180 Treasurer Jim Chalmers On Trump_S Tariffs The Case For Another Term Of The Labor Government

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Treasurer, Jim Chalmers.

Welcome to Straight Talk, mate.

Thanks for having me on your show, Mark.

It's good to be here.

You're most welcome.

Mate, just quickly, today, I mean, this show will go out in a couple of days,

but today, you've been doing presses.

Massive reaction to the Trump tariffs, the Chinese tariffs back to the USA.

What's happening today?

And how do you feel about it as a treasurer of the country?

Yeah.

Well, a huge day in the economy today.

Really three things at once.

The markets are going berserk because of the tariff decision.

We've released some of the economic numbers around the budget and the economy,

and we've also put out some modeling about what the tariffs mean for us

or what the treasury expects.

The tariff's the mean for us, so it's been a huge day,

but I think most consequentially, markets are going nuts.

And so, at the time we're speaking, on kind of early-ish or mid-Monday afternoon,

our market's down about 4%.

The Americans were down about 6% on Friday.

Hong Kong was down 9% because they've been closed a bit longer.

Today, 9%?

9% today, but they've been closed for four days rather than two,

so they had a break.

They had all of it in one hit.

And so, what all of that means basically is that the world's markets are reacting

very, very badly to the announcement from President Trump.

And the China's response doesn't help because that's had, you know,

China's response to the U.S.

They sound like, let's call it a tariff war for the moment,

just for want of a better term.

That sort of doesn't all go well for China as an economy,

and that reflects back onto us.

And, of course, our Aussie dollar has been flip-flopping around 59, 60, 61,

and that territory.

Like, that's historically low, probably 10 years.

It is very low, and you're bang on, obviously.

What matters, the tariff announcement by President Trump matters a lot,

but in terms of the impact on the economy, it's also the kind of escalation,

the Chinese escalation and elsewhere.

And that's hard to get a handle on because a lot of that's still to play out.

But from an Australian point of view, we are more worried about the impact

on the Chinese economy than we are worried about the impact

on the American economy.

Only about 5%.

Only about 5% of our exports go to the USA, but a much bigger chunk go to China.

And so exactly what you said, our dollar is being hit because our dollar

is often treated as a bit of a proxy for how people are seeing China.

And because people are worried about China, then our dollar

becomes less valuable.

And maybe a little bit of silver lining out of all this because I'd also heard

you in the press say if the Reserve Banks ever had a good reason,

to start reducing interest rates in the May meeting, which I think is the 17th of May

or somewhere around there, and off the back of, probably not even off the back

of any new inflation data.

Probably don't have to worry about what's going on, what comes out at the end of April.

But just from an economics point of view, economy point of view,

they're going to have to do something to look after our economy.

Yeah, what I actually said in that press conference is, and I mean it,

I don't make predictions about interest rates.

I don't preempt the decisions they take independently.

You watch the Reserve Bank as closely as anyone.

You know, I don't make predictions about interest rates.

We know that treasurers don't make those kind of predictions.

What I said in the press conference was the market is expecting a number of rate cuts

this year, and they've started pricing that into their decisions.

And you're right that the next meeting's in the middle of May.

And some people in the market, some economists are expecting a bigger

than normal interest rate cut.

But I'd be very, very careful, as did my predecessor.

Everyone in my job tries to be careful not to make those kind of predictions.

People can see how the market's reacting.

They can, you know, closely follow the economists that they trust.

And the economists and the market are expecting there to be more rate cuts this year.

So we might just, I mean, the last time I sort of experienced this sort of structural change,

potential structural change, and definitely disruption like this,

was probably the GFC period.

What were you doing during the GFC period?

Where was Jim Chalmers?

Yeah, so I was...

For the first bit of it, I was the Deputy Chief of Staff to the Treasurer, Wayne Swan.

That's when I first met you.

And then I became the Chief of Staff to the Treasurer.

And so one of the upsides of that is when we're seeing this pretty extreme volatility in the economy,

you know, I've got some experience from this office in thinking through it and responding to it.

And I think one of the unusual things about our economy, if you're,

if you step back for a second, not unusual, but unusual in historical terms,

is we've had now four big economic shocks in less than two decades.

We had the GFC, we had COVID, we had the inflation spike after COVID,

and now we've got these escalating trade tensions,

which you described not unreasonably as a trade war.

And so four big economic shocks in less than two decades.

Which is amazing.

It's, yeah, I mean, it used to be that these big shocks were kind of punctuation points between long periods,

and now we're getting more and more frequent crises.

And so my formative experience in terms of the job that I do now is actually thinking through

and working through some of these sorts of issues in the GFC.

A different kind of crisis, but a big challenge to the global economy with big implications for Australia.

And that's what we're working through now.

Well, one of the things that is sort of similar back in the GFC period,

at least at the beginning, was the share market reacted badly globally.

But particularly here in Australia, people got quite nervous about the super.

A lot of Australians saw the superannuation, which is largely invested in shares,

go from one point down to another point very quickly.

And everyone got very, very nervous.

Let's leave interest rates out.

I mean, interest rates did go down quickly as a result of, you know, most countries did this.

But let's just push that aside.

As you say, that's an RBA decision anyway.

Markets will price it whenever they price in.

But in terms of the Treasurer calming the nerves,

of Australians who have got money invested in their super,

which by the way is one of your, you know, favourite people, Paul Keating,

great, one of the greatest policies that's ever been, I think, ever been put out, ever.

Yeah.

I'm not that sure about the industry funds who have sort of become much bigger than the banking system after that.

But definitely on an individual Australian basis,

every single individual.

Every single individual in this country is going to be better off and the Australian economic purse is going to be better off.

Of course, you know, we're not going to be forking out for people when they retire, hopefully.

Not as much, not as much as in the US and other places.

Right, it takes pressure off the pension.

So you've seen how Australians felt and you were the Deputy Chief of Staff and then later on Chief of Staff during sort of around that period.

What do you, what would you say to Aussies right now, apart from the fact that, you know, they've seen $85 billion get wiped off the table?

Yeah.

What does the Treasurer say?

Like, what do you say to Aussies about this?

What do we do?

Yeah.

Well, I mean, first of all, I understand that people are nervous about it.

Of course they are.

You know, we've seen a very substantial drop in the share market just today and a lot of

superannuation is invested in shares around the world as well and so it's not limited to

what's happening here.

And so first of all, I understand, particularly if you're closer to retirement, you're watching

your balance very closely and very carefully. And so days like today are very troubling.

I think the reassuring side of that, or two actually pieces of reassurance. First of all,

in the last three years, there've been, I think, 28, give or take, I think 28 new record highs in

the share market. And so in the last three years, people have done very, very well in their super.

And the other thing I'd say is that as difficult as these global conditions are,

as concerning as developments out of the US and China and elsewhere are,

we are, if not the best placed country, we are among the best placed countries to deal with it.

Our budget is in better nick than other countries. We've made a lot of progress on inflation. Our

unemployment's very low. Our economic fundamentals are quite good here. And the credit for that

belongs to the government. And so I think it's a very, very good thing.

It belongs to the whole country. I'm not taking credit for that as a government. We share the

credit for that. And so we've made all this progress the last few years, strengthening our

budget, strengthening our economy, and that puts us in good stead for whatever the world's going

to throw at us. So I think it's possible to be realistic about what's happening in the global

economy, but optimistic about Australia's capacity to deal with it, confident but not complacent

about what the coming months and years will bring. Because Australia fared very well.

