The creation of a National Anti-Corruption Commission was a key Labor promise before it won Government in 2022. The Commission was duly created and this week it released the findings of its first ever investigation.
But was it a little anti-climactic? Can we hope for bigger and better corruption-busting in the future?
Plus, interest rate cuts and the confusing matter of the Trump tariffs, and their effect on the Australian economy.
Joining Jacqueline Maley to discuss is federal politics reporter Olivia Ireland and senior economic correspondent Shane Wright.
Subscribe to The Age & SMH: https://subscribe.smh.com.au/
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Episode Transcript
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S1 (00:00):
From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
This is inside politics. I'm Jacqueline Maley, it's Friday, July 4th.
The creation of a national anti-corruption commission was a key
labor promise before it won government in 2022. The commission
was duly created and this week it released the findings
(00:23):
of its first ever investigation. But was it a little anti-climactic?
Can we hope for bigger and better corruption busting in
the future? Plus, we check in on economic matters, including
interest rate cuts and the confusing matter of the Trump
tariffs and their effect on the Australian economy. Joining me
to discuss we have first time Inside politics guest, a
(00:43):
much honoured new star, federal politics reporter Olivia Island, and
our longtime special guest star, senior economics correspondent Shane Wright.
Welcome to you both.
S2 (00:54):
Good to be here. Thank you very much.
S3 (00:56):
Don't take any pressure from what Jack just said to you, Olivia, like,
as a special guest star, I've come to lean into it.
S1 (01:04):
We can call you a veteran, which is a bit
of a backhanded compliment. My favorite kind.
S3 (01:09):
And I. And I accept that. I'll accept.
S1 (01:11):
That. Live. At the start of the week, the newly
minted National Anti-Corruption Commission released the findings of its first
ever investigation. What was it about and what were the findings?
S2 (01:22):
So a senior public servant had corruptly promoted her sister's
fiancee to his dream job in the Department of Home Affairs.
The investigation found the public servant abused her office by
promoting the fiancee as a candidate for a position, and
then praised him to colleagues, created the job requisition. Um
(01:44):
approved it herself, and she also forged a signature to
fast track the onboarding and the way that the commission
approved this was the case. They were able to obtain
text messages between her and her sister about the entire
process of getting the fiance into the Department of Home Affairs.
(02:05):
They're pretty, pretty awkward kind of text messages. A great
example is the woman who hired the fiance. When she
hired him, she texted her sister saying, I just want
to hug him. Thank God he stuck his hand out first.
And then the sister responded saying, what a good boy.
He's such a good boy. So really kind of proving this, uh,
(02:30):
attitude of using the system to your advantage effectively.
S1 (02:35):
Yeah. And really active deception.
S2 (02:37):
Very active deception. And using her position of power to
just get this person through and get him through very quickly.
S1 (02:47):
The finding of the investigation was basically that there was
corruption there. Um, it was sort of a case of nepotism,
I suppose. What was the outcome or what were the penalty,
if any?
S2 (02:56):
So it was unclear what the actual outcome was from
the actual NAC report. So the NAC did their investigation
and they didn't identify this person. So the way we
found out what the outcome was for this person was
to go to the Department of Home Affairs, and the
department confirmed that her employment was ceased. But she hasn't
(03:20):
really lost any sort of reputation, I suppose, because the
NAC decided to keep her identity a secret.
S1 (03:29):
Yeah. Okay. And why would they have decided that? Why
would they have protected her identity?
S2 (03:33):
They based it off a couple of reasons. The big
one that they argued was the issue of identifying witnesses.
So because this woman got someone in who was the
fiancé of her sister, it would become quite obvious as
to who the sister was and who the fiancé was.
And those two weren't found to be corrupt. It was
(03:55):
only this particular woman. But experts in the integrity space
were arguing that this is a pretty loose, uh, reason
to have someone de-identified. Um, they're sort of saying that
in any kind of typical prosecution case, witnesses are identified
all the time, and that is a completely acceptable and
(04:17):
normal element to it. So, uh, yeah, a lot of
integrity experts are kind of claiming that this is sort
of a cultural thing with the knack of just remaining
so secret.
S1 (04:29):
Nepotism in the public service is obviously inappropriate and has
been found to be corrupt in this case. But the
matter doesn't it doesn't seem like a huge systemic sort
of headline corruption controversy, you know, the likes of which
we're more used to seeing here in New South Wales,
for example, with ICAC, which has made some very big,
big decisions and big cases, it almost felt a little flat.
(04:52):
I'm gonna say, for the first decision of the National
Anti-Corruption Commission, how was it received around Parliament?
