SUBJECTS: 2022 Federal Budget; Budget Reply; fuel excise; cost of living; Federal election; Labor’s policy agenda; Labor’s Housing Australia Future Fund; Labor’s Powering Australia Plan.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Once again, this Budget will reflect the character of this Government. A Government that's always long on politics, but short on plans. A Government that has expressed contempt for cost of living issues. That has spent a decade attacking Medicare, calling for low wages, seeing an increase in job insecurity, and simply not dealing with the cost of living pressures that families are feeling out there. This is a Government that is out of touch and out of time. And two minutes to the end of their term, they're asking for a fourth term based upon spraying money around. The only time that this Government holds a hose is to spray money around before an election. This is a Government that can't be taken seriously in terms of looking after the interests of working people. And now, they say that wages are going to increase. Well, they've had 55 projections about wage increases during their terms in office. And 52 of them, they have missed. And it's interesting that Treasury, there are leaks out there saying that the pre-election fiscal outlook will be very different from the figures that appear in the Budget tonight.
 
JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: Thanks, Anthony. This will be a panicked, desperate, tapped out Budget from a panicked and desperate and clapped out Government. Nothing the Government announces in the Budget will change the reality of falling real wages for Australian working families. This Budget should be an opportunity to support communities affected by fire and flood, to do something meaningful to ease cost of living pressures, but also to plan for the future. This Government is temperamentally incapable of seeing beyond an election. And so, after tonight, when all of the nauseating spin and marketing has died down, this Government will have left the Australian people a trillion dollars in debt with not enough to show for it, falling real wages, and no plan for the future. This Government is desperately hoping that if they spray enough money around on the eve of an election, Australians will forget almost a decade of attacks on their wages, their job security, their pensions and their Medicare. Australians will not forget, no matter how much money sprays around tonight, that this is a Government which has spent a decade attacking the living standards. Nothing the Government announces tonight will change that fundamental reality. This country desperately needs a plan for a better future, not just a plan for an election campaign, which is funded by spraying around taxpayer dollars. It will be a desperate and panicked and tapped out Budget from a desperate and panicked clapped out Government.
 
JOURNALIST: Mr Albanese, based on what we know about it so far, should the Government be spending more or less?
 
ALBANESE: It is a matter of the quality of the spend that is the problem here. This is a Government that are always prepared to spend taxpayers' money, usually on itself. But it doesn't have a plan to actually grow the economy. Where is the plan for productivity growth? They still don't have an energy policy in this country. And that's the problem. One-off payments designed for the election timetable rather than for the needs of the Australian economy and the Australian people. That's the problem with their approach.
 
JOURNALIST: What does Labor make of news that the unemployment rate is projected to fall to its lowest point in 50 years?
 
ALBANESE: We will wait and see. The reality out there is that there are almost two million Australians who want more work. What we see is growth in the gig economy, a growth of casualisation, the growth of contracting out and labour hire companies. What we don't see is a growth in secure work, a growth in the sort of jobs where people can get a mortgage, where people can plan to have a family. That's the problem with the pressures that are on the Budget.
 
CHALMERS: We want to see the unemployment rate as low as possible. But unfortunately, it's coming with falling real wages and skill shortages right throughout the economy. This Government has managed something very difficult. They got falling unemployment rate at the same time as we've got skill shortages. But still, we've got real wages falling behind. So, ordinary Australians and working families are finding it harder and harder to make ends meet. The Government will give themselves a big pat on the back for an economic forecast when the reality, as Anthony says, for life in the suburbs and towns and cities of this country is falling real wages, is finding it harder to get those opportunities that people need to put food on the table. This Government has had almost a decade now to deal with pressures on Australian working families which have been emerging for some time. Now, on the eve of an election, they want to pretend all of a sudden that they understand and care about cost of living pressures. I think Australians will see through that.
 
JOURNALIST: And so, what would you do that the Government isn't doing to encourage wage growth?
 
