renewables, make no mistake about it, but it's a broad range of technologies that means you can deliver affordable, reliable energy with falling emissions and do it in a way which is at lower cost. I mean, it will mean that you don't have to build the same number of kilometres of transmission lines. It will mean that you don't need to have as much storage as you would otherwise have had to have. It will mean that you don't need to keep rebuilding facilities as they depreciate much faster and that means you get lower cost and Chris Bowen, unlike countries right across the world that are realising a broad range of technologies as the way to bring prices down, deliver low emissions, Chris Bowen, in his ideological crusade, has decided there's only some technologies that he'll accept in he’ll rule the rest out and the result is Australians will pay the price.
TOM LOWREY:
Renewables will be in the mix in the Coalition's plan.
ANGUS TAYLOR:
Sure.
TOM LOWREY:
How big a slice of the mix will they be, and will they be costed as part of this nuclear costing you're releasing next week.
ANGUS TAYLOR:
Tom, I've already said I'm not going to make the announcement today. You can keep trying, if you like, but it'll get boring for your viewers. But what I can assure you is our pathway will be a lower cost pathway because Australians shouldn't have to suffer under rising electricity bills that you've seen under Chris Bowen as Energy Minister, a guy who simply doesn't understand how energy systems work, doesn't understand that you need a mix, you need balance, you need a broad range of technologies and at a time like this where it is a real challenge bringing down emissions and prices at the same time. You don't take options off the table. Only Chris Bowen could think that was a good idea but it's because he's on a crusade and I think if we take a pragmatic approach to this, we can get what we need, which is that mix of affordability, reliability and sustainability that all Australians want to see.
TOM LOWREY:
Just lastly, Angus Taylor. As Energy Minister, you once spruiked Australia's offshore wind industry, the potential of it, and you set up the legislative framework for the industry as well. Yesterday, Peter Dutton was in the Hunter region promising to stop offshore wind projects in that region going ahead. What's changed for the Coalition?
ANGUS TAYLOR:
Well, nothing. They're just in the wrong places. It's pretty simple. I mean, just because you approve a framework for something doesn't mean that they can go ahead wherever you like.
TOM LOWREY:
What are the right places then?
ANGUS TAYLOR:
You’ve got to pick the right places just as we have outlined, just as we have outlined the sites that are appropriate for nuclear generators, and they're pre-existing coal sites where we don't need to build new transmission, where you've got existing communities that understand energy, that work in the energy industry. I mean, they're the right places to do these things. Labor has picked places that clearly are completely unacceptable to the community. The answer to your question is the right places is where you have communities where there's strong support. That is clearly not the case at Port Stevens.
TOM LOWREY:
Are there any of those you can point to?
ANGUS TAYLOR:
Labor will, you know, we'll let the developers identify those sites. I'm not going to … it's not my job to find the sites where there's strong communities support. There's obviously places where there's much smaller populations on the coastline, which I would have thought is the obvious place to start looking but you know, Labor is on this crusade, and anyone who gets in the way, anyone who worries about their energy bills, will be ignored by Chris Bowen. That's what he shows time and time and time again, a complete disregard for community concerns, a complete disregard for electricity bills and the pain that people are feeling. He doesn't care, and we see that time and time again. This framework allows to get that balance right, but Chris Bowen is not interested in getting that balance right. He's interested in his own crusade.
TOM LOWREY:
Angus Taylor, thanks for joining the show today and throughout the year too.
ANGUS TAYLOR:
Thanks, Tom.
ENDS.
