Andrew Clennell
Ted O’Brien, thanks for your time, and here’s your chance, I guess, to take us behind those closed doors of the Roundtable. Few reports out of fights between you and Jim Chalmers, can you tell us what happened, particularly when it came to tax reform discussions at the roundtable?
Ted O’Brien
Great to be with you, Andrew. And last week’s round table was certainly an interesting one. And yes, it is true that Jim Chalmers and I had words between us. And really it came down to me saying one key message, stop the spending spree. The government has to stop spending so much money of Australian taxpayers. And Jim Chalmers didn’t like that. And of course, you know that led to an exchange of words, but I have no regrets about it, Andrew, there are 25 handpicked people in that room of the Treasurers, but there are 27 million Australians outside of that room.
Andrew Clennell
Alright, let’s get more specific. What did you say to him, and what did he say back to you in relation to that?
Ted O’Brien
So, the point I made to the Treasurer was that the spending spree is out of control, and he should introduce a series of rules, so fiscal rules to control spending. This isn’t unusual for a government. However, Jim Chalmers has thrown out the rules that control budget spending, and that is what has led to the increase in spending. And I went through some of the statistics, some of the concerns I’ve got. I mean, some of the spending has led to debt. So, we’ll hit $1 trillion of debt this year, 1.2 trillion by the next election. We’ve also seen spending more over go up around 24% of GDP to 27% of GDP. We have seen about $160 billion dollars extra spending this year compared to the Coalition’s last budget.
Andrew Clennell
So, what did he say back?
Ted O’Brien
So, once I laid out the statistics, his retort back was telling the room every number that Ted O’Brien has just said is not right is not accurate, which, of course, then I responded, well give me just one number that’s wrong. Just one number that I’ve just stated is wrong. The Treasurer could not give me one number that was wrong. Which goes to the very point he doesn’t know his numbers, and he just keeps spending. And this is why we need to introduce fiscal rules-
Andrew Clennell
Just on that. Because I’ve reported at the top of the show, Ken Henry said, the same. Ken Henry, former head of treasury under Wayne Swan, Jim Chalmers old boss, I’m told, can you confirm this? Another roundtable, Howard and Costello had fiscal rules. Hawke and Keating had fiscal rules, you need to introduce them? Can you confirm that this morning?
Ted O’Brien
Yes, I can confirm that. Andrew. I mean, I was calling for this a week earlier. And that very morning, I had published an opinion piece that was in the Australian Financial Review, laying out the figures again and calling for this. Yes, Ken Henry did speak up. I don’t want to go through what others said in the room, but others also backed in the need for fiscal rules. I don’t think it’s too much to ask when you keep using other people’s money, you need to have some rules, at least rules that tell the Australian people, this is how I’m making sure we have discipline as a Treasurer, and then the Australian people can hold you to account. Jim Chalmers is refusing to do that just on this, and the ACTU is backing him in, by the way.
Andrew Clennell
Sure, I did hear that as well. Now, one announcement during the week, though, you must be happy with is the further cuts to the NDIS, the further NDIS reform. At least they’re having a crack at that, aren’t they?
Ted O’Brien
Well, there’s no doubt that we do need to see the NDIS more financially sustainable. It has to work for future generations, and therefore further work is needed. And we’ve been very clear all along, Andrew, that we will engage constructively with the government. Where I was very surprised though is the announcement was made without any consultation with those that currently rely on the NDIS. And this, of course, created a lot of panic, understandably, among people who have in their families, people who are disabled, and they were questioning, well, what does this mean for us? They didn’t deal with states and territories. I mean, the Commonwealth and states and territories-
Andrew Clennell
A couple of points in relation to this. One is there’s no easy way to do this. The other is, they would say. Look, this is the National Cabinet agreement from late 2023.
Ted O’Brien
Well, and I’d respond to that by saying, give us the detail and we’ll work constructively where we can, but we will be critical where we must.
Andrew Clennell
All right, well, what do you think Jim Chalmers has in mind here? Because you started out saying this, this whole roundtable thing was a stalking horse for tax increases, originally. He’s come out off the back, the Grattan Institute flag taxes, flag superannuation tax and whatever else that there’s intergenerational issues. People at the table, as I understand it, said, We don’t want to pit generations against each other. And then Jim Chalmers has used that intergenerational term several times in his press conference. So did he give an indication in the round table what he’s about here? Does he want to see changes to negative gains, negative gearing in capital gains. Does he want to see further taxes on superannuation? Did he give any hint, Ted O’Brien?
Ted O’Brien
No, Andrew, he didn’t. Certainly there are lots of different views from around the table, but it’s pretty obvious, and it’s related to what I was saying before. If you just keep on spending, you’ve got to get the money from somewhere. It has to come from somewhere. And for them, it’s going to be putting more debt on the younger generation. And secondly, hiking taxes. That’s their plan. You know, they’ve only got one tax plan right now, and that increases taxes. This is the unrealised capital gains tax for superannuation, and it’s going to sting younger people as they go through their lives. That’s their plan today. So moving forward is pretty obvious. When you can’t control your spending, you’re just going to increase debt and increase taxes. That’s pretty clear. And so-
Andrew Clennell
Clare O’Neil made the point, and you must admit here, it was a massive mistake to go into the election opposing income tax cuts, wasn’t it?