In the GFC. I mean, we suffered a little bit in the beginning, but we didn't really have that

much damage because we didn't hold us up prime market. Similarly, we don't really export much

to America. I mean, some people will be affected on what we export to the US, but that's not our

biggest export market. Our biggest export market is China, Japan, and Korea. By far, by far,

a country mile, like it's so much bigger. We sort of fared quite well out of it. At the time,

Wayne Swan brought in all sorts of things like deposit guarantees for guaranteeing your deposit

with the banks. The bank exists because it was a banking failure period. We didn't fail in Australia,

but that was sort of what was happening around the world. We brought in some government policies.

It was, and, but it's, Australians love the fact that they got a lot of money in their super,

but they need, I think Australians, and this is an election period, make it even more.

A layer of complexity.

A lot more complex because you can't, and you're the treasurer, you can't say anything, but

say too many things because you don't want to be, look like you're being advisory. But at the same

time, you're a leader of our country, one of the leaders of our country. You're up there,

you know, probably the second most important person when it comes to the economy or the

country relative to the economy. And the economy is the number one problem right now. We're not

being attacked by anybody. We're not worried about the Minister for Defence. We're looking at

the economy. Do you feel sometimes...

I wish I could just say something more to Australians and just warm them up a little

bit, just to say, guys, don't worry. We've got control of this. We're not controlled.

We know what we're doing. We've been through it before. It'll be okay out the other side.

Yeah.

Given, especially given there's an election on. Do you ever get that feeling you just

want to, Jim Chalmers wants to say what he really feels?

Well, I think I'm really fortunate because I decided when I got this job that I was going

to try and always err on the side of frankness.

And sometimes...

Sometimes you can be too blunt, but I would rather be too blunt than the alternative. And so

even in the course of today, the whole reason why the Treasury modelling about the impact on the

economy from these tariffs, the whole reason that's been made public is because I made it

public. I said, we were going to update the modelling and I'll release it. And I made sure

that my opponent was briefed on it and all of that, because I think more information is almost

always a good thing. And so I try and be blunt and frank about it. And it's the...

It's true of this challenge from these tariffs, but also, you know, when talking about these

cost of living pressures, you and I had that good exchange, I think, on social media about

it because we haven't ever pretended that there aren't cost of living pressures. I think

what matters is once you acknowledge that, you do something about it. And I think that

we are. But we've tried to be upfront about that. We've not tried to sugarcoat what have

been some difficult economic conditions the last...

Well, really, the last four or five years. Really the last two decades. And so to acknowledge

that in a blunt and frank and upfront way, and then to try and explain to people what

we're doing about it. And I think that's almost always the best way to go about it because

you want to let people in on what you're grappling with, and especially when there

are 50-50 calls and the difference between the experience during the GFC, the experience

that my predecessor Josh Frydenberg had during COVID, experience we had in the global inflation,

spike and now is the magnitude of these challenges are broadly similar, but the way that you respond

to them are a bit different. And so to explain to the Australian people, this is what we're

grappling with. In this case, it's a bit different to those other three economic shocks. In this case,

what we need to do is make our economy more resilient, help our businesses find new markets

in the world, and especially in Asia, and also engage so that all of these countries impacted

by these tariffs out of the US were more or less in the same boat. Nobody's uniquely impacted. The

levels of tariffs are different, but we're all impacted. And so last night I spoke to the UK

Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, about how they're-

Is your opposite number.

My opposite number in the UK, and talking to her about how you're dealing with it.

I'll be speaking with my colleagues and counterparts closer to home as well, because

this particular challenge to the global economy requires more resilience,

more diverse markets, and more engagement.

And so that's our strategy.

And collaboration?

Yeah, lots of that. I mean, especially in our region, I was speaking to someone this morning

about the fact that we stabilize the relationship with China, that trading relationship's obviously

very important to us. The ASEAN countries, we put so much effort into engaging in the region. Our

region's the hope of the side when it comes to the global economy. We are so blessed to be part of

the most important-

The most dynamic region in the world. And if the US wants to clamp down on people exporting into

their markets, then I think a lot of the world, including us, is saying, well, we'll find

different, better, more reliable markets if you don't want our stuff. And here is where,

coming back to what you asked me before about what's the reassuring part of this,

our employers, our workers, our exporters, our industries are world-class.

Yeah.

If you think about the beef industry, for example, we've got the best beef in the world,

right? And if there's part of the world that doesn't want to buy our beef or wants to put

tariffs on our beef, then we'll sell it to other people who want to buy it. And so that gives me a

bit of confidence as well. It's not like we are going to the world begging. We have critical

minerals. We've got resources, we've got ag, we've got manufacturing, we've got services,

we've got things we're adding value to. We've actually,

there are good reasons to be confident, not complacent, to be optimistic about Australia's

future, despite this really serious turbulence that we're all going through now.

Could you believe it when it happened, when the election got called? Could you believe,

my God, you're thinking, what's happened here?

When they announced the tariffs?

Yeah, the PM calls the election and the next couple of months, people turn around and then

the whole election announcement got overridden by the tariffs.

I wasn't surprised. The way that we describe them is they're not surprising, but they are seismic.

And you had the steel and aluminium tariffs before the election was called. And then you had

these kind of broader tariffs after the election was called. And obviously we've been engaging with

the Americans on this for months. So not surprising that they went down this path necessarily,

but seismic in terms of the impact on the global economy. And you can just see

the way that markets have reacted is just one indication of how really the whole,

the rules of the global economy are being,

rewritten by the Americans. And so everyone's trying to work out how do we make the best of a

bad situation? And that's what we're doing because these supply chains around the world are changing

now. And we've got a chance to work out how we can be the best, most reliable parts of those

new supply chains as the Americans rewrite the rules of the global economy. And so again, you'd

rather be us than almost anyone, if not anyone. But it's going to be difficult because the impact

on global demand,

the impact on the global economy is going to be substantial.

What do we think the Americans are trying to do? What's Trump's main game here? I mean,

I might just add that newspapers say, you know, like what gets reported, I should say, is that

Trump thinks it's unfair. Someone's charging him a tariff. He takes a view, he can charge a tariff

back. And that's sort of like tit for tat type stuff. But what really do you think is really

behind this? Like, why? Well, I think, I don't know if you've got some perspectives on this,

from the shared interest that you had for a while in the TV show, but I think the thing that

appears to be driving it, and again, it sets us apart a little bit, is I think President Trump

sees a trade deficit with another country as a problem that warrants his attention.

So that's a new situation where he is importing more of their stuff than he's exporting to them.

And he sees that as a major economic problem. And so as the,

the global economy has become more and more integrated. He has seen these trade deficits

that the Americans have with other countries like China as a big economic challenge that he,

he wants to address. What makes us different is the Americans have a trade surplus with us.

A couple of exceptions, sort of the other day, a quarterly exception, but,

but really since I think 1952, the Americans have run a trade surplus with us. And so we're

different. In other words, we drag more stuff from there to here than they,

take it from there. And so we're different. And so we're different. And so we're different.

Yeah. And, and again, I think I said it before, but I don't think people really appreciate that

5% of our exports, a bit less actually, go to the US. The US is very important to us,

very mutually beneficial economic relationship, but in terms of our exports, less than 5%.

And they run a surplus with us. And so that makes us different,

but I think that's the economic challenge he's trying to address.

It's, it sounds very simple. It's had catastrophic structural changes at the moment,

but it sounds very simple. It's had catastrophic structural changes at the moment, but it sounds

very simple. It's had catastrophic structural changes at the moment, but it sounds very simple.

Well, I'm doing my best to work out their, their motivations. Obviously only the

administration knows exactly what they're trying to achieve here, but certainly the

effect of what they have done has been dramatic. And, you know, there are very credible people

who are saying that this might cause a global recession and we wouldn't be immune from that.