S2 (04:59):
It was almost crickets when it came to what the like,
how people reacted to it. Frankly, there was really no
reaction because it was such a minor case, as you say,
within the public service. I think the Albanese government made
a very deliberate decision to ensure the NAcc wasn't going
(05:20):
to be this kind of big tabloid kind of organisation
that was going to get significant kind of cases and attention.
And that's caused a lot of criticism throughout, because people
are starting to question whether or not this organisation is
actually doing what it's supposed to do, which is to
(05:40):
keep very powerful individuals to account. And a lot of
integrity experts argue, the way that you do that is
identifying people and actually going for cases that are like
higher profile than sort of these menial kind of mid-career
public servants.
S1 (05:57):
Yeah. And just sort of one job or one case
or one job. So speaking of sort of bigger, like
bigger whales, if you like. There was the robodebt investigation,
which listeners will remember were debts that were raised between
2015 and 2019 by the former coalition government, and they
were raised using um average Australian Tax Office income information.
(06:18):
And a lot of them were, I think, about half
a million people in the end were asked to repay
debts that they didn't actually owe. That was a huge
scandal for the Morrison government. It was, of course, examined
by a Royal commission which was commissioned by the Albanese government.
And there was talk that the National Anti-Corruption Commission would
be involved in that. Can you bring us up to speed?
S2 (06:38):
That has been quite a rigmarole for the National Anti-Corruption Commission.
So basically, the Commission at first decided not to investigate
these six individuals that were identified by the Royal Commission
as needing to be investigated.
S1 (06:56):
And this is this is sort of senior public servants
that the commissioner was very critical of in her investigation.
S2 (07:01):
Yes. And, um, that really raised a lot of controversy.
And so there's actually a body that is, uh, in
charge of overseeing the NAC. So it's kind of like
the NAC for the NAC, if you will. Um, and
that body investigated that decision and found that the commissioner
(07:21):
of the National Anti-Corruption Commission, Paul Brereton, had acted in
a way that made the case sort of not go
in the direction that it should have gone, because he
didn't fully pull himself out of a case when he
knew someone involved in this robodebt saga.
S1 (07:40):
He personally knew the person.
S2 (07:42):
Yes.
S1 (07:42):
Um, and yeah, well, that's Canberra for you as well,
isn't it. Very. It's a small town, Canberra.
S2 (07:47):
Um, so then, uh, the NAC has decided to reinvestigate
this case, and so they are currently now back in
on it. It's currently underway. Paul Brereton isn't involved this time.
And the latest update from the NAC on this is
that it's still being investigated.
S1 (08:05):
Do you think that that means that the NAC is
sort of open to accusations of being a bit toothless,
you know, being a bit basically a bit weak? I mean,
the Albanese government brought it in with so much fanfare,
and it was a bit of a political play, I suppose,
during that 2022 election campaign to shine a light on
some of the more dubious and unethical practices that we'd
(08:25):
seen happen within the Morrison government and among some of
the ministers there. Is it just is it all for show?
I mean, is it actually going to sort of brush
out any real corruption? Do you think.
S2 (08:34):
It's really a watch this space? But we've been saying
that since it began in mid 2023. So it is um,
it's getting a real kind of cohort of people, particularly
like lawyers, integrity activists, uh, in this space, getting incredibly
frustrated and are calling it a toothless organisation. And I think,
(08:59):
you know, the Albanese government created the NAC, but no
government wants to get in trouble and no government wants
to have bad publicity. So I think there were a
lot of provisions in this legislation, particularly that a lot
of hearings are in closed door hearings like they're not public.
(09:21):
Even this like recent case, it was completely closed. We
had no idea about it until it came out. And also,
the NAC does get to decide what kind of cases
they can put public media releases out about. So we
we don't know necessarily if this is the first investigation
(09:43):
they've completed or if there are others. Um, it's it's
very difficult to kind of keep up to date as
to what kinds of cases it is looking into. Aside
from robo debt, because there's been so much interest in it. Um,
so yeah, it definitely has established this kind of reputation
by certain people as being a toothless organisation.
S1 (10:06):
And sort of operating in some. With some level of
secrecy or a lack of transparency to to media. Anyway,
it sounds like it's really interesting, and we would definitely
like to have you back on another time to talk
about it and keep us updated. We have to segue
sharply now to matters economics, so that our special guest star, Shane,
(10:30):
can bring us glad tidings, because it sounds like the
reserve Bank is going to cut us a break next week.
S3 (10:37):
Well, it's if you've got debt, it's a good thing.
S1 (10:40):
Well, let's assume that I've got some debt, okay.
S3 (10:43):
I would never make that assumption about you.
S1 (10:45):
I live.
S3 (10:46):
In Sydney.
S1 (10:46):
So.
