These are things you can't insure for and whereas there were very limited exclusions of what you could or couldn't claim for 20 years ago, now the exclusions are very, very heavy and limit what you can apply for.

Yeah, it used to be basically, and this was not just before the lifetime health cover, even sort of after it, most policies didn't have any exclusions.

So, you know, if you had private health insurance and you had sort of, you know, a comprehensive one, you know, you weren't just in it for the extras, you know, maybe just covering dental and optometry, but actually had the full health insurance.

you were covered for everything pretty much.

You know, there wasn't a concern of, oh, I need a hip replacement.

Oh, that's covered.

Or a knee replacement, that's covered.

Have they been inflation and wages or not?

That's not the problem with super, but you are hinting that there is an issue there.

Yeah, I mean, the, the real problem with super, and it really goes to a discussion I'm pretty sure we had, uh, last year when, remember, all the talk about super was about limiting the tax concessions for funds that were-- had more than $3 million in them, which accounted for about 0.1% of everyone with super.

And if you remember back then, it was, "Oh, gosh, this is a death tax.

You're taking away my inheritance.

You're ruining, um, aspiration." [laughs] Back then, suddenly super was super important and couldn't be touched.

Now, suddenly we've got a, a policy suggestion that really is only gonna affect low and middle income earners, where suddenly it's like, "Oh, yeah, it's just super.

Who cares? Just raid it." The problem with super is that all those tax concessions that we do have in place, unfortunately, they're kinda being rorted by the very wealthy, and it is massively distorting wealth inequality in Australia.

You're really fired up about this, Greg.

has the idea got any merits at all

uh look not really okay i think there's a couple of things here economically it's not Politically, I can understand why it does seem popular because really the issue isn't superannuation.

It's the fact that people are really hurting due to cost of living.

And this seems like, oh, you know, a simple, easy solution.

The problem is it's not really robbing Peter to pay Paul.

It's robbing Peter to pay Peter.

And you'll be worse off in the long run.

It's

And there's no guardrails proposed, is there, around people actually spending it on their mortgage or rent? Because, I mean, we saw with COVID when people had access to super, you know, they spent it on all sorts of things [laughs].

Yeah, and that's the thing.

At the moment, you can actually access super if you are able to demonstrate, you know, uh, essentially a dire need due to medical emergencies or financial hardship.

You know, if you are able to demonstrate that, then yes, you can.

But with this, it's just, yeah, if you're- You know, if you want it, you can, you can have it.

And some will use it to pay down bills, some will use it to pay off their home loan, and some will just use it because, "Oh, I can use it." And what we certainly saw during the COVID years was people who didn't have a lot of super essentially running it right down.

And we also know that because women generally have less super than do men, this will do more damage to women's long-term retirement, and we also know that women also struggle the most when it comes to poverty in retirement.

Where does the coalition want this to end up?

Yeah

... over a decade ago.

But this, that I thought was as bad as could get, but this is just horrific.

And, uh, I was looking, uh, on the ABC site just before we came on and, uh, yeah, now the, it's up to 270 bodies that have been recovered.

Um, and obviously that's going to climb and it's just horrific given, you know, we're talking a very, um, tough area to get to and not exactly rich country either.

Um, and unlike, you know, we deal with floodings and fires and, and things, but, you know, mudslides of this nature, the cleanup is beyond imagination.

And, uh, also unfortunately I've, I've heard from a, a couple of, uh, sort of, uh, scientists, especially climate scientists who are saying, "Well, this was a, seems to have been a glacial collapse." And they said, "Unfortunately, this is going to become more common as, uh-

And they're thinking, "Well, how..." You know, I mean, economists tell us, "Oh, yes, but this is going to increase our productivity, and th- therefore that, that's gonna mean an increase in real wages and so on." Well, you know, crossing all those T's and dotting all those I's is not entirely evident, is it?

And, in fact, if

you're reading the tea leaves of the statement, there seemed to be a bit of a suggestion that the economy is slowing like the Reserve Bank was expecting.

In the last statement in June, it just had...

There were signs that it was slowing.

Now they're more sure of that.

So...

Look, I think it's all going to come down to a couple of things.

course.

But ev- everyone knows that's a dud, doesn't it?

Yeah, it's an absolute dud.