We still expect our economy to continue to grow, but obviously a trade exposed,

economy like ours in the context of a serious global downturn, you know, we would be impacted

by that and potentially quite seriously, but our central case, our best treasury's best forecast of

what they expect is that we'll continue to grow, but a bit slower because of the way that demand

in the global economy is expected to come off. I had Chris Joyce sitting here last week and

Chris said to me that either we could have an inflationary period or a deflationary period.

He said, probably it'll start off as a deflationary period.

Because he said, China will be probably sending a lot more stuff here. And by virtue of more

supply as a result of more supply, things could well get cheaper, which will solve your

inflation problem straight away without even having to try. I mean, and by the way, there's

a lot of mortgage holders in this country, a couple of million of them who'd like to

get that inflation problem solved straight away because it means that their high interest

rate problem will get solved straight away.

Yeah. Well, first of all, I think we should acknowledge that inflation's come off a lot

in the last few years.

From December 22, for sure.

Yeah, it was 7.8 then. It's now 2.4. And so it's come off a lot. And people, the markets

and economists were already expecting interest rate cuts this year. But this will have implications

for inflation. It sort of swings and roundabouts. So Chris is right about the potential for

cheaper imports. Say exports from the region that would have otherwise gone to the US might

find their way to us.

Yeah.

Also, the oil price, I'm sure you've been watching, has come off a heap sort of in the

mid-60s, I think, the last time I looked.

And so that has the potential to push petrol prices down as well.

Petrol's a big part of inflation.

Because everyone uses it.

Yeah.

It's heavily weighted.

Yeah.

And so that is possible.

The Treasury thinks the overall impact would be a very modest increase in prices, increase

in inflation in our economy, but it is possible that those-

Over time.

Yeah.

It's possible.

well that those two things, petrol and the price of imports, helps out a little bit.

There's a lot of complexity in that as well, the dollar and a whole bunch of other factors.

But what Chris said about that is something that a lot of economists are grappling with.

Let's go back and let's know a little bit about Jim Chalmers, probably James Chalmers,

I'd say.

Are you James?

Yeah, I am James, yeah.

We won't hold against you because it's an election, but you are a Queenslander.

Is that correct?

I am very proud.

Very, very proud Queenslander, yeah.

And where'd you grow up?

I grew up in a place called Logan City.

Ah, Logan City.

Yeah.

Some great footballers, rugby league players come from there.

Outstanding.

Cameron Smith.

Cameron Smith for one.

Yeah.

Corey Parker.

Yep.

Josh Papali.

Some wonderful, they're all actually from Logan Brothers, which is the best junior rugby

league club in the world.

But I grew up in Logan City, which is sort of between Brisbane and the Gold Coast.

Yep.

So, and it's the area I represent now.

I represent the southern Brisbane suburbs and the northern half of Logan City.

Born there, grew up there, raising my kids there.

It's where I'm from and-

Oh, you still live there?

Yeah.

I live about, not even a K from the house I grew up in.

Wow.

And it's actually really important to me where I grew up because if I could have anything

when I'm done, I want my community.

I want my community.

I want my community to be proud of me.

I want them to think of me as their local member who happens to be the treasurer, not

the treasurer who happens to be their local member because I draw a lot of inspiration

from the area.

So you're brothers, sisters?

I've got two older sisters.

Two older sisters?

Yeah.

Two legends.

One in Cairns, one back in Brisbane now.

Yeah.

Terrific.

Two terrific older sisters.

Yeah.

My mum still lives in the house that we grew up in.

Mum, dad together?

Or they-

No, mum and dad split when I was in my teens, sort of 13, 14.

But both wonderful people and no dramas, but not together.

Yeah, not together.

Well, that's 50% of the population.

Both of them remarried lovely people.

So you grew up in the area and did you play footy or what was your deal?

I'm a basketball guy.

Really?

Yeah, I'm a basketball guy and a distance runner.

But I'm an obsessive.

I'm an obsessive about basketball.

And my little boy, my oldest 10-year-old, he is obsessive too.

And so we spent a lot of time at a place called Logan Thunder, which is our local association.

And that's in terms of playing and coaching and I used to work at a basketball stadium,

Southern Districts.

That's kind of been my passion, but I follow rugby league closely and I follow the AFL too.

Who's rugby league side?

Broncos.

Yeah, Broncos and Lions and Logan Thunder and the Brisbane Bulls.

All that's in the basketball.

I'm asking my roosters.

We're playing you guys on Friday night, second time in what, six weeks or something?

You had a tough one.

I've heard a lot about your match on last weekend because you played the Prime Minister's

team.

Yes, I know.

He's shown me a few highlights on his phone.

No, no, no.

Don't need to gloat.

It's okay.

One of the producers, our main producer, our executive producer, he's a mad South supporter

too.

So we don't need to talk about that for the moment.

By the way, I will say this.

I think that pass by Luttrell was a forward pass.

That's the one that Albo was showing me on his phone.

Yeah.

We gave a speech together on Sunday in Brisbane, and before we went on, he had something very

urgent that he wanted to talk to me about, and it was actually to show me the field pass

three times on his phone.

Well, don't worry.

It's been circulating everywhere.

It's gone on the rooster website.

It's gone mental.

But we'll just peel back from that.

Obviously, you're a Queensland supporter and a state of origin too.

Yeah.

So you went to school in Logan City.

What happened?

I went to school in a place called Mount Gravatt in the southern Brisbane suburbs.

Okay, yeah.

Yeah.

And I went to-

I went to primary school in my local area, and a little bit up the road to high school.

Went to Catholic schools.

Yeah.

My dad's side of the family are Catholic, so I had 12 years of Catholic schooling.

Well, there's nothing wrong with that.

So did I.

Yeah.

And yeah, pretty local.

But I think whether it's the local sporting scene, whether it's under- there's parts of

my electorate that have got their share of challenges.

It's a tough area in lots of ways.

I think growing up there and being able to represent it now, I just think that's a gift.

And I'm not alone in the parliament representing where I grew up.

There's a bunch of people, I'm sure, in that boat, but I consider myself especially fortunate.

Because on election day, you run into your mate's mom, and you run into the families

you grew up with, and you know the place like the back of your hand, and it really does,

it gives you an advantage.

It gives you an advantage because you don't have to look far to find motivation.

Have you got a teal candidate opposing you?

No, I feel like I've got everyone, but they line up to take on the treasurer, but I don't

think I've got a teal yet.

That might change.

We've got a few days left.

Green?

Got a green, yeah.

Got a-

You got a liberal?

Got a liberal, got a trumpet, got a family first.

A trumpet, oh yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

That's-

The whole gang.

So when you left school, when you were doing year 12 in Malcrivat, what were you thinking?

You were thinking to yourself, what's Jim going to do for his future?

I mean, did you have someone say, come on, mate, I want you to be a lawyer, or I want

you to be at a bank, or I want you to go and do an economics course and join the Reserve

Bank, or I want you to be a carpenter?

Yeah, especially in those areas, because I grew up in a similar area in Sydney, Punchbowl.

Oh, right, Punchbowl, yeah.

Yeah, and it was always more trade.

Yeah.

You know, become a plumber, or a brickie, or a builder, which is what I want to do.

I want to become a brickie.

It was my mother who dragged me to university.

She basically made me go to university.

She actually dragged me and enrolled me.

And what was Jim Chalmers thinking about at the time?

And who did you turn to?

You turned to mom, dad?

Who talked to you?

Well, I think it's important to think, or remember now, or recall now, when I was a teenager,

It was just me and mum.