S3 (10:47):
Yeah, but, yeah, like, um, the reserve Bank. It's been
talking about quiet. The RBA, since it cut rates in
May has been quiet very little in terms of public commentary, but, uh,
financial markets and economists think or Michelle Bullock, She's going
to stand up next Tuesday after the their meeting and go, look,
(11:08):
we're going to take another quarter percentage point off the
cash rate, which would take it down to 3.6 on
a mortgage of your caliber Maly, uh, at least $100
a month saving on top of the, uh, couple of
hundreds that's been saved over the from the February and, um,
May cuts.
S1 (11:29):
Okay. So let's let's without making any assumptions about the
size of my mortgage one way or the other. But
according to what you wrote earlier in the week, it
will equal $300 a month in savings on a $600,000 mortgage.
All the cuts combined since February and March. Yeah, yeah,
May I should say.
S3 (11:45):
And it's all playing out because of what's going on
in inflation. Um, which like we got figures last week
the best like these were monthly inflation figures. They are
a little bit noisier than the quarterly ones. However everyone's
looked at the details of those and gone look the
RBA like remember, in May, the RBA discussed whether to
(12:06):
have a quarter or a half a percentage point cut. Yeah.
And since then, the jobs market is still going nowhere.
Wages growth is slightly coming down, which has been one
of the concerns.
S1 (12:17):
And retail sales as well are a little bit sluggish
aren't they.
S3 (12:20):
Retail sales have gone effectively nowhere since the RBA has
started cutting.
S1 (12:24):
That brings us to the international scenario. I mean there's
so much volatility obviously coming from the white House. What's
the Federal Reserve doing about interest rates for Americans just
quickly and.
S3 (12:35):
Fending fending Jerome Powell.
S1 (12:38):
Jerome Powell. So he's the chair of the Federal Reserve
in the US which is yeah, like.
S3 (12:42):
He's America's answer to Michelle Bullock. He is fending off
like even even on Thursday Donald Trump is demanding that
he resigns.
S4 (12:51):
I'd love him to resign if he wanted to. He's
done a lousy job. Look, if you were there, you'd say, well,
you know, the United States is doing well. They have
no inflation.
S1 (13:03):
And Donald Trump has had a few sort of has
been cooking up a feud with him for a while,
and it really reignited this week.
S3 (13:08):
It did when he produced from a new list. I'm
I is being used very heavily inside the white House.
It was a list of 44 nations ranked from lowest
to highest interest rates, and for some reason the US
was compared with economic powerhouses such as Cape Verde, Libya,
(13:29):
the Congo and Algeria.
S1 (13:32):
So basically, Donald Trump is very annoyed that the Federal
Reserve and Jerome Powell in particular, are keeping interest rates
too high, in his opinion. What does Jerome Powell said
about this? Because he made some comments at a European
conference this week.
S3 (13:44):
Yeah, he got a round of applause saying I'm just
focused on my job.
S5 (13:47):
You get attacked by by the president a lot on
a personal basis. Does it make your job harder?
S6 (13:54):
I'm very focused on just doing my job. I mean,
there are things that the things that matter are using
our tools to achieve the goals that Congress has given us.
Maximum employment and Employment price stability. Financial stability. And that's
that's what we focus on 100%.
S3 (14:12):
Now to get a rousing applause from a bunch of
central bankers. That's a tough crowd, let me assure you.
These guys don't do comedy. And he made this other point,
which we haven't got onto, which is the big beautiful Bill,
which is this piece of legislation that will increase America's
debt by a touch over $3 trillion over the next decade,
(14:34):
when they're running 36 trillion in debt. They had another
budget deficit last month, just another $300 billion. And he
just pointed out the budgets. The budget is unsustainable in
its current path. So Jerome and Donald are unlikely to
be sitting around the dinner table anytime soon, having a
good time.
S1 (14:53):
I mean, it's going to be interesting to see it
play out because Jerome Powell is obviously not planning on
going anywhere. He also said that they're sort of they're
on pause a little bit because they don't know what
the impact of all the tariffs is going to be
further down the track. So they're not making any false
or sudden moves before then. And speaking of tariffs, I
just want you to bring us up to speed with
the US tariffs and their impact on our economy, because
(15:15):
I think a lot of people will have gotten confused
or lost track. Obviously next Tuesday is 90 days since
Liberation Day, when Trump announced all his sweeping tariffs on
US trading partners, including Australia. And then he placed a
90 day pause on some of them. Where are we
up to in terms of the tariffs that are in
play on Australia now?
S3 (15:32):
Right. There's a 10% tariff if you go into the
US at the moment. It is really that simple.
S1 (15:37):
And then that's a baseline.
