TRANSCRIPT - Sky News Newsday with Kieran Gilbert

PAUL FLETCHER MP

Shadow Minister for Science and the Arts

Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy

Manager of Opposition Business in the House

TRANSCRIPT

SKY NEWS NEWSDAY

28 August 2024

Kieran Gilbert: Let's go live to the Manager of Opposition Business federally Paul Fletcher. You must be buoyed, I know it’s Territory issues at play there but with such an emphatic result, 17 seats there in the Northern Territory Parliament, it looks like according to Matt’s report there, that's got to be at least a cause for optimism among your Coalition colleagues.

Paul Fletcher: Well Lia Finocchiaro is an outstanding leader. I've had the chance to meet her on a number of occasions, certainly when I was working on the Darwin City deal and other issues during my ministerial responsibilities and I think the campaign that she and the CLP ran highlighted the importance of dealing with crime, highlighted the lack of continuity, the change in, continual change in faces at the top of the Labor Party in the Northern Territory and I think she and the Country Liberal Party have laid out a clear plan for growth and for the future and the people of the Northern Territory have responded very strongly.

Kieran Gilbert: On the inflation numbers today let me get your reaction to that. The Treasurer was on the program, he says that some of the analysis is misplaced saying it's all to do with that energy rebate when the ABS reports that it was only Commonwealth rebates showing up in Queensland and WA. So he sounds more bullish when it comes to this and encouraged by this drop in inflation do you welcome that?

Paul Fletcher:  Well let's be clear on the numbers that have come out today. So headline inflation now 3.5%, trimmed mean is 3.8% down from 4.1%. This is a long way away from the RBA's target range which as we know is 2 to 3% so we've got a long way to go. 

It confirms that inflation is sticky and that it’s not going anywhere and it's not surprising that Jim Chalmers was defensive about the impact on these numbers on the accounting trickery that he's engaged in, with the energy rebate because what that amounts to is on budget subsidies money is paid for by all taxpayers going to individual consumers in an attempt to make it look like the impact of energy prices is lower than it actually is.

Now the RBA will look through that when they make their judgements about whether interest rates should go up, go down or stay the same and all sensible observers will look through that. But it's not surprising Mr. Chalmers is defensive about this because he knows inflation is sticky it's not going anywhere, the root cause of that is that Labor has continued to spend and spend and spend, that is putting extra demand into the economy. It means that fiscal policy is at odds with the direction of monetary policy which the Reserve Bank has responsibility for. The Reserve Bank is trying to take the heat out of the economy, to get interest rates down and Mr. Chalmers' lack of spending discipline is making the Reserve Bank’s job harder.

Kieran Gilbert  The Treasurer did rule out any such Robin Hood tax on big corporations as proposed by The Greens today, do you welcome that?

Paul Fletcher: Well The Greens are a far left party, today's announcement of their policy, the so called Robin Hood tax is just another example of how extreme and out of touch The Greens are with most Australians, but of course they often try and disguise that but this is a hard left party committed to the redistribution of wealth, committed to attacking incentive, committed to making it harder for people who want to have a go and get ahead and make a better life for themselves and their families.

It would frankly have been very surprising if Mr. Chalmers hadn't immediately ruled that out but that's a bare minimum for him to do. If Labor were serious about having a different approach to The Greens, then they would refuse to accept Greens preferences and they would not enter into preference deals with The Greens. But let's be clear the only reason Labor is in government is because of a significant number of seats they won on the back of Greens preferences.

Kieran Gilbert: On the broader issue of spending you mentioned their accounting trickery but do you do you support the fact that people got some help on energy bills that was a good thing wasn't it, given how tough people are finding it right now?

Paul Fletcher: We've been very clear that Australians are entitled to feel hopelessly and terribly disappointed and disillusioned as a result of Labor having come to government promising a $275 dollar reduction in energy prices and they're now up around $1,000 or more for the typical household. So Mr. Albanese has not been able to deliver what he promised, in fact he's delivered precisely the opposite of it, and they’re now resorting to on budget subsidies to try and paper over and disguise the catastrophic failure to deliver what they committed to deliver.

So, we've been very clear it is Labor's mismanagement which is a major factor in driving up energy prices and driving up inflation. We know for example that natural gas has a vital role in Australia's energy future but we're seeing more and more troubling evidence that we’re likely to have gas shortages on the east coast of Australia, that will have significant adverse consequences for Australians and that is a result again of Labor being squeamish about the role of gas trying to pander to The Greens and Greens voters. But the reality is gas is critical to our future that is one of many ways in which Labor has comprehensively mismanaged energy and so their approach in terms of offering on budget subsidies is very much a desperate attempt to try and distract from their hopeless mismanagement of this issue.

Kieran Gilbert: Paul Fletcher we’ve got to go. We'll talk to you soon.