So my sisters moved out, my mum and dad split,

and my mum used to work night shift every night.

And so we came to an arrangement pretty early that we were going

to look after each other, but I was going to be on my own a bit

and she was going to be on her own a bit.

As in year 12?

Really from about grade 9 or 9 probably, 9 or 10,

for the rest of the way through school.

And so I went off the rails a little bit when I was at school,

wasn't the best behaved kid for a while.

And then I ran into this teacher who literally changed my life

and his name was Norbert Grulich.

And we just lost Norbert about a year ago.

We just passed on.

He was almost 90.

And Norbert was this huge mountain.

of a guy from Germany.

And he came to Australia and he taught me modern history.

And because I wasn't from a political family,

I had no idea about politics, but I loved modern history

and he was my teacher and he said to me at some point,

Not too long ago, running a business looked a lot different.

A good location and a solid reputation were enough

to keep a customer base happy.

No websites, no social media, no SEO,

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He said to me, you know,

what do you want to do when you leave?

And I said, I'm really interested in the world.

You know, maybe I could work in kind of foreign affairs or something.

I remember he's saying to me,

you could be the foreign affairs minister.

And I didn't know, I genuinely, like grade 10 or 11,

I didn't really know what that meant.

We'd never had a political conversation at my house.

And he believed in me when not a lot of people would have believed in me.

And he was just a huge influence on my life.

I stayed friends with him.

Um, until we lost him last year and without Norbert, uh, I wouldn't have found this purpose.

Um, I don't know where I would be, but I wouldn't be here, uh, because he was the one.

And, um, when we knew that he was dying, I wrote him a letter saying, you know, you've

done this probably for a bunch of kids, but, but what he did for me, I'll never forget.

Wow.

So that's cool.

And he died last year.

Yeah.

It was almost.

90 and, uh, yeah, we, we lost him and, uh, uh, I saw him a little bit before he passed away.

And, uh, I just, I can't convey to you what a wonderful guy he is.

And he just had this superpower, which was to basically find kids that weren't living

up to their potential, uh, and to inject them with a sense of belief.

And really from there, I started looking around and thinking there's a job apparently where

I can do this.

I can care about my community, care about what's happening in the world, care about

the economy, be a social worker, a lawyer, a journalist all at once.

Um, and so he opened my eyes to something that I had not seen before.

I was not aware of before, and he used to give me extra things to read or to think about.

Um, I used to hang out with him after school sometimes have, you know, deep and meaningful

conversations about the future and the world.

And, and, and where we fit, uh, and, and I just owe him so much.

And you mentioned before Paul Keating, you know, the whole reason I started reading books

about politics was because of Norbert.

And, and that's how I came to, um, my appreciation for Paul Keating because I used to go to the

Logan City Library and there's a big section on politics that wasn't, wasn't the most,

uh, wasn't the busiest aisle in the, uh, in the Logan City Library.

But I found this book there by a guy called Michael Gordon, who's also passed, unfortunately,

who used to be a press gallery journalist.

He wrote a book about Paul Keating.

And I took it home, still a teenager, and I took it home in grade 12, I think it was.

And I remember reading this thing cover to cover in one sitting and then going back to

the beginning and reading it again.

And I just couldn't believe that there was a guy like Paul from the outer suburbs like

me who had this kind of, um,

um, heart full of belief and the ability to kind of tell a story about the country and

where people fit in it.

And so I, Norbert helped me discover Paul.

And then from that period on, I, I just read everything I could get my hands on.

About Paul?

About, about politics, but including Paul.

Like there's a great book called The End of Certainty by Paul Kelly, the journalist from

the Australian, read that early, the Hawke memoirs, all this stuff.

And so I used to stay up half the night, uh, home alone.

Mama B.

Doing night shift.

And I'd stay up half the night with the lamp on, just reading everything I could.

And I just couldn't, I couldn't believe that I had found this thing and I wouldn't have

found it without Norbert.

So we're talking about the late eighties, early nineties.

Uh, we're now talking about the mid nineties.

Mid nineties.

Yeah, mid nineties.

That's after Paul had, after he lost election as prime minister.

Well, I turned 18 the day that Paul lost the election.

As, as the prime minister, he was a prime minister at that point.

Yeah.

So the 2nd of March, 96, he lost office as the prime minister.

I turned 18 that day.

And I pre-registered to vote.

So my first vote was the day, was my birthday.

And it was the day that Paul lost the 96, uh, election, which is pretty strange coincidence.

You know, it's really interesting about that, that period, 1996.

What's that?

Just by memory is that, um, 1996 was the year that the reserve bank introduced the

two to 3% inflation range.

Right.

The inflation targeting.

That's it.

1996.

And bearing in mind, we just come off ridiculously high inflation period, um, during,

Yeah.

uh, Bob Hawke's period, great prime minister Bob Hawke, and during Paul's period as well,

we had high inflation, but they decided that that's when, that's when they decided that

two to 3% was going to be the range of inflation, which by the way, we, we sat in that inflation

range on average, sometimes above, sometimes below, uh, right up until 20, uh, 2020 or

something like that, just before COVID.

Right.

It was pretty good.

It was 25 years, nearly 26 years of that two to 3%.

Stability.

RBA range.

Yeah.

And it was in that period, 1996.

And, and, and of course that was a tough period.

I mean, it was a very tough period for everybody at that period.

And we've just been through something similar.

I, I, I mean, the interest rates haven't got as high, but relative to the amount of money

we've borrowed.

Right.

As Australians and as a country, you know, it's been the same outcome.

It's been pretty tough period, these high interest rates.

And, and, and it's interesting that you should say that, that, um, that, that was the first

time you were able to vote in 1996.

Yeah, the day, that day.

As treasurer, uh, saying that today as treasurer.

And, and I, I do recall at the time McFarlane was a treasurer, uh, but McFarlane was the

RBA governor, I should say.

And, uh, when, when Paul was the treasurer and, and, or prime minister, I used to think

to myself, cause I'm a lot older than you and I used to think, and Paul would, by the

way, Paul was, is a few years older than me, but he was at my school.

I went to the school in Bankstown that he went to.

De La Salle.

Yeah.

Did you?

Yeah.

Amazing.

I went to the same school.

And, uh.

Is there a statue?

Of him.

Of you.

No, not of me, mate.

Definitely not of me.

Similar to yourself, I had a little, I was a bit wayward.

Right.

You know, I don't know if it's the same reasons, but I was a bit wayward too.

But, but fortunately, but I'm similar to you, it's not about me, it's about you, but I did

meet a person, one of the brothers at the school, I was at Catholic school, who actually

changed my life.

And he changed my life just by, just by guidance.

Yeah.

That's amazing.

He's 93 or 94 at the moment, still alive, but it's, I'll never forget it, never forget

it.

It's similar to yourself.

Do you tell him?

Do you ring him and tell him?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I, we had our, scary, we had our, two years ago, we had our 50th anniversary of year 12

at the Reasoning Workers, and he came.

He flew off from Melbourne, um, to come to that.

And the only reason I went is I went because I knew he was coming.

And all the, all the boys, I was going to say the kids, but all the fellas told me.

I hope you shouted the bar, Mark.

You've done, you've done well for yourself.

Well, actually, no, no, but Darryl Mellum did.

Oh, right.

I was in Darryl's class.

Yeah, right.

Wow.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And we're, we're at the Reasoning Workers, so, you know, Darryl, Darryl sorted the whole

thing.

He knows that place pretty well.

He does.

Now, we're good mates, me and Darryl.

So, yeah, but it's interesting that people can have an influence on people like that.