S3 (15:39):
That's the baseline. And then there's all which there are
all these other higher tariffs like we've discussed what the
craziness around say China for instance. Like it ended up
at 100 and I lost track of once we got
into the hundreds somewhere. Yeah. But there's also say the
tariffs on steel and aluminium. They are in place.
S1 (15:57):
So are these tariffs on Australian products. All 10% at
this point.
S3 (16:02):
Which we're always at the base.
S1 (16:04):
And that was the special deal that we kind of
got allegedly, that we only got we got the low,
the low tariff.
S3 (16:09):
I wouldn't call it.
S1 (16:10):
Special.
S3 (16:11):
Because there were a lot of other this is it
like say Britain, like people have talked about special Britain
got this great deal like they have a tariff deal.
But British imports to the exports of the United States
are still getting hit with a 10% tariff. And this comes,
I come back to the big beautiful bill because without
the tariffs he cannot pay for the huge tax cuts.
(16:32):
And the US. You can see it in their data
right now. The big lift that they're getting in tariff
revenue which was like 3/5 of nothing um at the
start of the year is now I think it's around 0.8%
of GDP. It's on its way to 1.2, which Trump
desperately needs. And this has been his whole argument. We
(16:53):
will bring in tariffs to pay for tax cuts. He's
doing a tax switch. That is what he's doing. So
he's got to do it.
S1 (16:59):
Yeah. Doesn't that prove that he's right I mean he's
bringing in a source of revenue for the United States.
And he's using it for the United, the people of
the United States, giving it back to them.
S3 (17:09):
I'm glad you asked, Jackie. I'm glad you asked. One
is he's like, say that he's not raising enough. That's
so as to.
S1 (17:17):
Pay for his tax cuts on on.
S3 (17:18):
Going. So he's part of the big beautiful bill. They
actually have had to increase the US debt limit by
$5 trillion. So if you actually believe we're going to
offset everything, you don't need to increase the debt limit
because it's a concession that we're not going to raise
enough money. The other issue, of course, is right. Say
high powered, high paid Jack Maley living living there in Manhattan.
(17:42):
She gets a tax cut on her high end purchases.
But look, you're a you're a woman of fashion. You'd
be buying American made, like, high end quality goods.
S1 (17:53):
Bit of bit of, um, American, American sport luxury kind
of stuff.
S3 (17:56):
I think I think you'd be all over that. That's
not getting hit with a tariff. However, if I'm living out,
I don't know, in, uh, the back. The back hills
of Queens and I'm on the average wage is around
45 40,000 US. I need cheap Chinese goods so I
(18:17):
can clothe myself. Oh, they've gone up. So the tax
which is effect is pushing up inflation on lower paid
and probably helping those at the at the higher end
who've also got these big tax cuts. It's a so
it's really interesting in in terms of what's going on
in that tax switch itself.
S1 (18:37):
Okay. Just quickly the tariffs on Australian goods. So it
mostly hits I think beef steel and aluminium in terms
of our industries. Has it made much of an impact
on the Australian economy.
S3 (18:47):
None.
S1 (18:48):
Okay.
S3 (18:48):
And it's actually not not none. Well the beef hasn't
because one and this is goes back to Jerome Powell
why he's worried about what's going on. Because the American
economy people are still buying Australian beef. The 10% tariff
was not going to have much of an effect because
there's not enough cows in the United States. They need
they need Australian cows.
S1 (19:09):
Yep.
S3 (19:10):
The steel and aluminium you can see, it's like the
inflation bubble that's starting to occur there is coming through.
We can see it in the American economy. The economy
American economy contracted in the first three months of the year.
Canada has gone has in April went backwards its economy
because it's so intertwined with the United States. These and
(19:33):
we actually saw some job figures earlier this week where
there's people are the jobs market is starting to soften.
So we may be starting to see the macro impact
on the US economy more than us on the American
economy because of what's going on with the tax switch.
And this is why this is why he's talking to
Jerome Powell saying, oh, please cut interest rates. Because what
(19:57):
Donald Trump has done is causing.
S1 (19:58):
My immediate problem. Yeah. Yeah I find it absolutely fascinating.
And you know, we're all so, so entangled with the
United States, economically and otherwise, that we've got to keep
an eye on it. Shane will have you back very soon,
I'm sure. And, Liz, thank you so much for being on.
It was such a pleasure. I hope this is the
beginning of a beautiful friendship, and we'll have you on
many more times. I know she's she's great. Thanks, guys.
(20:21):
We'll see you soon.
S2 (20:21):
Thanks very much.
S1 (20:26):
Today's episode was produced by Kai Wong. Our executive producer
is Tammy Mills, and Tom McKendrick is our head of audio.