It actually is only gonna raise one point four billion dollars this financial year.

By the end of the decade, when the industry was suggesting that o- ... ought to be ramping up and we'll be starting to see more, it's actually only gonna be 1.25 billion.

It's actually raising less now than it was 25 years ago when only 2% of all exports, all of Australia's exports were gas.

Now it's up to 12 to 13%, and we're actually raising less by it.

So this, um, drive at the, at the Labor conference is really coming from, yes, some people like Ed Husic, but also the unions, um, certainly the ACTU, they early on in the year came up with the proposal for a 25% tax on gas exports that'd raise around $17 billion a year, and it's a policy that certainly the, uh, the Australian Institute has, has also been supporting, and our polling has shown that there is broad support.

... against it?

What's the government's position on this? What is it anyway? And how does the government propose to deal with it?

Yeah, it was one of these things that... um in the in the legislation once they sort of went through it all they found that uh because there's been grandfathering of negative gearing so if you've already got a property that you're negative gearing you can continue negative gearing and so long as you own that property but in the case of where there's a couple who own that property If they were to get divorced or one of the couple was to die, then the grandfathering would end.

And so the opposition was calling this a widow tax because I guess they think the bloke is going to be the one to die.

I'm watching this going, well, hang on, why is it always the guy who has to die? But so that's what they were trying to plug this as being a widow tax, which is kind of absurd because all it would mean, let's say, You're a couple in your 50s now who've got an investment property and in 20 years' time, someone dies in that couple.

If you're still negative gearing at that point, I think you've had a fair run of benefit from it.

Yeah.

It was a bit of a weird one, and they certainly were not talking about the divorces aspect of it either.

How do we judge them as to whether or not they – people are talking about them as significant tax reform, but how do we know whether they'll have made a difference or not?

In a column for The Guardian, you wrote that, "The RBA governor has made it clear that the cash rate has been increased not to reduce inflation, but to make it harder to bargain for higher wages." Can you explain that?

Yeah.

It, it was kinda weird.

Back in May when they last raised interest rates, she pointed to inflation is rising due to what's happening in Iran, the Strait of Hormuz, and oil prices, and she said, "You know, these interest rate rises will not affect that." And it's like, okay, you've just admitted you're increasing interest rates to not affect inflation over...

I think she said over the next six months.

And then she explained why she's doing it, is that she was worried, and the Reserve Bank [laughs] is always worried about this, is that when the Iran crisis was averted, things are kind of back to normal, that unemployment would be too low, which would mean too many people have got a job, which means that everyone's feeling a bit too secure and thinks, "Yeah, let's, let's bargain for a higher wage growth." And rather, she would prefer that by the time we...

everything is cleared up from Hormuz and inflation is back down, that everyone's a bit more worried about keeping their job, and so the pressure to get higher wages is lower because you're like, "Oh, I better just be sure that I can keep my job rather than, [laughs] than get a wage rise." It's always how the Reserve Bank thinks.

Mm.

But where's the middle ground? I mean, aren't you just driving investors away from the housing market?

Well, yes.

And that's kind of the key thing.

I mean, we don't...

We want housing to be for people to live in, not for it to build wealth.

Because unlike shares, if I buy BHP shares, that's not really taking anyone else's shares away.

But if investors are buying homes, that takes away the opportunity for owner-occupiers.

Could I finally ask you, if we're going to see the impact of this, when will we see it? Six months, 12 months, 18 months?

they, they probably don't wanna be seen to be caving in early.

Yeah.

That's certainly why they're doing it in this budget.

You know, it's your first budget after an election.

This gives you time to do things that might be contentious, and it gives you time for the laws to come into place and everyone to realize, oh, actually the world hasn't come to an end.

House- the housing market hasn't collapsed.

Prices aren't going up as fast as us- they used to, but, you know, my home is still doing [chuckles] okay.

What's the report say?

Listen to the Flip Side on your favorite platform.

[upbeat music] This is The Guardian.

Okay, here's Greg.

Last Friday, while eating breakfast, I noticed what I thought was a piece of cereal lodged in my gum.

After extricating it with my tongue, I immediately realized it was a filling that had come out of my tooth.

I booked a dentist appointment for later that day.

This alone sets me apart from many Australians.