Ted O’Brien
Yes.
Andrew Clennell
What’s the opposition’s view around freezing changes to the National Construction Code, which the government has announced this morning. Do you think this decision was made in advance? Do you welcome this decision? Does it go far enough?
Ted O’Brien
Andrew, I sorry for laughing about this Labor. Of course, made this decision in advance. They had to call a round table to basically provide cover for the fact they’ve adopted Coalition policy, and so the Coalition went to the last election, only a few months ago, talking about freezing the National Construction Code, talking about ensuring we can free up approvals to get more houses built. Labor opposed that. Now, of course, they weren’t prepared to come out and say, You know what, I think the Coalition may have had a good point. We’re going to adopt that. No, no, no. They went to the election, tried to fight against it, and then they have a roundtable. And sure enough, the only concrete step that comes out of the roundtable is coalition policy. It would have saved a lot of time, a lot of effort. If you know, they just put a post on social media saying, Thanks, coalition, good idea. We’ll take it up.
Andrew Clennell
What do you make of this idea of a cash flow tax? Won’t that have the potential to hurt business?
Ted O’Brien
Yes, again, if you look at the basic principles that that we believe in as a Coalition, Andrew. We believe in lower, simpler, fairer taxes. As I went into the roundtable, I laid down some markers. One of those markers was, you don’t raise living standards by raising taxes. You don’t raise living standards by raising the cost of doing business in Australia. Now that the tax that you refer to ultimately does lead to an increase in corporate tax rates among the highest in the world. That doesn’t, that doesn’t bring in investment. You know, you never tax your way to prosperity. I can’t think of any economy that has become rich because their government decides to keep taxing it more, and that’s the whole point. If you want to have a productivity summit which is all about raising living standards, the outcome cannot be, let’s just tax more. But unless they control their spending spree, they will have no choice but to keep taxing people more and keep slugging the younger generation with more debt.
Andrew Clennell
We’ve had severe criticism during the week of Anthony Albanese by another head of state and Benjamin Netanyahu. What did you make of that? Do you accept the Labor view that this criticism doesn’t politically hurt Mr. Albanese with Australian voters?
Ted O’Brien
It doesn’t surprise me that Labor commentators are talking about whether or not Albanese disagreement with Mr. Netanyahu is going to play out positively or negatively in the polls. I don’t look at it like that. As far as I’m concerned, what you’ve got to put at the center of your thinking is what’s in our national interest. Right now, our relationship with Israel is going from bad to worse by the day, and unfortunately, that lays at the feet of the Prime Minister. Now, when it comes to Mr. Netanyahu comments about the Prime Minister, while, of course, I’m very open here in Australia as a political representative, my problems with the Prime Minister. I respect the office of the Prime Minister, and so I do not support the office of our Prime Minister being criticised. But nevertheless, what this exposes is the fact that that relationship with a democracy, with an ally in the Middle East, is going from bad to worse, and the Prime Minister is the one who needs to explain to the Australian people how he’s going to fix it.
Andrew Clennell
So you’ve just been in that LNP conference in Queensland, which passed a motion rejecting Net Zero. Did you support that motion? And where do you think you and your colleagues will end up on this? Because I’ve heard it’s almost certain the Nationals party room will abandon the net zero policy.
Ted O’Brien
I don’t know where the National party room will go on at Andrew, and as you know, I’m in the Liberal party room, but we’ll see. We do have our process already underway, and it has been underway for some time, reviewing our energy policy. And of course, net zero will be part of those considerations. That process involves both Liberals and Nationals, and so that process will continue. I wasn’t surprised by the outcome at the LNP convention. I was there all day yesterday. I’m not there today, the Yandina Street Fair is on today, so I’m back home in the electorate.
Andrew Clennell
How’d you vote?
Ted O’Brien
Well, to be honest, I actually wasn’t there on the Friday morning. I was doing these sorts of things. I was out there talking about the roundtable, but it was carried very strongly, is my understanding. Along with related points about the importance of a balanced energy mix, the importance of ensuring that all technologies should be considered, and that includes nuclear energy.
Andrew Clennell
Could a compromise deal be reached on Coalition policy here something like still committed to net zero, but by 2060 instead of 2050. Do you think that’s something that could be on the cards?
Ted O’Brien
Look, who knows, Andrew, I’m certainly not going to get ahead of colleagues or pre-empt what a conclusion is, but ultimately, we’ve got to take our time to get this right, because it’s only going to be a Coalition that saves Australia from higher energy costs. Labor’s doubling down on a failed policy, which is why Australians are paying among the highest prices for electricity in the world today. And I saw it last week in the roundtable. Labor has no interest in looking at what is the cheapest way to get electricity to Australia. It has no interest at all. I made that point in the room. All they’re interested in doing is finding more money to accelerate their plan for Australia to become poorer, our economy weaker, our businesses collapsing, their energy plan is not working. That’s the key point. And so that’s where we have to focus. And it’s only going to be a Coalition government that fixes it, because only a Coalition government is pragmatic about these things. Anthony Albanese is not. He’s ideological, and that is why he is just on his path, but Australians lose on the way.
Andrew Clennell
Shadow Treasurer Ted O’Brien, thanks for your time.
Ted O’Brien
Thanks for your time. Andrew