To listen to our episodes as soon as they drop,
follow Inside Politics on Apple, Spotify or anywhere else you
listen to your podcasts. To stay up to date with
all the politics, news and exclusives, visit The Age and
(20:46):
The Sydney Morning Herald website and to support our journalism,
subscribe to us by visiting The Age or smh.com.au. I'm
Jacqueline Maley, thank you for listening.
From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
This is inside politics. I'm Jacqueline Maley, it's Friday, July 4th.
The creation of a national anti-corruption commission was a key
labor promise before it won government in 2022. The commission
was duly created and this week it released the findings
(00:23):
of its first ever investigation. But was it a little anti-climactic?
Can we hope for bigger and better corruption busting in
the future? Plus, we check in on economic matters, including
interest rate cuts and the confusing matter of the Trump
tariffs and their effect on the Australian economy. Joining me
to discuss we have first time Inside politics guest, a
(00:43):
much honoured new star, federal politics reporter Olivia Island, and
our longtime special guest star, senior economics correspondent Shane Wright.
Welcome to you both.
S2 (00:54):
Good to be here. Thank you very much.
S3 (00:56):
Don't take any pressure from what Jack just said to you, Olivia, like,
as a special guest star, I've come to lean into it.
S1 (01:04):
We can call you a veteran, which is a bit
of a backhanded compliment. My favorite kind.
S3 (01:09):
And I. And I accept that. I'll accept.
S1 (01:11):
That. Live. At the start of the week, the newly
minted National Anti-Corruption Commission released the findings of its first
ever investigation. What was it about and what were the findings?
S2 (01:22):
So a senior public servant had corruptly promoted her sister's
fiancee to his dream job in the Department of Home Affairs.
The investigation found the public servant abused her office by
promoting the fiancee as a candidate for a position, and
then praised him to colleagues, created the job requisition. Um
(01:44):
approved it herself, and she also forged a signature to
fast track the onboarding and the way that the commission
approved this was the case. They were able to obtain
text messages between her and her sister about the entire
process of getting the fiance into the Department of Home Affairs.
(02:05):
They're pretty, pretty awkward kind of text messages. A great
example is the woman who hired the fiance. When she
hired him, she texted her sister saying, I just want
to hug him. Thank God he stuck his hand out first.
And then the sister responded saying, what a good boy.
He's such a good boy. So really kind of proving this, uh,
(02:30):
attitude of using the system to your advantage effectively.
S1 (02:35):
Yeah. And really active deception.
S2 (02:37):
Very active deception. And using her position of power to
just get this person through and get him through very quickly.
S1 (02:47):
The finding of the investigation was basically that there was
corruption there. Um, it was sort of a case of nepotism,
I suppose. What was the outcome or what were the penalty,
if any?
S2 (02:56):
So it was unclear what the actual outcome was from
the actual NAC report. So the NAC did their investigation
and they didn't identify this person. So the way we
found out what the outcome was for this person was
to go to the Department of Home Affairs, and the
department confirmed that her employment was ceased. But she hasn't
(03:20):
really lost any sort of reputation, I suppose, because the
NAC decided to keep her identity a secret.
S1 (03:29):
Yeah. Okay. And why would they have decided that? Why
would they have protected her identity?
S2 (03:33):
They based it off a couple of reasons. The big
one that they argued was the issue of identifying witnesses.
So because this woman got someone in who was the
fiancé of her sister, it would become quite obvious as
to who the sister was and who the fiancé was.
And those two weren't found to be corrupt. It was
(03:55):
only this particular woman. But experts in the integrity space
were arguing that this is a pretty loose, uh, reason
to have someone de-identified. Um, they're sort of saying that
in any kind of typical prosecution case, witnesses are identified
all the time, and that is a completely acceptable and
(04:17):
normal element to it. So, uh, yeah, a lot of
integrity experts are kind of claiming that this is sort
of a cultural thing with the knack of just remaining
so secret.
S1 (04:29):
Nepotism in the public service is obviously inappropriate and has
been found to be corrupt in this case. But the
matter doesn't it doesn't seem like a huge systemic sort
of headline corruption controversy, you know, the likes of which
we're more used to seeing here in New South Wales,
for example, with ICAC, which has made some very big,
big decisions and big cases, it almost felt a little flat.
(04:52):
I'm gonna say, for the first decision of the National
Anti-Corruption Commission, how was it received around Parliament?
S2 (04:59):
It was almost crickets when it came to what the like,
how people reacted to it. Frankly, there was really no
reaction because it was such a minor case, as you say,
within the public service. I think the Albanese government made
a very deliberate decision to ensure the NAcc wasn't going
(05:20):
to be this kind of big tabloid kind of organisation
that was going to get significant kind of cases and attention.
