11 May 2011
TRANSCRIPT OF SENATOR FIONA NASH,
INTERVIEW WITH LYNDAL CURTIS,
ABC NEWS 24, CANBERRA
Subjects: Julia Gillard’s carbon tax; Budget 2011.
E&OE………………………………………………………………………………
Lyndal Curtis: Welcome to Capital Hill. It's the day after Budget day and little else has been talked about in the halls of Parliament. The Prime Minister, the Treasurer, Minister, the Treasurer, the Leader of the Opposition and the Shadow Treasurer were crisscrossing the press gallery at the front of Parliament House as they did their sell of the Budget messages. To add to that we've been joined by Labor MP and Parliamentary Secretary Richard Marles and National’s Senator Fiona Nash. Richard, could I divert from the Budget for a for a moment, you’re the parliamentary secretary for Pacific Island affairs. You've recently been in Papua New Guinea. How are negotiations going with PNG to open a detention centre or processing centre there?
Richard Marles: As you say, I have been in PNG over few days having discussions with the government there and the discussions are ongoing. There's some interest from Papua New Guinea in the regional processing plan which has been talked about obviously by the Bali process. I'm going to go into the detail of how those discussions are going, but when there's something to say in relation to PNG we'll say it.
Lyndal Curtis: Is it possible to say you're looking at reopening the centre that the Howard Government ran Manus Island or somewhere else.
Richard Marles: The discussions are ongoing and when we get to a point that will occur we'll say.
Lyndal Curtis: We'll move on now to the Budget. Joe Hockey, the Shadow Treasurer, was out selling his Budget message and he maybe gave a little hint today of what the opposition is thinking it might it might do with this Budget.
Fiona Nash: We're going to do everything we can to put the pressure on the Government to call an election because this Budget is completely out of touch with the interests of the Australian people.
Lyndal Curtis: Fiona Nash, does that mean that the coalition will oppose and try and bring bits of this budget down.
Fiona Nash: That means we'll be looking at it very closely. There are a whole range of things think the thing that people have really locked on to there's no substance. It does seem to seem to be a bit of an ad hoc pulling together seem to be a bit of an ad hoc pulling together of measures that really doesn't do a great deal for the deal for the country.
Lyndal Curtis: Richard Myles, is it ad hockery?
Richard Marles: There's a sheer strategy. We saying we would bring the 2012-13. That's what this Budgets is all about making sure we're on track to jobs government. The thing we did when we got into power was get rid of Work Choices so there was job security for Australian people. We got people through the global economic crisis supporting 200,000 jobs while We've created 750,000 jobs since being in office and this Budget adds another half a million on top over the next two years. This is a jobs Budget by a jobs government whilst at the same time making sure we get the Budget back to the black by 2012-13.
Lyndal Curtis: It is a Budget that has to get through the Parliament. Very rarely do budgets get through Parliaments unscathed. You're going to have to negotiate some of this, maybe lots of it through, aren't you?
Richard Marles: (inaudible)… conversations with all the relevant parties in the House of Representatives and of course in due course in the Senate as well, but we think we've put out there a really fair proposition, one which is what is in the interests what is in the interests of this country, with a strong economy facing us. Mining boom mark 2, this is the time to see a contraction in the public sector to allow the private sector to expand. This is the time to be getting the budget back into surplus. Difficult decisions. $22 billion worth of savings, more savings than there are additional spending, seeing the lowest amount of lowest amount of increase in spending for 20 years, but that is the right thing to is the right thing to do at this time and we're confident we'll be able to win the support for this budget through the Parliament.
Lyndal Curtis: Can the coalition argue that the government needs to get back into surplus and quibble with the way the government decides to do it?
Fiona Nash: Well I think its interesting that Wayne Swan and obviously Richard today and others about this magic surplus we're going to getting back to which in essence is wafer thin. Its 3.5 billion dollars and it’s a long way down the track, it is wafer thin and it is going to be very interesting to see what happens between now and then. In a way, if you like, they are using it as a distraction from the really bad numbers that are occurring now. The $49 billion deficit we've got this year, $26 billion deficit next year, and this is if you like a bit of a distraction. What we have seen in this budget is a complete lack of detail though for the future of families and jobs in our communities. Now Richard talks about the focus being the surplus. The focus should been the people of Australia. The focus should have been the families; the focus should have been what we could do to ease the cost of living for those families. But it seems the Government is so hooked on the surplus and talking about that - really, as I see it, it is a bit of a distraction measure, they've forgotten about talking about the people.
Lyndal Curtis: We'll talk about the people in a moment but first to the surplus. Wayne Swan gave his traditional post budget address to the National Press Club today and did give an insight as to what changed in the budget that made it possible to get to the surplus in 2012-13.
[Wayne Swan: One of the reasons why we will be back surplus is because we're surplus is because we're now forecasting growth of 4% in 11-12, not three and quarters as we were back in the Budget review last October.]
Lyndal Curtis: Richard, that's a quarter of a percent growth that you are hanging the surplus, if anything happens to slow down the economy, if there are any economic shocks from Europe or America, if China decides to buy minerals somewhere else for a little bit, your surplus is in danger isn’t it?
Richard Marles: All the forecasts that we’ve got in the budget were conservative and consistent with all the forecasts you're seeing The Economists in the banks and all the other expert commentators on the economy. There are none of them coming out now saying the kind of forecast in the budget is wrong. We're basing it on the very best information and doing it in a conservative way. On the back of that were taking the action that ween need to take, the savings I’ve described to make sure we get this budget back into the black.
