Interview with Emma Rebellato, News Breakfast, ABC

Subjects: gambling legislation, NDIS changes, superannuation preservation, tobacco excise Emma Rebellato: We’re joined by the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, from Parliament House in Canberra. Treasurer, thanks for your time this morning. Jim Chalmers: Thanks very much, Emma.

I want to start with this gambling legislation and the one‑stop shop to stop seeing gambling ads. Why not just go with an opt‑in service, wouldn’t that be easier, because now the onus is going to be on every individual to do something about it? Well, these changes that we are proposing are very substantial changes, and they will make it much easier for people to opt out of this advertising at the same time as we make it easier for the regulator to enforce the rules around inducements.

And so in addition to the big steps the government was already taking, these are important additional steps, and we will be seeking their passage through the parliament in the coming days. So, who’s going to pay for this? Well, the Minister has outlined a way of cost recovery from industry, it won’t be Australian taxpayers who pay for the additional resources that we are deploying here in this really important area.

This will be cost recovered from the gambling industry itself so that Australians aren’t asked to pay for it. Okay. When it comes to offering inducements, what are the changes that we’re going to be seeing there, because there have been a lot of calls to ban those inducements completely.

I understand people’s concern about inducements, and the Minister and the government does as well. I think primarily there’s an important role for the regulator to crack down on and enforce these inducements. But beyond that, you know, this is not an area of policy that I’ve been intimately involved in.

There will be negotiations and discussions between the government and other parties in the Senate in the interests of passing these really important reforms and action on inducements is part of it. Another piece of legislation that the government’s very keen to pass is of course the changes to the NDIS. Now we have been told that the Opposition’s written to the Prime Minister about this.

Would you scrap the so‑called widow tax in order to win over the Coalition and get their support to pass the NDIS? Well, there are a couple of important elements to your question, Emma. First of all, on the NDIS, this is all about saving the NDIS from itself, making it sustainable so it can continue to deliver a decent standard of care for Australians who need and deserve that.

That’s our motivation here, and it should be supported, our changes should be supported in the Senate in that light and on its merits. We have received a proposal from the Opposition, obviously we’re in negotiations with the other parties in the Senate, we don’t control any outcome in the Senate on our own, and I’ve learned not to pre‑empt outcomes there. But the Opposition has put to us that they would like to fast‑track the government’s legislation, the government’s proposal to make it clear that we will address the issues around inheritance and around divorce when it comes to the grandfathering of these negative gearing arrangements.

Now the government already made it clear that we were addressing this. We actually already released draft legislation. We have consulted on that, we’ve made it abundantly clear that this is a change that we will be making.

Now if the Opposition wants to do that quicker, of course we will engage with them in good faith. Okay. So, I want to ask you about superannuation now because obviously One Nation has brought this up, there’s been a lot of discussion about it over the past couple of days.

Do you think voters would like the super scheme to be more flexible so they can access their money earlier if they need it? Well, in the last week I think it’s been made abundantly clear by the Liberals, the Nationals and One Nation that they don’t support universal super. They don’t – I don’t think that’s fair.

I don’t think that’s fair, is it? No, Emma, it is. I mean let’s be really clear, that’s what Andrew Bragg said at the National Press Club, that’s what the leader of One Nation said on – The Coalition says it supports – The Coalition says it supports super.

No, Jane Hume was asked about this yesterday, about universal super and preservation, and she said they would make their position clearer later. Andrew Bragg, Tim Wilson, the Shadow Treasurer and others have made it really clear in their comments that they don’t support the universal superannuation system with preservation at its core. They’ve made that really clear, Emma, in their own words.

That’s the first point. They don’t support superannuation because they don’t support workers, and that means that the next election will be a referendum on universal superannuation. Okay.

But do you think it should be more flexible, that the super system, people being able to access their money? Well, there are already quite tight and focused conditions for people to receive early access, but overwhelmingly I support preservation as the fundamental principle of universal superannuation, and that’s because I believe in economic security and decent retirement incomes for Australian workers.

Now our superannuation system is the envy of the world. It is a quarter of household wealth, we’ve got the fourth‑biggest retirement incomes pool in the world. For 4 decades now this has been fundamental to providing dignity and security for workers in retirement, and our political opponents, all 3 of them, have made it really clear that they don’t support those arrangements, and that means if any combination or Coalition of Liberals, Nationals and One Nation win the next election, then universal superannuation is not safe.

Okay. Treasurer, I want to ask you about Pauline Hanson and One Nation. They’ve just announced that they would like to slash the tobacco excise by 75 per cent, freeze indexation for 3 years.

They’re saying if you cut the tax, you’re going to smash the black market and cut off the cash for organised crime. Do they have a point here, should the government be looking at this? Well, I’ve seen those stories, Emma, but I haven’t seen any of the detail of their policy.

We’ve acknowledged on a number of occasions before today that this is a substantial challenge when it comes to enforcement and compliance of the laws around illegal tobacco. And so for the government, our primary focus has been on providing hundreds of millions of dollars in extra resources for the police and other authorities to crack down on this big problem in our society and in local communities as well.

Now we’ve had some recent successes when it comes to that crackdown, we’ve seen some raids and some busts when it comes to some of this illegal supply, that’s a good thing, we want to see more of that, and that’s why we’re resourcing the authorities to go about their important work because primarily the government’s focus is on the law and order aspects of this substantial problem.

Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, thanks for your time this morning. Thanks so much Emma.