And that influence stays with you for the rest of your life.

Do you think that, you used the word care on about five, in five different sentences,

um, what you care about.

Mm-hmm.

Is that, that a big factor in Jim Chalmers' life?

Yeah.

In terms of?

In terms of everything you do?

Forget about family, not, I mean, just put aside family.

Yeah.

We're not talking about political life.

Yeah.

That caring side of you.

Because it's, what Anthony Albanese, he said exactly the same things differently.

Yeah.

But he's the same sort of character.

Yeah.

It seems to me.

Yeah, well, think about his up, his upbringing.

I think it says something pretty good about Australia that you can have Anthony from his

background, me, me from Logan City in those two jobs.

Um, and I think that does.

Of course, that helps form the way you think about the world.

You know, you think about Paul's, Paul Keating's mentor, a controversial guy called Jack Lang,

former premier of this state.

You know, I think he said to him at some point, if you have the ability to speak up for other

people, then you have a responsibility to speak up for other people.

And that's how I see, I'm sure that's how Anthony sees his role and how I see mine as well.

And you think about the best thing about Australia is that we've got this sense of mobility.

You know, we.

We don't have these kind of, uh, it is still possible in Australia in a way that it's not

possible in every country for someone to come from nothing to make something of themselves.

And that's probably the thing I care about most, you know, this idea that, um, in a good

country like ours, people from Logan City or other areas like Logan City can be successful,

that there's no kind of barrier to that.

That that's probably the thing I care about the most.

And of course.

The way we grew up, Anthony, yourself, me, of course that shapes you.

And the beautiful thing about the, the brother that looked out for you and Norbert, who looked

out for me is sometimes that ambition needs a bit of structure.

And especially if you're not from, you know, a, a family where these sorts of things are

discussed at the dinner table or just natural consequences of how you grew up.

Yeah.

You want someone to help you give a bit of structure to that.

And that's what great teachers can do.

And great mentors can do.

And one of the things I've noticed in the business community, and you would have noticed it too, is this sense of mentoring has become a really wonderful kind of, um, I'm sure you have people who rely heavily on you for your advice.

That's become a really good thing because giving structure, that ambition is important.

I think that's a really good point you made before.

If you have the ability, you have the responsibility.

Yeah.

You know, if you have the ability to do something, then you've got to pay that forward.

Yeah.

I mean, like, let's, I don't want to get too weird about it, but like if it's God given or something.

You're, you have a gift that you, maybe others don't have, and then you, you have a responsibility to use it in a way that's good for everyone.

Right.

And that's, that's your philosophy then I'm getting it.

Yeah.

So finished school, did you attend university?

Yep.

Went to Griffith University in Brisbane.

Yeah.

And what'd you study there?

Uh, I actually ended up doing a, a politics degree, but it's in the commerce school.

So I did a major in public policy and, uh, um, a lot of international relations.

A lot of politics.

It was kind of a new degree.

So a lot of mixing and matching.

So I did a, effectively an arts degree in government, but then I did a, my honors year was in the commerce school.

And then I went and worked for a bit in the Queensland public service.

And then I went and did a PhD at the Australian National University in Canberra.

Yeah.

And, uh, and, and I probably will know, but your PhD, uh, featured largely Paul Keating.

Yeah.

And, uh, why did you pick that?

Oh, I became obsessed with this.

Um, uh, idea of leadership in the Australian context, you know, and I found, um, you know,

there's this whole, not to kind of get into it in a kind of a academic way, but there's

this whole literature about how prime ministers exercise their power.

And I became very fascinated by that, interested in that.

And so I used Paul as a way of telling a story about what the Australian prime ministership

looks like.

Um, but I knew I went to the ANU to do the PhD because I.

Wanted to work at Griffith university.

I wanted to teach there.

And the best way often is to not do everything at the one university.

And so they advised me, they said, if you want to come back here, get your PhD from

somewhere else and try and come back.

Um, but I knew pretty quickly in my PhD, I was doing it full time briefly.

And then I just, I, I decided I wanted to work and finish it part time.

I knew that that wasn't that I, that I wanted to be involved in, uh, exercising power,

not just writing about it.

Um, and.

Um, the first time I met Paul Keating was to talk to him about my thesis.

And he said to me, I remember the very first time I ever met him, he said, uh, you should

spend your time exercising power rather than thinking about it.

And I still finished the PhD and I'm, I'm glad that I did.

It was a wonderful experience, but I knew that I wanted to, uh, do a job like the job

I'm doing now.

Right now.

Yeah.

And then you, we talked earlier about, about earlier before about you being the deputy

chief of staff and the chief of staff.

And you talked to the treasurer at the time.

Maybe you explain what that job actually is because most people don't know what that means.

Yeah.

So it's running a big office for the treasurer and, uh, doing a lot of the interacting with

the stakeholders, the regulators, the treasury department.

Um, and so, uh, a job that combines some management, some strategy, a lot of stakeholders.

Um, and when I came into this job as treasurer, I found that it was a real gift that I was

able to get.

I had spent so many years in and around the portfolio because I, I knew how everything

came together.

I knew where the levers were, I knew what it was like to interact with a big treasury

department and with all of the regulators and all the rest of it.

And so it felt like a big advantage that I had.

I don't think someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think anyone's come into

the job of being treasurer, having run a treasurer's office before.

And there's obviously a lot of commentary about the best kind of experience being the

treasurer, but I have found that experience to be really helpful.

I recall.

I recall in about, um, excuse me, I recall in about, um, I might have kept the days wrong,

but it might've been about 2010, 12, no, it was, no, it was during the period when Bill

Shorten was, um, when he got, when he lost the unlosable election to Scott Morrison and

Chris Bowen was the shadow minister for treasury.

And I think Chris Bowen was a, um.

He was.

A treasurer for a very short period, wasn't he?

He was.

Yeah.

A couple of months.

Yeah.

Not very long.

Correct.

But then the, the, the liberals got in and then, but then he stayed as shadow, shadow

treasurer for a long time.

Correct.

That's what happened.

Yeah.

And I remember having a conversation with Graham Richardson, who's, I might add, is

one of your big fans.

And, uh, Richard told me, he said, mate, there's a bloke in Queensland who I think

will be, will make a great, at the time, shadow treasurer.

Because literally.

Yeah.

The, the liberals were in.

Hmm.

And I said, well, what's his name?

Tell me his name.

I was having lunch with Richard and, uh, he wouldn't tell me, but he raved on about you

for ages.

Um, and of course along comes young Jim Chalmers and, uh, becomes a treasurer, um, of the country

and right to Richard's playbook, by the way.

Um, and I'm not saying that he manipulated the situation.

.

He does have a playbook, Richo.

He's well known for it.

He knows his way around the place, yeah.

And Richo is close to Paul, or was close to Paul, and he is more to the right of politics

of the Labor Party.

And if, if we could sort of split labor into, you know, one side and the other side.

Mm-hmm.

Where do you sit?

Because Richo's backing you.

Does that mean that you're on the right-hand side or the left-hand side?

I, I have, I have come from the, um, uh, we would call it the moderate side.

The moderate side.

The, the center.

Okay.

Right.

Right's the wrong word.

But that, that's mattering less and less, I think.

Yeah, yeah.

Over time.

Um, and you know, people have said to me before, I ran into Richo and he said a kind thing

about you.

I, I appreciate that.

You know, in politics, um, having people vouch for you and say nice things for you is.

Well, especially Richo though.

Because.

Yeah.

He, he's not just a, he's not a suck.

You know what I mean?

No.

Like he, he'll say what he thinks.

Yeah.

So I appreciate that.