Lyndal Curtis: But could you have spent a little bit less either this financial year or the next to make the surplus a surer proposition?
Richard Marles: This is the most rapid fiscal consolidation we've seen in this country's history. The point I made before, $22 billion in savings. We’re going to see an increase in spending of 0.5%. That's the lowest amount for 20 years. The forecast is next year that we will see a decrease in spending, the first time since the Bicentenary. That stands in stark contrast to the spend-a-thon that we had during the Howard years when the opportunities that were presented in mining boom mark-one were completely squandered. If I could just say one thing in relation to Fiona’s points – we have absolutely got the focus of families right up front and centre in this Budget. Additional support for families with teenagers, reforming the low income tax offset so that's better for those who receive it. We've put in place an increase in the education tax refund. The most important thing can you do for a family is make sure they've got a job and that's the centre budget.
Lyndal Curtis: Fiona, business groups have welcomed some of the changes the government has made to the support government gives business to build skills. There have been changes to apprenticeships which have been welcomed. Why aren't those good things? Why aren't those ways of getting people into jobs?
Fiona Nash: Well it’s interesting to note the trade training centre funding has been pushed out to 15-16 I think it is. We've seen a whole range of things that are working in the negative not in the positive. When you look at those types of things in the budget, while there is some commentary about some good things, you’ve got to look at those things that really go to the heart and when Richard talks about families, he's failed to mention the fact there's been a $2 billion cut for families when it comes to the FTB in the freezing of the indexation and when it comes to the freezing of the income thresholds. So it's all very well for the government to throw out spin about all of this stuff, when you look at the detail it is not a Budget that's going to benefit the people of Australia in any real way, shape or form.
Lyndal Curtis: If you're going to cut spending to get to a surplus, somebody's going to have to bare some pain aren’t they.
Fiona Nash: Absolutely. The places we've seen bearing the pain are things like that the $2 billion cut to families. We’ve seen $500 cut from regional Australia. We’ve seen nothing for agriculture whatsoever. Out of 350 pages we've got two pages for agriculture. This is a sector that contributes $155 billion and contributes 12% to the GDP, does absolutely nothing. Of course there have to be some cuts along the way, but if the Government hadn't had program of waste and miss management, things like the $1.4 billion blow-out that we've seen to the computers in schools, then the Government would have been in a much better position to not have to have things like the $2 billion cut.
Lyndal Curtis: Richard Myles, the government has been looking at this Budget in some ways as a political game changer given the heat you have been taking on the carbon tax and on asylum seekers, is that putting too much faith on the ability of the budget to change your fortunes?
Richard Marles: What I think that it really does do is demonstrate the commitment of this government to follow through on bringing the budget back to the black, but doing so in a way which reflects the values of this government, so being a jobs based budget, but also one which builds all the skills we need to have to make sure that the the opportunity that is presented by mining boom mark-two is taken advantage of, as opposed to what the Howard years. Where I think there is a real issue in terms of the political landscape going forward is what we will see, or not see, tomorrow night in the budget reply, because on the one hand we're hearing from the opposition that they are going to have the budget returned to surplus, but we hear nothing of the cuts they would make and they have got to absolutely come to the table and make sure that they don't squib it this time. I'm sure all the coalition advisers have been given their training this week to make sure they don't do any of this one when there is the next press conference around how those cuts are going to be done, but we’ve got to see that happen tomorrow night.
Lyndal Curtis: Does Tony Abbott, does the coalition, have to spell out how it would get back to surplus or is enough to be critical of what the government’s done?
Fiona Nash: Obviously, we'll have a plan that Tony will put tomorrow night. But today and this week this week is about the Government's budget. This is about what they have for the Australian people and this is about what they have put forward through this budget for the Australian people. The big-notable missing item is the carbon tax of course. We've had a carbon tax that the Prime Minister said before the last election we would absolutely not have: “There will be no carbon tax under the Government I lead”. Then now she's got this cobbled together Labor-Greens-Independent government, we see that apparently she does want a carbon tax now, but the Government's not putting that in the Budget so we have no idea of what the impacts that's going to be. It's just spin. More and more spin from this government. OI think if the government was as good as budgets as they are at spin we would have an absolute cracker. The Australian people are beginning to see through a lot of the spin that the Government’s putting forward. They want some substance. They where the country is where the country is going to be in 10, 20 and 30 years and that's missing.
Lyndal Curtis: Is there anything in the Budget you do like?
Fiona Nash: There were some measures there but the measures that are there is some positives about and there have been some positive messages about education – there is no detail, absolutely no detail about how these things will roll out. Interesting to note the Education Investment fund that is going to be used for some priorities for universities was the exact fund that the coalition said money should come from to fix the student's problem for fairness for regional students when it comes to independent youth allowance. Now the Government could used that very fund to take the funding to fix that problem for regional students and they simply refuse to do so. They are not looking to the future because they're future because they're leaving those regional students out in the cold.
Lyndal Curtis: Richard Marles, is there anything you would have liked to have done that you couldn’t afford to?
Richard Marles: Cuts are a difficult thing to do. There's no question no question about that. You've got to take decisions the difficult decisions, and I think its right that we did them, and we are going to see this budget back into surplus in 2012-13.
[ends]
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