When the Bureau of Statistics last surveyed our ability to access healthcare across the 2024-25 financial year, a quarter of people said they put off seeing a dentist even when they needed to.

What are the chances of the supermarkets losing, though? Because the judge did make a comment during proceedings that the Woolies scheme didn't strike him as nefarious or misleading.Does that indicate he'll side with the supermarket giants?

Yeah, it's, uh, a little bit, uh, concerning for those who are cheering for the ACCC.

It did suggest that they weren't doing this in a deliberate way to trick consumers but the ACCC is essentially suggesting, okay, maybe they're not doing it so much to trick them, but they're doing the least amount they had to do for it to be legal, for it not to be construed as misleading.

[upbeat music] So in a sense, the ACCC is arguing, okay, the letter of the law maybe, but is it the spirit of the law? You know, prices do go up over time.

If something goes up because of, let's say, transport costs, um, how long do they have to keep that up before they can drop it down to a sale? Um, is certainly a legitimate argument, but I think what we're talking about here is not a case of they were having to lift prices for any reason.

It was really a case because it was over so many items, there was no sort of, uh, conformity of these items that you could say, "Oh, yeah, they've all gone up because of transport costs," or, you know, there was a wage rise in that industry.

It was just, hmm, they all seem to have been able to raise these things for two or three weeks and then drop them.

How timely does that make this decision from the court? I know it's later in the year, but we have a fairly clear indication that the cost of living is not gonna sort of lessen its grip on us anytime soon.

Yeah

... world fertilizer prices, all of these things.

And, and in such periods, what central banks should do is what we say look through the inflation base to say, "Look, this has got nothing to do with us.

Let's not react as though it's all led by domestic issues." What the Reserve Bank will say is, "Yeah, that's fine," but if it gets to a point where consumers, businesses, everyone kind of expects inflation to stay high, and like we're talking, say, above 4, above 5%, then the Reserve Bank will say, "Well, the problem is even if that is because of an oil price shock and because of things happening over in the Middle East," businesses and workers are gonna say, "Yeah, that's fine, but I want a 5.5% wage increase."

Mm.

But do in a way that they're not blowing the budget and are gonna scare everyone into thinking, oh, you're just adding fuel to the fire, so to speak.

So that's kind of a positive thing.

I...

So Greg, how is all of this really going to hit people? Especially, especially given that people were finally getting a break from these interest rate rises after two years of solid increases that we had after COVID.

Yeah, I mean, this is the thing.

The, the Reserve Bank is really pointing to the end of last year saying, "Oh, things were, you know, looking up," or, "That's where all the sort of excess demand," as they say, "was." Well, that was before they raised rates in February, and that really I think came as a shock to people, people who-unlike me, don't spend every day looking at what the Reserve Bank is saying, they would've been thinking, "Oh, hang on, I thought, [laughs] I thought we were finished with this." And then to get another one on top of that is a real kinda smack in the face.

And coupled with the increase in petrol prices, which has been quite stunning of late, you know, we're really seeing, um, you know, 30 cents a liter, 40 cents a liter kind of increases, sorta going from $1.80 to $2.20 and above, and the sense that this is gonna be around for a while, it's a sense of, "Oh, oh great.

I've been smashed both ways through nothing that any workers have done." It's not because workers have all been getting great pay rises.

Um, it's not because we've got these massive, big tax cuts or the government's handed out heaps of money to us somehow and we're all spending it madly.

It's just, you know, we were [laughs] just carrying on, and then suddenly the Reserve Bank has decided, "Oh, hang on, uh, we really would like a few more of you to be unemployed." And, and really that's what it comes down to.

So how bad do you think that inflation could get from here?

That was the warning.

And this was taken as being the IMF calls out Australia's inflation and the Financial Review suggested in its editorial that it was also calling out the Albanese government's fiscal mismanagement.

And it really wasn't.

It was just basically, I mean, Australia barely even registers in these reports, whether it be the OECD or the IMF, unless they do a specific thing on Australia, we're a little blip on the world stage.

But One of the things that really, though, came across in the IMF report was this sort of attempt to just sane wash everything that's going on in the world.

The headline of the actual report was steady amid divergent forces.

Now, yeah.

So how are we going on that front?