I know I was on the side of the party that Richo and, and Paul Keating were from, but.

Um, there aren't big, kind of ideological differences between the groups in the, in

the Labour Party.

There are not, did you say?

Not, not, not really.

Um, and so that, that stuff, that factional stuff has mattered less and less.

And, and some of my closest relationships in the parliamentary party, the person I worked

closely with is Katie Gallagher.

I'm from the right, she's from the left.

And so those factional differences aren't really material.

Yeah.

But it's because I did want to talk to you about policy then.

Yeah.

then, or strategic moves by the Labor Party relative to policy, how does that get worked

out?

I know you guys vote differently to the way the Liberal Party vote within your own party.

Generally speaking, you all decide, whatever the majority decides is what the group that

goes with.

You don't sort of argue left and right.

You just go with it.

Yeah.

How does, you know, like you guys have been announcing lots of policies this election

period, which is normal.

You have policies outside election period during the period when you guys are in government.

How does strategic decisions get made?

Is it from the PM or is it from, is there a group of people we don't ever get to see?

Yeah.

Well, it's largely the cabinet.

So that's, I think, 24 people are in the cabinet.

So the senior ministers and the PM.

And different governments operate differently.

Some of them are very top down.

And some of them are a bit more inclusive.

And Anthony deliberately, in ways that we appreciate, is at the kind of collegiate inclusive

end.

And so cabinet plays a big role.

We've also got this group called the Expenditure Review Committee, which puts the budget together.

So that's a pretty influential group.

That's a, they're made up of Labor Party people.

Yeah.

That's all out of the cabinet.

So it's about half the cabinet.

That's everybody making a bid, I guess.

Everyone comes and makes a bid.

Yeah.

And we do the best we can to kind of make it all add up and make it fit.

And make it work.

So those kind of group, those groups are probably the most influential groups.

But obviously, in every group, the prime minister is going to be the most influential voice.

So here's a captain's call.

Yeah.

But he, to his credit, he would be one of the leaders in my lifetime who's been least reliant on the kind of my way or the highway.

You know, his strength comes from the way that he utilizes the team.

And whether you're in football or business or all kinds of walks of life, there are different kinds of leaders.

And Anthony draws strength from the collective.

And that makes him a little bit unusual, but I think makes him more effective.

And as a senior minister in his government, and the others say this too, we talk about it all the time,

we're very lucky because he's less of a my way or the highway guy than what other leaders might have been.

And certainly his predecessor, Scott Morrison, was a very centralizing figure, I think, to his detriment.

And Anthony's got a much more collegiate way of running the show.

So, and that's Anthony.

Because one of the things I remember happened, and I noticed you're completely different to your predecessor.

So that is Chris Bowen as shadow treasurer.

Jim Chalmers is completely different in lots of ways.

Well, you know, you're all unique, but in lots of ways.

But one of the things, you know, this is my own personal theory.

But one of the things.

One of the things I think that was really made it tough for Bill in that election period

was Chris Bowen's view on franking credits and negative gearing.

And they're big policy changes.

And by the way, I will say up front, I have criticized negative gearing as an economic policy.

But the fact that it's here, I would criticize changing it because it's too embedded in the Australian system.

Mm-hmm.

Apart from being politically diabolical, if you do propose a change to that.

And I actually think that those big calls, those sort of thing Trump does, but those big calls, in Australia at least, are really tough, hard to make.

And I see you play a much more, I'm not going to say safe game, but much straighter down the line game.

Yeah.

Do you at any point in your career say, you know what, there's one thing I really hate about the economy that needs to be fixed because it's unfair, for whatever the reason.

It's unfair.

Do you ever get to that point where you just want to do it or you just have to keep looking back at what the polls say, looking at what your consumers want, looking about what your audience wants, looking about what your voters want, looking back what Australians want?

They got you there.

We saw Dutton do it today.

Dutton will back on.

You know, the five days of work, the go back to work type of thing.

Yeah.

Is Australia different to other places in the world or is it because no one actually gets a really big mandate to make these changes?

I think we are making some big changes.

You know, the energy transformation is a big change.

Some of the ways that we've repaired the budget have been big shifts.

No, but I'm talking about when an individual can actually see how that will actually affect me.

Yeah.

Yeah, I understand.

You know, not the other transformative stuff.

Not the economic policy transformative stuff I'm talking about.

When people go, wow, that's going to affect me.

Yeah.

I'm going to lose my negative gearing, whatever.

Well, I think the closest we've come to a big gutsy call that has changed people's prospects is when we decided we were going to rewrite the stage three income tax cuts.

Yeah.

And we got a lot of grief politically, but we knew it was the right thing to do.

And it turned out well for us.

People broadly supported the changes we were making.

So that required some courage.

And it had a direct impact on people.

Because I was going to ask you, that's where I'm getting to.

I'm going to say, because your person, that person who inspired you when you were 17, 16, 17, 18, one of the things he would have inspired you would have been, one of the things he would have said to you if he was here today, he'd probably say, Jim, be courageous.

Yeah, well, he does.

But just because you're not courageous, and what I'm trying to get to here is sometimes we've got to listen to what the people are saying.

Yeah.

Well, I think every decision you make in government, you have to work out, can I bring the people with us on this?

And I think that gets harder and harder, that the media environment's a bit more fraught.

That's not an excuse, but it's a reality.

It's a reality.

And so, I mean, Paul's well known for his public advice and his private advice to us is to do more and to do it quicker.

And often that's my instinct too.

But my belief is that Australians, they don't.

They don't like big things done quickly.

They don't like little things done slowly, but they'll cop big things done slowly or big things done methodically in a considered way.

And so that's the space I like to operate in.

So energy, some of the tax changes, some of the ways we improve the budget.

I think that's how you get things done in this country now.

But I say that as an admirer of, Paul had a bit more of a crash through or crash style with some of these big reforms.

And they paid off magnificently for Australia.

But I think what we are doing basically is we are reformers, but we're not revolutionaries.

And everything that we do, you have to make the case over a period of time so that you can bring the people with you.

And that's very interesting that you said that about Paul Keating.

Would it happen?

Do you think, how much of that though relies on back in those days and also under the Howard period?

Bigger mandates, like a bigger majority, as opposed to having to lean back into the other parties?

Yeah, I think politics is more fragmented now.

It didn't have a teal, for example, in those days.

Yeah, and they had the beginnings of the Democrats, but broadly there was a kind of a more robust two-party system.

And it wasn't quite winner-take-all.

You still needed the Senate on things, but it was more winner-takes-all than it is now.

And the media environment is much more fragmented now.

And so the operating environment is very different.

But none of that is a sort of a, you know, we are making good progress despite the fragmentation of our politics.

And it's one of the many ways that our politics is different now to the politics of Paul's day, as successful as he was.

Yeah, he was successful.

And it's hard to sort of base yourself upon.

Him other than sentiment, in a sentiment way only, perhaps.

And because, you know, people say, oh, government's like courage.

Government's don't like courage.

Government's like mandates.

And it's easy to say someone's not being very courageous if all that's going to happen is they're just going to get yelled at and pushed down and lose an election, which means they can't ever do anything if they lose an election.

It's all about, let me get in there first and let me see what I can do after that.

Yeah.

I mean, and you can be there.

And criticise not being courageous enough.

And for someone from where you come from, growing up, how you grew up, probably one of the worst things in your acquaintance, too, is someone to say, the worst thing for you to be confronted with is for someone to think that you don't have courage.

Because courage means you don't have any conviction.

If you don't have courage, you don't have conviction.

And it seems to me that that's something that you put a lot of weight on, your conviction.

