THE HON ANGUS TAYLOR MP

SHADOW TREASURER

 

TRANSCRIPT

PRESS CONFERENCE, PARLIAMENT HOUSE, CANBERRA

Wednesday 26^th October 2022

Topics: Federal Budget, structural deficit, electricity prices

E&OE

ANGUS TAYLOR: I've said many times in the lead up to this budget, that the test for the budget was whether it was going to build on the strength of the economy and the budget we’ve seen in recent months and deliver on the challenges that Australians are facing those cost-of-living pressures that are the top of the list for so many Australian households. Unfortunately, this budget doesn't do that. What we see is for a typical Australian family, by Christmas, they'll be $2,000 worse off, and nothing in this budget to support them. The truth of the matter is this budget is one where Labor is walking away from a series of election commitments, is walking away from the commitment to a $275 reduction in electricity prices. It's running away from its commitment to better real wages. In fact, real wages are going backwards in this election cycle, in this budget. It's walking away from its commitment to support Australians with cost-of-living pressures. This is incredibly disappointing. I guess the question it raises is what was the point of this budget? What was the point? Why did we have a budget now when we normally have a budget in March. Is this a vanity project for Jim Chalmers? Is this simply about him? Well, it should be about Australians and there's no real consideration of the challenges that Australians are facing here. It's a lot of talk. There's a lot of doom, there's a lot of gloom. There's a lot of commentary, there's a lot of forecasting, but there is no plan. What Australians want is a clear, comprehensive plan for them. That supports them at a challenging time.

QUESTION: Mr. Taylor, the Government has accused you of hiding energy price hikes before the election, saying that prices hikes were backed in. Did you know that energy prices would hike before the election?

ANGUS TAYLOR: No, I didn't and can I say that the Government had saw the Ukraine war happen before the election, and they kept their committment, they made their commitments to a $275 reduction back in November, but the broader point I make about this, is this is a Government that has an excuse for everything, and a plan for nothing and to have in the budget, a recognition now that electricity prices are going to go up by 50 per cent over the next two years. 20 per cent this year alone is incredibly disappointing. Is the Government running away from ironclad commitments it made during the campaign. Commitments that Australians rely on, commitments that I know swing votes, and understandably so. We understand that as an Opposition, having lost the election these were real commitments, and no asterisks, no footnotes, Australians should be able to expect better.

QUESTION: Major reform is needed, particularly when it comes to tax. Is the Opposition willing to engage with the Government on this?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, if you're saying do we support higher taxes? The answer is no. Labor clearly does. There is $142 billion of additional taxes in this budget, including an increase in tax rates being driven by bracket creep, when inflation runs hard, because tax rates go up. It's the thief in the night. Its sneaky! You wake up one day, and there's not as much money in your bank account, or you don't have as much ability to buy the basket of groceries as you thought you could and that's what bracket creep does, that's happening in this budget and will continue happening if the stage three tax cuts don't go through. Now, it is true there is nothing in this budget suggesting that Labor supports the stage three tax cuts, you would have thought a reform that big would have been a feature of the budget reform that says to Australians across a broad sweep of tax brackets, you're going to keep at least 70 cents in the dollar. When you have a crack, when you have a real go, every Australian should do the maths 70 cents on the dollar. That is an important reform. And it sends a signal to Australians to get out there, take risks, build their businesses, and they have a real go. So now we want to have a longer-term fast-growing economy that can manage the spending that you just talked about. You've got to have; you've got to have policy settings that encourage that, and this budget was more like a placeholder for tax increases than tax cuts.

QUESTION: On the NDIS, what are some ways that it can become more sustainable?

ANGUS TAYLOR: We're more than happy to work with Labor on how the NDIS can be sustainable. When we spend in our time in Government between 2013 and 2019, we spent a lot of time making sure the Federal Budget was sustainable and that's what counts at the end of the day. You've got to have an economy that grows faster than what’s spent…

QUESTION: But on the NDIS, what are the sort of strategies?

ANGUS TAYLOR: We’ll work with Labor on any proposal. I heard the Prime Minister was making some points about this a little bit earlier, and we're more than happy to work with them on any sensible proposals to make sure that the NDIS is sustainable. We all want the NDIS to succeed, and we all want it to be sustainable, but the broader point here is this; Labor likes to talk a lot about structural deficits well, there's no doubt that if Labor is in power, and it's happy to spend the way it appears to want to over the longer term, then there will be structural deficits, but as the Treasurer said, in the final part of his speech last night, that is a choice that I've chosen - the spending. He said that multiple times, it’s their choice. There is an alternative, which is to manage your finances, as every household and business does in Australia, and make sure your economy is growing faster than you spend. And the government should deliver those tax cuts, which will drive growth and helping turn on managing the budget. That's exactly what we want to see. It's so disappointing to see a budget where, where Labour has put up the white flag, it's given up, it's got increasing deficits over the next three years having inherited a $50 billion windfall in the last financial year. It's given up on the responsible sort of pathway that we think is the right one for Australia.

QUESTION: Does labor need to cut spending on the NDIS and other programs to get the budget back on track?

ANGUS TAYLOR: As I said, John, I mean the key here is straightforward you know, only too well if your economy grows faster than your spending, your budget is always improving. It's that simple. You don't need to cut it; you just need to manage. And we did that from 2013 to 2019. It's grafting, discipline, to making sure you're doing the right things. It's avoiding projects like the out-of-control suburban railway in Victoria, which doesn't even have a positive cost benefit that was condemned by the Victorian people in general. It's safe, sensible pathways forward, I see no sign of that. I don't see Jim Chalmers or Katie Gallagher, the finance minister having the skill or the will to want to manage to achieve those sorts of outcomes. And it's true. If they don't want to do that, they will have to raise taxes. That's exactly right, but that is a choice.

QUESTION: Shadow Treasurer, is there any concern that these reductions are falling in crucial areas? There are falls in defence, which is slightly down, and sports and recreation is down. Does this raise any concerns there?

ANGUS TAYLOR: You know, the one thing that was really striking to me, over the forwards, as you asked was over $6 billion of infrastructure spending, much of which is in suburban and regional Australia. $6 billion ripped out. I mean, they're ripping the guts out regional Australia. Regional Australia is going through a real renaissance right now, extraordinary times. Commodities are strong, regional Australia's powering our Australian economy. People want to live in the regions, the pandemic has been good to the regions and yet, Labor’s decided it wants to rip the guts out of the regions. That's disappointing. I mean, infrastructure investment is about building productivity and participation over time, and we do need one of those areas like defence, where you've got to make sure you're investing all the time. This is a budget that rips that away and at the same time, they've still got deteriorating budget deficits. I mean, this is the extraordinary thing, look over the next three years, it's going backwards, not forwards.

QUESTION: On those rising energy prices, would you support something like a subsidy to take the pressure off the next few years?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, the first thing I support is Labor keeping their election commitments. They committed to a $275 reduction in electricity prices and they're walking away from it. That is the first and most important point I would make. This was a very real commitment. There was a lot of noise around it, and they are walking away. So, that is extremely important. Now, we’ve got in recent years, electricity prices in the lead up to the election, electricity prices down by 8 per cent per households. How do you do it? You get more supply into the market, more gas into the domestic network, and more electricity generation, dispatchable electricity generation into the market. And that's it.