Shadow Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury – Transcript – ABC Perth Drive with Gary Adshead
Shadow Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury – Transcript – ABC Drive with Gary Adshead Senator Dean Smith Shadow Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury Liberal Senator for Western Australia TRANSCRIPT – ABC PERTH DRIVE WITH GARY ADSHEAD Topics: Federal election; cost-of-living under Labor; DeepSeek and AI; Greens hospital policy E&OE GARY ADSHEAD: I’ve got in the studio with me a couple of guys that are probably glad to get out of the heat when it comes to door knocking. Dean Smith, WA Liberal senator, thanks for coming in. DEAN SMITH: Great to be back Gary. GARY ADSHEAD: Good on you. And Patrick Gorman, o f course, the Labor member for Perth and also Minister Assisting the Prime Minister. Patrick, welcome to the ABC studio. PATRICK GORMAN: Good to be here Gary. GARY ADSHEAD: I bet you look at the forecast and think can we just park a bit of door knocking today and maybe do it next week when it cools down? What’s the sort of program that goes through your guy’s mind when you’re having to do that? Patrick? PATRICK GORMAN: I do a fair bit of door knocking and I like getting out there. But you always want to know, are people going to think that I’m a little bit mad if I’m out door knocking in this heat? And I reckon that sort of at about 37, 38 degrees. That’s kind of the threshold where people start to think that y ou’re a little bit too obsessed rather than passionate. GARY ADSHEAD: It’s probably a bit uncomfortable standing at the door having to talk to people as well, isn’t it, Dean? DEAN SMITH: Well Gary, if Patrick was to knock on my door, I’d invite him in for a coffee. PATRICK GORMAN: Brilliant! It would slow me down. DEAN SMITH: Slow you down, exactly right! GARY ADSHEAD: Ok well thanks for coming in. Alright, let’s just start with inflation. That’s starting to get to the sort of figures now that surely the RBA will move on it. Is that a concern for you Dean Smith? That we’re down around 2.4% headline figure and that might be the springboard that the Albanese government needs to call the election. DEAN SMITH: That’s a very interesting point, because I thought you were going to ask me what the RBA might choose to do when it meets on the 17th or 18th of February. I’d say this. There are two figures that the ABS released today. First is the figure that the government is talking about. But then what we call the trimmed mean inflation rate, that’s the inflation figure that the RBA is guided by and the RBA prefers to talk about. And it’s important because it strips away some of the rebate relief that people might have seen through energy relief measures of the government. And that figure points to not much change at all. It still sits outside the 2 to 3% band that the RBA is looking for. The key point here is one of sustainability. We have not yet seen sustainable falls in the inflation rate in that 2 to 3% band, and until that happens, unfortunately, I doubt there will be sustainable rate relief for mortgage holders. And it’s interesting, I think the government has been very measured today in not celebrating this too much, being pleased with themselves but not celebrating too much because I think we still have a long way to go. GARY ADSHEAD: Tracking the right way though, isn’t it Patrick? PATRICK GORMAN: Well, I’m not celebrating for the government, but I do think this is good news for Australian households. We know that inflation ultimately attacks those on low and middle incomes. Inflation erodes the living standards of the Australian people and that’s why one of the Reserve Bank of Australia’s jobs is to fight inflation. It’s also why we’ve had two budgets that have done exactly the same thing, working to put downward pressure on inflation. And what we know is that for people in my community and across this state, when you’ve had inflation at six percent under the Liberals when they left office, people were really starting to feel that pain. And it was really, prices were really going up rapidly what we’ve been able to do over time in a careful measured way – because you can’t stop inflation one day to the next. You’ve got to work at it over time. We’re going to do sensible things to make sure we take pressure off inflation and it’s an achievement of the Australian people. GARY ADSHEAD: Interesting. I mean so we are now where most Western countries are in terms of inflation, some are actually lower than us already and of course the banks have moved in terms of interest rates. It would be seen as extremely stubborn of the RBA to hold the line come February when they meet again, wouldn’t it? DEAN SMITH: Not necessarily. And Patrick and I are not going to start to run a commentary about what the RBA should do. But this is one data set in a number of data sets that the RBA will consider when it next meets. But it’s not as if West Australians have woken up this morning feeling much lighter about the cost-of-living challenges that they are experiencing. Not at all. And when we think about the macro-economic conditions, not much has changed. Productivity has fallen by 5.7% under this government. Annual GDP growth has slowed to 1991 levels. We’re in per capita negative growth in terms of GDP. So, the broad economic figures are nothing for the government to – PATRICK GORMAN: What’s happening with real wages Dean, tell people real wages. DEAN SMITH: Real wages in Western Australia increased by 13.9% but the annual inflation rate for Perth over that same period increased by 18%. That’s the comparator and I know that because that was research that I…