Yeah, I think that's fair.

And therefore, you must have courage.

It must be frustrating for you, though.

Well, I think we're making more change than people give us credit for.

And what we're doing to transform the way that our economy is powered, cleaner and cheaper, more reliable energy, that takes courage.

Some of the decisions we've taken in the budget, some of the decisions we've taken in economic reform, competition policy, that has been courageous.

But what we've tried to do is to do it in a considered, methodical way, where we make the case and try and bring people with us.

Because as you rightly say, you can have all of the courage in the world if you don't win and get re-elected, then you're no use to anyone.

It's a waste of time.

Prime Minister, pretty much to his regret in some respects, bought a place up in the South.

Central Coast.

And he's going to get married sometime this year, I think.

Perhaps.

Good luck to him.

And I congratulate him on that.

If he says, mate, that was a tough period.

Glad we won.

We're in a minority government, though.

Hanging out with the Greens or whoever you have to hang out with.

I don't know.

Whoever you've got to hang out with.

I'm out.

I'm going to.

I don't think Australians would like to know this.

I'm not going to do this anymore.

I just want to hang out with Jodie and just live my life away up there.

Here available for you whenever you want to talk to me.

Would you put your hat in the ring?

I can't see that situation happening.

Come on, Jim.

No, I can't see it happening.

No, but I'm just saying, because I'm trying to work.

You said something very interesting before.

You've got to be, as Paul Koenig said, you've got to be prepared to exercise power.

And the ultimate, ultimate power here is the PM.

As you said, that's how your caucus was.

Works.

Yeah.

Could we be looking at the next prime minister at some stage?

I think the best way to think about it, or the way that I think about it, is if you had

said to me in that period we're thinking about, knocking around Logan City as a teenager,

that you get the opportunity to be the treasurer of Australia, the job that Paul did.

Very cool.

Then I'm really happy with that.

I mean, I genuinely am.

I don't, I mean, from time to time, someone will ask me a question like the one that you

just asked me.

But my...

Preference, my expectation is that we win the election, that Anthony's the prime minister

all the way through, and that I get to be the treasurer.

Because you have to have the humility that says, where can I make the best contribution

to this team?

That our best team, the best team that we can put on the park is Anthony as PM, the

other colleagues where they are, and I think I'm making a good contribution as treasurer.

And so I would happily keep doing that.

If you and I hung out on...

If we had a cup of tea on my back deck in 20 or 30 years' time...

I won't smoke a cigar because treasurers...

Can't do that.

...the tick-tick doesn't go too well.

No, but if we had a cup of tea on the back deck in 20 or 30 years' time, and I had been

the treasurer for a couple of terms, I would be very, very happy with that.

Very happy with that.

And I think that's a fair answer.

But, you know, I reckon Richo would be pretty happy if you became the prime minister.

Well, Richo is a big supporter of Anthony's.

Absolutely.

Very big supporter of Anthony's.

But he's also a big supporter of yours.

Yeah.

I gave...

I asked for you to give me four questions for your counterpart in the Liberal Party,

Angus, which I asked him, and he's got some questions for you.

Okay.

Four questions.

Great.

Ready?

Yeah.

And by the way, these are without notice.

He doesn't know what the questions are.

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In fact, I only saw the question on myself this morning.

So question number one, he said, you've said in the past that six long months in the private

sector convinced you that your efforts were best spent in public policy.

Can you explain why you decided that and what you didn't like about the private sector?

Well, first of all, I do like the private sector and I respect and admire the people who create

the wealth and the opportunities and the jobs in our society.

I'm a huge admirer of the risk takers and the wealth creators.

For me, I have always wanted to work for the country.

And for as long as I can remember, as far back as you and I have talked about today,

you know, the idea that I get to work on the economy in a way that is for everyone in Australia

rather than in an individual enterprise, you know, that's always been appealing to me.

And I understand to be fair to Angus, to be charitable to Angus, everyone makes different

decisions and about where they can make the best contribution.

But for me, I think the best contribution I can make is the one that I'm making.

And I can do that respecting the immense primary role that the private sector plays in our economy.

Angus's second question is, small businesses after the last three years have copped it.

Energy bills are up, wage bills have gone up through your industrial relations.

These are all the questions that Angus was desperately hoping to ask me in question time,

but Peter Dutton wouldn't let him ask.

Yes, the migration reforms.

And now they've got less tax incentives than they did in 2022.

The ATO is also on their back.

If they have a loan, there is a one in two chance it is secure against their house,

which definitely if we lend them the money, they'll have to put the house up for security.

And that is before you factor in interest rates.

If you were running a small business today, a treasurer, facing those challenges,

where would you start to make a profit?

Yeah.

I like to know the answers.

I wish I knew the answers.

I won't come at every part of that.

No, no, too much.

I mean, for example.

Do you know there's been 25,000 new businesses created on average every month,

the life of this government, the most ever.

And so people have got a downbeat view about small business because the conditions have

genuinely been difficult, but there's also been more businesses created under us than

under any government.

And so I don't like the sense that is implicit in Angus's question that small businesses

should be pessimistic.

I think there's a lot of reasons to be optimistic.

And if you think about how new small businesses create jobs and opportunities and wealth,

there's been an explosion in the services sector, online retailing.

There is so much about the way that our economy is changing and our industrial base is changing

that creates huge opportunities for small business.

And so I know that conditions have been difficult.

Inflation has come down, but it has been difficult.

Some of the other.

Global and domestic pressures on small businesses have been substantial, but I have a glass

half full approach to small business.

I know how much wealth and opportunity they create in our economy, and we've been supporting

them, energy bill rebates, competition reforms, a whole bunch of ways, instant asset write

off tax breaks, because we believe in small business.

And I think we wouldn't be creating so many businesses per month if people didn't have

shared at least a little bit of a sense of optimism about small business.

And I think it's all about the future.

And he said, do you have a second guess if you got it right, that if you'd be more disciplined

on government spending after the pandemic, we may have had lower inflation and faster

interest rates cuts.

Some people might say that the government spending during the pandemic, which if it wasn't

you guys it's pretty tough too.

But anyway, do you have a second guess if you got it right?

In other words, I think what he's sort of saying is.

Do you ever think to yourself, maybe I made a mistake?

Well, I think we got the balance right.

You'd expect me to say that.

I think we got the balance right.

But to play through to its logical conclusion, the view that Angus has, yeah, Angus wanted

us to kind of slash and burn in the budget because there's a view out there, which I

think is wrong, that the best way to deal with inflation is to have a kind of a hard

landing and then clean up afterwards.

Whereas what we've been able to engineer, not just the government, we as in Australians

have business and workers and everyone, is we've got inflation down without sacrificing

a heap of jobs, with wages growing again, growth rebounding, interest rates are coming

down.

So that combination is historically unusual and it's unusual around the world.

And that's because we got this balance broadly right.

And so I'm not the sort of person that pretends that every single thing we get perfectly right.

But in terms of that balance, I think Australians collectively.

Have got that balance right.

Because if we'd gone down the path that Angus, that is implicit in Angus's question, we would

have had a recession.

We'd be cleaning up after a recession.

Unemployment would be higher and people would be worse off.

And his final question is, we hear a lot from politicians about what they want to talk about

or boast about.

I'm interested particularly in the current economic context.

I guess he's talking about today.

Is there anything you've got wrong in the last three years?

That's his last question.

Oh, look, I think it comes back to what we were talking about before.

And that's the question.

And that is, I feel broadly that the government's got, broadly got the decisions right and the

balances right.

You know, from time to time, I am a very blunt communicator.

And sometimes the situation requires a bit more nuance.