And that's caused a lot of criticism throughout, because people
are starting to question whether or not this organisation is
actually doing what it's supposed to do, which is to
(05:40):
keep very powerful individuals to account. And a lot of
integrity experts argue, the way that you do that is
identifying people and actually going for cases that are like
higher profile than sort of these menial kind of mid-career
public servants.
S1 (05:57):
Yeah. And just sort of one job or one case
or one job. So speaking of sort of bigger, like
bigger whales, if you like. There was the robodebt investigation,
which listeners will remember were debts that were raised between
2015 and 2019 by the former coalition government, and they
were raised using um average Australian Tax Office income information.
(06:18):
And a lot of them were, I think, about half
a million people in the end were asked to repay
debts that they didn't actually owe. That was a huge
scandal for the Morrison government. It was, of course, examined
by a Royal commission which was commissioned by the Albanese government.
And there was talk that the National Anti-Corruption Commission would
be involved in that. Can you bring us up to speed?
S2 (06:38):
That has been quite a rigmarole for the National Anti-Corruption Commission.
So basically, the Commission at first decided not to investigate
these six individuals that were identified by the Royal Commission
as needing to be investigated.
S1 (06:56):
And this is this is sort of senior public servants
that the commissioner was very critical of in her investigation.
S2 (07:01):
Yes. And, um, that really raised a lot of controversy.
And so there's actually a body that is, uh, in
charge of overseeing the NAC. So it's kind of like
the NAC for the NAC, if you will. Um, and
that body investigated that decision and found that the commissioner
(07:21):
of the National Anti-Corruption Commission, Paul Brereton, had acted in
a way that made the case sort of not go
in the direction that it should have gone, because he
didn't fully pull himself out of a case when he
knew someone involved in this robodebt saga.
S1 (07:40):
He personally knew the person.
S2 (07:42):
Yes.
S1 (07:42):
Um, and yeah, well, that's Canberra for you as well,
isn't it. Very. It's a small town, Canberra.
S2 (07:47):
Um, so then, uh, the NAC has decided to reinvestigate
this case, and so they are currently now back in
on it. It's currently underway. Paul Brereton isn't involved this time.
And the latest update from the NAC on this is
that it's still being investigated.
S1 (08:05):
Do you think that that means that the NAC is
sort of open to accusations of being a bit toothless,
you know, being a bit basically a bit weak? I mean,
the Albanese government brought it in with so much fanfare,
and it was a bit of a political play, I suppose,
during that 2022 election campaign to shine a light on
some of the more dubious and unethical practices that we'd
(08:25):
seen happen within the Morrison government and among some of
the ministers there. Is it just is it all for show?
I mean, is it actually going to sort of brush
out any real corruption? Do you think.
S2 (08:34):
It's really a watch this space? But we've been saying
that since it began in mid 2023. So it is um,
it's getting a real kind of cohort of people, particularly
like lawyers, integrity activists, uh, in this space, getting incredibly
frustrated and are calling it a toothless organisation. And I think,
(08:59):
you know, the Albanese government created the NAC, but no
government wants to get in trouble and no government wants
to have bad publicity. So I think there were a
lot of provisions in this legislation, particularly that a lot
of hearings are in closed door hearings like they're not public.
(09:21):
Even this like recent case, it was completely closed. We
had no idea about it until it came out. And also,
the NAC does get to decide what kind of cases
they can put public media releases out about. So we
we don't know necessarily if this is the first investigation
(09:43):
they've completed or if there are others. Um, it's it's
very difficult to kind of keep up to date as
to what kinds of cases it is looking into. Aside
from robo debt, because there's been so much interest in it. Um,
so yeah, it definitely has established this kind of reputation
by certain people as being a toothless organisation.
S1 (10:06):
And sort of operating in some. With some level of
secrecy or a lack of transparency to to media. Anyway,
it sounds like it's really interesting, and we would definitely
like to have you back on another time to talk
about it and keep us updated. We have to segue
sharply now to matters economics, so that our special guest star, Shane,
(10:30):
can bring us glad tidings, because it sounds like the
reserve Bank is going to cut us a break next week.
S3 (10:37):
Well, it's if you've got debt, it's a good thing.
S1 (10:40):
Well, let's assume that I've got some debt, okay.
S3 (10:43):
I would never make that assumption about you.
S1 (10:45):
I live.
S3 (10:46):
In Sydney.
S1 (10:46):
So.
S3 (10:47):
Yeah, but, yeah, like, um, the reserve Bank. It's been
talking about quiet. The RBA, since it cut rates in
May has been quiet very little in terms of public commentary, but, uh,
financial markets and economists think or Michelle Bullock, She's going
to stand up next Tuesday after the their meeting and go, look,
(11:08):
we're going to take another quarter percentage point off the
cash rate, which would take it down to 3.6 on
a mortgage of your caliber Maly, uh, at least $100
a month saving on top of the, uh, couple of
hundreds that's been saved over the from the February and, um,
May cuts.