CHALMERS: Well, there's a range of things we need to do to get wages growing again in this country. First of all, the Government says that stagnant wages are a deliberate design feature of their policy. They've spent a decade coming after penalty rates and all the rest of it. So, that's a big part of the problem, a Government that wants lower wages, rather than decent wages for working families. We want to get the economy growing the right way, in a strong and broad and inclusive way. We want to make sure that people can grab those higher paid opportunities by training people for opportunities, providing cheaper access to child care, so that they can work more if they want to. We also want to crack down on dodgy labour hire. We want to make sure that there are basic standards in the gig economy. We want to make sure that Fair Work Australia is empowered to turn casual, insecure jobs into more permanent, more secure jobs. There are a range of things that we've been talking about for some time. Insecure work is like a cancer in our labour market. It's one of the reasons why we haven't been seeing the wages growth that we want to see, even well before the pandemic. We would approach this challenge very differently. I have to go to a radio interview with Sabra Lane, so I will leave you to it.
 
ALBANESE: If I could add one thing on that as well, which is that we asked in the Parliament, on multiple occasions, 'Does the Government support workers being paid the minimum wage?' And their answer to that was, 'It's complicated'. The Government that doesn't even support Australians being paid the minimum wage is a Government that can't be trusted when it comes to wages and living standards.
 
JOURNALIST: There is not a budget that has gone by in recent years that doesn't have something in it for tradies. Is it time we shifted the focus away from tradies and towards other sectors of the workforce, like aged care workers, nurses, especially female-dominated industries, where they don't get paid anything like a tradie, and never get the attention or the supplements or the subsidies that tradies get every budget?
 
ALBANESE: Well, we need to support our tradies. But we also need to support other workers who the pandemic has shown are absolutely essential. And one group of those is aged care workers. It's fine for this Government to give speeches about how much they value aged care workers, child care workers, the people who kept us going during the pandemic. But they won't even put a submission to the Fair Work Commission saying that aged care workers deserve a wage increase. If you're earning $22 an hour for doing what is physically, emotionally demanding work in an aged care facility, looking after people who are vulnerable, who need care, you deserve something more than a thank you and a pat on the back. You deserve a wage increase. Because what we're seeing is people leave the sector. They leave the sector because they can earn more packing shelves than they can looking after our older Australians who deserve respect. And that was one of the key recommendations of the Aged Care Royal Commission. It was workforce issues. Workforce issues have been ignored by this Government with its response to the Royal Commission.
 
JOURNALIST: You mentioned it was about quality, not quantity, when it comes to the spending. Are you in support of a big spending Budget if it is spent on the right things?
 
ALBANESE: Well, this is a Government that have never spent money on the right things. And they also will come up with big figures. But the question is - does it produce anything? We know in last year's Budget, they actually had a cut of over four billion dollars to infrastructure investment. Now, they'll have us believe that when they've announced a whole range of projects that have simply not commenced, project after project that have been announced in budgets that have not actually led to any activity. It's a bit like some of their defence spending that they talk about. But if it doesn't lead to anything other than a breach of contract, and a cost to revenue without any outcome, then that's not good-value spending. So, we need to target spending and investment to areas that make a difference in the economy, to areas that boost productivity and boost employment, to areas that provide that long-term future. And that's what Labor is putting forward at this coming election. It is a plan for a better future. A plan that has clean energy through the Powering Australia Plan. Fully costed. 640,000 new jobs. $275 reduction in people's energy bills by 2025. We have a plan for that cheaper energy to power advanced manufacturing through our National Reconstruction Fund, to create new jobs and new industries, to create those new opportunities. And we have a plan to have fee-free TAFE and additional university places to make sure that Australians can fill those jobs that will be created in those new industries. That's what a plan for productivity looks like in one area. The other area is - how do you grow the economy through the three Ps? Productivity, participation, population. Our plan for child care will deliver on all three, which is why it's a positive economic plan, not a welfare plan. Thanks very much.
 
ENDS