And so if I think about the things where I've reflected on how I would do things differently,

it's to recognize that this microphone in front of a treasurer, this treasurer, but

every treasurer is a powerful thing.

And so to make sure that when I'm being.

I'm being upfront with people and frank with people and blunt about the situation to make

sure that I choose my words carefully.

And really that's the, you know, the main thing that I, you know, from time to time,

I think I could have described that differently, that situation differently.

But in terms of the decisions we've taken, I'm very proud of them.

You know, someone said to me this morning, a very well-known commentator, and I won't

raise his name because he probably doesn't want to be named, but I told him I was seeing

you today.

And he said to me, Jim is very.

Polished.

You know, you, I'm just watching you today.

I mean, you're very good on your feet and you're only relatively speaking, young man

from my point of view anyway.

I look a lot older than I did three years ago.

Being a treasurer will do that, mate.

But, but, uh, he said you're very polished, polished in delivery.

Um, where does, were you always a good, good at speaking publicly, you know, like debate?

Was there something that come out of your family or.

No, no, and, and one of the things I would have done differently when I was a kid is

I would have done debating or I would have been, you know, less shy, you know, in my,

in my twenties, in my political involvement.

Um, I think if you want to make a difference in a contribution, you've got to push yourself

out of your comfort zone.

And for me, the, the public element of it being on TV and, and giving speeches, you

know, that's something that I've had to learn over time.

Um, but.

Yeah.

What I have tried to do.

Yeah.

Is I've tried to take complex things and make them easier for people to understand

for all the reasons we've been talking about today.

It's one of the things I enjoy is kind of interpreting, you know, being the treasurer

is being the explainer in chief and in, on lots of occasions.

And so I've, I take that part of the job very seriously.

I don't think I'm very, I'd like to be more polished.

There are much more polished communicators, even in our own team.

Um, but I, I, I relish the opportunity to explain things to people.

And I think that that comes across.

I think people know that I'm trying to be upfront with them about what's happening and

what we're grappling with and what we're trying to do about it.

And I don't think that's polish.

Uh, I just think that it's a, it's a part of my role that I value.

And I hope that comes across.

You know, I think when he, he meant polished, he sort of said to me that Jim is able to

sell the policy, sell the concept.

Like, I don't mean in a salesmanship way, but actually express it in a way that everyone

can understand.

And can maybe even relate to perhaps.

And I wonder if that has something to do with where you grew up, the people you hung out

with, um, how you had to live your life.

It's funny you say this because there is a, I don't know if it's the same one, but there's

a, there's a commentator, um, that I've discussed with before that, and, and Jack, who's here

and on your couch here, we talk about it frequently because he's got the same mannerisms.

And that is, um, you know, when you pick up colloquialisms.

And the.

The way that people spoke maybe in the eighties and the nineties.

Um, and for me, when I was a little fella, I used to talk my dad into taking me to the

races on Saturday and I'd wander around the public bar with a Hessian bag and collect

cans and stubbies to recycle for money when I was kind of 12, 13.

And only quite recently, um, speaking to a couple of people, it's dawned on me that maybe

some of the ways that I speak is because in my formative years, I would spend three or

four hours.

Wandering around the bar at Dunban or Eagle farm in Brisbane at the races.

My dad, my dad loves the horses collecting cans and I got to know a lot of, I got to

know some of these blokes, uh, in the bar at the, at the races.

And I wonder if sometimes when I slip into that kind of old school colloquialism, I wonder

if it's from, you know, dragging a Hessian sack around the, the, the public bar at the

races where I've got that from.

Well, cause I think of, you know, as us as voters, particularly at this critical time

at the moment, we've got, you know, we've got a global drama going on and we, we also,

we're in the middle of election.

We've got to know, we want to feel comfortable who we, who we're going to, who we're going

to vote in that you can get us through this process.

We want to make sure we can understand the person's talking, talking to us.

We don't want to be getting gobbledygook.

We don't want to be getting technical bullshit such that we all walk away scratching our

head.

Yeah.

And I've got a clue where in fact we're more clueless after the conversation than we were

before the conversation.

I think this, this particular guy that he's talking to me this morning about, I think

that's who he's getting at.

That you have the ability to sort of decipher it for us.

Yeah.

But I think the important thing there is not talking down to people.

No, no.

And talking up to people.

Yep.

And so, yeah, when we've got something complex to explain, a new policy or a big development

in the economy like today, you know, I try and remember that the job here is to talk

up to people, not talk down to people.

And so to explain things in simple language, but to recognize that people are pretty smart.

You know, people.

People are smart and they can work out if you're trying to snow them with unnecessary

detail.

And so sometimes the most important thing is to be able to simplify something, but not

dumb it down.

So how does a kid from Logan City feel about where he is today?

Well, I think it's an especially important time to have a big job like this.

And, you know, when you're on planes a lot and you're away from your family a lot, you

try and make sure that you are.

I'm still grateful for the opportunity because the opportunity is fleeting.

You know, even if you get to do this job for a long time, you know, Paul got to do it for

eight and a half years.

Swanee got to do it for almost six years.

Costello for must have been 11 years.

But mostly people who get a shorter time frame than that.

Do you recognize that these opportunities are fleeting?

And so do the best you can.

And to recognize that at some point it will be over.

And.

Yeah.

whether it's at the election or at some subsequent point and so with the election imminent um i feel

really grateful for the chance uh i desperately want to do it for longer um but to recognize how

fortunate i am uh to be able to do a job like this at a time when the world's going mad and

um where the big task for australia is to work out how do we make our people beneficiaries of

all of this churn and change rather than victims of it you know if you accept that when the world's

going mad and there's a lot of change there are kind of three schools of thought let it rip turn

back the clock or try and make sure that people fare well i mean amongst all of this churn and

change really that's where i'm at and so especially grateful for the chance to do this job in an

uncertain time yeah so sort of what you're saying is i was just thinking about that that's like a

gift um the ability to or the vote

to navigate your way through as a treasurer as a person who loves doing these things yeah

um navigate yourself the country through yourself the country through this really tough

complicated and very unusual never before have we seen something like this just like

covid never saw before yeah just like gfc never saw before this is something we've never seen

before right and it's a gift to be able to take us through that final question why should australians

listen to the show right now vote labor well because we've made a lot of progress together

the last three years but the job's not done because people are under pressure and the global

environment's very uncertain and so it's a pretty simple choice we believe uh we are helping with

the cost of living cutting income taxes strengthening medicare making our economy more resilient and the

other guys are for lower wages and higher taxes and they've got these secret cuts to pay for their

and so i think the closer we get to the election that choice crystallizes um and and it's a pretty

stark choice and you know we've tried to help people with the cost of living throughout this

uh inflation challenge uh we've done that despite our opponents not with their support

um and so uh i think we are better placed to help people navigate what's going to be a pretty tricky

and uncertain time in the global economy well good luck and it'll be and if and if you guys get

through it and you're and you're going to be able to get through it and you're going to be able to

and i imagine you're going to be the treasurer still um what an amazing opportunity that's right

that's it you think about uh de la sel and the school that i went to it's i think they instill

on you this idea that it's good to be counted on yeah yeah you want to be counted on there's this

sense of service uh and i feel that every day grateful for that every single day but i think

especially as you get closer to the election you you recognize how rare and and cherished this

opportunity is to help run the country best country on earth and to be able to do that

and to have a to have a say in how it's run is is a is a pretty remarkable thing and so

i appreciate it and i appreciate the chance to talk to you today treasured gin chalmers thanks

for much thanks man if you've been listening along for a while you'll know i'm all about

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