S1 (11:29):
Okay. So let's let's without making any assumptions about the
size of my mortgage one way or the other. But
according to what you wrote earlier in the week, it
will equal $300 a month in savings on a $600,000 mortgage.
All the cuts combined since February and March. Yeah, yeah,
May I should say.
S3 (11:45):
And it's all playing out because of what's going on
in inflation. Um, which like we got figures last week
the best like these were monthly inflation figures. They are
a little bit noisier than the quarterly ones. However everyone's
looked at the details of those and gone look the
RBA like remember, in May, the RBA discussed whether to
(12:06):
have a quarter or a half a percentage point cut. Yeah.
And since then, the jobs market is still going nowhere.
Wages growth is slightly coming down, which has been one
of the concerns.
S1 (12:17):
And retail sales as well are a little bit sluggish
aren't they.
S3 (12:20):
Retail sales have gone effectively nowhere since the RBA has
started cutting.
S1 (12:24):
That brings us to the international scenario. I mean there's
so much volatility obviously coming from the white House. What's
the Federal Reserve doing about interest rates for Americans just
quickly and.
S3 (12:35):
Fending fending Jerome Powell.
S1 (12:38):
Jerome Powell. So he's the chair of the Federal Reserve
in the US which is yeah, like.
S3 (12:42):
He's America's answer to Michelle Bullock. He is fending off
like even even on Thursday Donald Trump is demanding that
he resigns.
S4 (12:51):
I'd love him to resign if he wanted to. He's
done a lousy job. Look, if you were there, you'd say, well,
you know, the United States is doing well. They have
no inflation.
S1 (13:03):
And Donald Trump has had a few sort of has
been cooking up a feud with him for a while,
and it really reignited this week.
S3 (13:08):
It did when he produced from a new list. I'm
I is being used very heavily inside the white House.
It was a list of 44 nations ranked from lowest
to highest interest rates, and for some reason the US
was compared with economic powerhouses such as Cape Verde, Libya,
(13:29):
the Congo and Algeria.
S1 (13:32):
So basically, Donald Trump is very annoyed that the Federal
Reserve and Jerome Powell in particular, are keeping interest rates
too high, in his opinion. What does Jerome Powell said
about this? Because he made some comments at a European
conference this week.
S3 (13:44):
Yeah, he got a round of applause saying I'm just
focused on my job.
S5 (13:47):
You get attacked by by the president a lot on
a personal basis. Does it make your job harder?
S6 (13:54):
I'm very focused on just doing my job. I mean,
there are things that the things that matter are using
our tools to achieve the goals that Congress has given us.
Maximum employment and Employment price stability. Financial stability. And that's
that's what we focus on 100%.
S3 (14:12):
Now to get a rousing applause from a bunch of
central bankers. That's a tough crowd, let me assure you.
These guys don't do comedy. And he made this other point,
which we haven't got onto, which is the big beautiful Bill,
which is this piece of legislation that will increase America's
debt by a touch over $3 trillion over the next decade,
(14:34):
when they're running 36 trillion in debt. They had another
budget deficit last month, just another $300 billion. And he
just pointed out the budgets. The budget is unsustainable in
its current path. So Jerome and Donald are unlikely to
be sitting around the dinner table anytime soon, having a
good time.
S1 (14:53):
I mean, it's going to be interesting to see it
play out because Jerome Powell is obviously not planning on
going anywhere. He also said that they're sort of they're
on pause a little bit because they don't know what
the impact of all the tariffs is going to be
further down the track. So they're not making any false
or sudden moves before then. And speaking of tariffs, I
just want you to bring us up to speed with
the US tariffs and their impact on our economy, because
(15:15):
I think a lot of people will have gotten confused
or lost track. Obviously next Tuesday is 90 days since
Liberation Day, when Trump announced all his sweeping tariffs on
US trading partners, including Australia. And then he placed a
90 day pause on some of them. Where are we
up to in terms of the tariffs that are in
play on Australia now?
S3 (15:32):
Right. There's a 10% tariff if you go into the
US at the moment. It is really that simple.
S1 (15:37):
And then that's a baseline.
S3 (15:39):
That's the baseline. And then there's all which there are
all these other higher tariffs like we've discussed what the
craziness around say China for instance. Like it ended up
at 100 and I lost track of once we got
into the hundreds somewhere. Yeah. But there's also say the
tariffs on steel and aluminium. They are in place.
S1 (15:57):
So are these tariffs on Australian products. All 10% at
this point.
S3 (16:02):
Which we're always at the base.
S1 (16:04):
And that was the special deal that we kind of
got allegedly, that we only got we got the low,
the low tariff.
S3 (16:09):
I wouldn't call it.
S1 (16:10):
Special.
S3 (16:11):
Because there were a lot of other this is it
like say Britain, like people have talked about special Britain
got this great deal like they have a tariff deal.
But British imports to the exports of the United States
are still getting hit with a 10% tariff. And this comes,
I come back to the big beautiful bill because without
the tariffs he cannot pay for the huge tax cuts.
(16:32):
And the US. You can see it in their data
right now. The big lift that they're getting in tariff
revenue which was like 3/5 of nothing um at the
start of the year is now I think it's around 0.8%
of GDP. It's on its way to 1.2, which Trump
desperately needs. And this has been his whole argument. We
(16:53):
will bring in tariffs to pay for tax cuts. He's
doing a tax switch. That is what he's doing. So
he's got to do it.
S1 (16:59):
Yeah. Doesn't that prove that he's right I mean he's
bringing in a source of revenue for the United States.
And he's using it for the United, the people of
the United States, giving it back to them.
S3 (17:09):
I'm glad you asked, Jackie. I'm glad you asked. One
is he's like, say that he's not raising enough. That's
so as to.
S1 (17:17):
Pay for his tax cuts on on.
S3 (17:18):
Going. So he's part of the big beautiful bill. They
actually have had to increase the US debt limit by
$5 trillion. So if you actually believe we're going to
offset everything, you don't need to increase the debt limit
because it's a concession that we're not going to raise
enough money. The other issue, of course, is right. Say
high powered, high paid Jack Maley living living there in Manhattan.
(17:42):
She gets a tax cut on her high end purchases.
But look, you're a you're a woman of fashion. You'd
be buying American made, like, high end quality goods.
S1 (17:53):
Bit of bit of, um, American, American sport luxury kind
of stuff.
S3 (17:56):
I think I think you'd be all over that. That's
not getting hit with a tariff. However, if I'm living out,
I don't know, in, uh, the back. The back hills
of Queens and I'm on the average wage is around
45 40,000 US. I need cheap Chinese goods so I
(18:17):
can clothe myself. Oh, they've gone up. So the tax
which is effect is pushing up inflation on lower paid
and probably helping those at the at the higher end
who've also got these big tax cuts. It's a so
it's really interesting in in terms of what's going on
in that tax switch itself.
S1 (18:37):
Okay. Just quickly the tariffs on Australian goods. So it
mostly hits I think beef steel and aluminium in terms
of our industries. Has it made much of an impact
on the Australian economy.
S3 (18:47):
None.
S1 (18:48):
Okay.
S3 (18:48):
And it's actually not not none. Well the beef hasn't
because one and this is goes back to Jerome Powell
why he's worried about what's going on. Because the American
economy people are still buying Australian beef. The 10% tariff
was not going to have much of an effect because
there's not enough cows in the United States. They need
they need Australian cows.
S1 (19:09):
Yep.
S3 (19:10):
The steel and aluminium you can see, it's like the
inflation bubble that's starting to occur there is coming through.
We can see it in the American economy. The economy
American economy contracted in the first three months of the year.
Canada has gone has in April went backwards its economy
because it's so intertwined with the United States. These and
(19:33):
we actually saw some job figures earlier this week where
there's people are the jobs market is starting to soften.
So we may be starting to see the macro impact
on the US economy more than us on the American
economy because of what's going on with the tax switch.
And this is why this is why he's talking to
Jerome Powell saying, oh, please cut interest rates. Because what
(19:57):
Donald Trump has done is causing.
S1 (19:58):
My immediate problem. Yeah. Yeah I find it absolutely fascinating.
And you know, we're all so, so entangled with the
United States, economically and otherwise, that we've got to keep
an eye on it. Shane will have you back very soon,
I'm sure. And, Liz, thank you so much for being on.
It was such a pleasure. I hope this is the
beginning of a beautiful friendship, and we'll have you on
many more times. I know she's she's great. Thanks, guys.
(20:21):
We'll see you soon.
S2 (20:21):
Thanks very much.
S1 (20:26):
Today's episode was produced by Kai Wong. Our executive producer
is Tammy Mills, and Tom McKendrick is our head of audio.
To listen to our episodes as soon as they drop,
follow Inside Politics on Apple, Spotify or anywhere else you
listen to your podcasts. To stay up to date with
all the politics, news and exclusives, visit The Age and
(20:46):
The Sydney Morning Herald website and to support our journalism,
subscribe to us by visiting The Age or smh.com.au. I'm
Jacqueline Maley, thank you for listening.
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