SUBJECTS: Asylum seekers, James Ashby, Peter Slipper, Craig Thomson, National Disability Insurance Scheme, sports funding
STEVE AUSTIN:
Inside Canberra this morning. Welcome back to Federal Liberal Member for Moncrieff Steve Ciobo. Steve, welcome back.
STEVEN CIOBO:
Morning Steve.
AUSTIN:
Bernie Ripoll, the Federal Member for Oxley and Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer. Bernie, good morning and welcome back to you.
BERNIE RIPOLL:
Hi Steve, how are you going?
AUSTIN:
Can you just clarify for me, in the news headlines this morning there was just a brief piece that Australia and Indonesia may be close to signing a new agreement on asylum seeker rescues. I haven't given you any notice on this, but do you know anything of the background of this at all?
RIPOLL:
I haven't got any of the detail but I am aware of coming out of some recent events that were happening with some boats getting into trouble very close to Indonesia and Indonesia not being able to respond. There were some discussions going on about how we might be able to assist and make sure that people don't drown at sea.
AUSTIN:
Ok. I know we had that case, was it last week, where an ABC journalist actually rang the boat that was apparently in trouble. The journalist said 'I will get help for you' and rang Indonesia for help, but it wasn't what the asylum seekers wanted.
RIPOLL:
It was an interesting phone call, yes, I remember that one.
CIOBO:
You know Steven, this just underscores the risk of being political. More than a risk. This just underscores exactly what is wrong. This has become a highway from around the world into Australia where we now have what is literally a farcical situation where asylum seekers when called by journalists are saying 'No, we don't want to be rescued by the Indonesians, we want to be rescued by the Australians.' The deal that Bernie is alluding to is now a deal to have Australian service men and women patrolling Indonesian waters to give assistance in Indonesian waters because asylum seekers now, as I said, it's not like a coast guard, it's the coast guide. They are now being guided back to Australia. Tens of thousands. I mean, this is madness.
AUSTIN:
It's a funny line.
CIOBO:
It's the reality. This is the madness of Labor's policies and they just need to wake up and go back to what worked.
RIPOLL:
I think we might have played some (inaudible) I think we might have played just a small role, some role.
RIPOLL:
Steve, the madness is simple. We'll take our policy, your policy, we'll take all the policies, and we'll put them to the Parliament. Unfortunately, the Liberal Party won't even support their own policy, because they are playing the politics, not the issue.
CIOBO:
What are you talking about Bernie? You wouldn't put the legislation to Parliament, that's the entire problem. I mean, you had the opportunity. We sat until 4am Steve on the final sitting night before we went to the winter recess. We sat until 4am in the morning. Andrew Wilkie put a piece of legislation into the Parliament that the Coalition was prepared to support. Would have had the numbers, would have been passed and, low and behold, who denied it? The Labor Party denied it. So this big 'holier than thou' attitude that the Labor Party is about making an improvement and the Coalition stands in the way. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
AUSTIN:
Either way, we are close to some sort of deal with the Indonesians by the looks of it.
RIPOLL:
Either way again, we've got our policy which we believe will work...CIOBO:
Which has failed.
RIPOLL:
And the Coalition have got their policy. We've put it on the table, we'll take both policies. They've just said 'no.' There won't be a solution, there won't be an outcome because the politics is more important than getting on with the job for the Coalition.Austin. This is 612 ABC Brisbane, it is quarter past nine. Bernie Ripoll, Federal Member for Oxley for the ALP. Steve Ciobo, Federal Member for Moncrieff for the Liberal Coalition. Gentlemen, the James Ashby affair, or the Peter Slipper affair, I don't know what to call it these days. But we've had the recent allegations aired on 7.30 this week that Mr Ashby is being investigated by police over other sexual matters in Townsville. What's your view of the overall affair? I've completely lost track of where it is at today. The Federal Court is yet to hear the sexual harassment case. In the meantime, there is all these other allegations flying about and I think it's been people like Wayne Swan and others who have said 'look, all of this new evidence is just a matter for the courts, don't get involved.'
RIPOLL:
Look, while I haven't read the book, this to me smacks to me like 50 Shades of Ashby and unfortunately one of those shades might be to really look at who else is involved and there might be 48 other people, one of those would be the Leader of the Opposition and a range of other people including the newly preselected candidate for the seat of ...AUSTIN:
Fisher.
RIPOLL:
Fisher, that's the seat. The seat of Fisher.AUSTIN:
Not the seat of Slipper as I called it earlier on.
RIPOLL:
No, not the seat of Slipper. Look, there is a lot to this, and we have been saying that right from the start. But it really is now a matter for police. There are some very serious allegations that now being put on the table so I'll leave it up to the police to do their job.AUSTIN:
Steve Ciobo?
CIOBO:
Steve, I would gently counsel my friend here, the Member for Oxley, and say that people in glass houses. The reality is that, in a word, you would describe Craig Thomson, Peter Slipper, James Ashby, in a single word is sordid. The stark reality is that whether it is Labor's Craig Thomson or the independent Speaker or James Ashby who was a staffer for the independent Speaker. The reality is that all this is a consequence of having a minority government, and having a situation in the House of Representatives where there is a one seat buffer. That of itself is what's causing...
AUSTIN:
You guys wouldn't be pushing this if it was just a one seat buffer, would you? You guys wouldn't be able to do anything, you would actually back off altogether.
CIOBO:
We're not pushing anything, this is the point. This is all happening independent of the Coalition. Craig Thomson, the reason why (inaudible)
AUSTIN:
There are an awful lot of LNP guys in Queensland who have been assisting Mr Ashby.
CIOBO:
Well the reason we've... (inaudible)
AUSTIN:
Mark McArdle, Mal Brough
CIOBO:
Well, the reality is that James Ashby...
(inaudible)
AUSTIN:
It's not my statement, it's the truth, they've all admitted it.CIOBO:
Well, they've all admitted they've been in contact. That's a separate thing to assisting. I think that there's a goal here.
RIPOLL:
You know that for a fact?AUSTIN:
If an LNP person gives advice, that's not help?CIOBO:
My point is Steve, that I think that the reality of all of this is that whether it's Ashby, or whether it's Peter Slipper or whether it's Craig Thomson, the whole thing is sordid. I think that the public is sick of it frankly, and the point I was trying to make is that I think the way that we overcome this is to get a government with a true mandate and to move away from a minority government situation where you are lurching from day to day, scandal after scandal involving an independent member, or Labor member or whatever, and my point is, that's the reason why we've said let's have an election so we can actually can get good governance back. Who knows what the outcome's going to be, whether it's us or whether it's the Labor Party. The reality is we get good governance back because we have a majority back in the House of Representatives.
AUSTIN:
You're positively salivating Steve Ciobo.RIPOLL:
He is. But I love it how the new independent – in quotation marks – Speaker. I mean he was with the LNP for thirty years, he's just become an independent, but suddenly he's always been not one of theirs. I just love this sort of stuff, you know. It's another shade of the fifty shades of Slipper. Unbelievable. (inaudible) You can't just disown someone because they call themselves now an independent.(inaudible)
AUSTIN:
(inaudible) where is that now? It's been dragging on for years.RIPOLL:
Look, it has and as I said last time I think it's completely disgraceful and it is before the courts. We've done a couple of things in terms of that. We've actually moved legislation in Parliament. Which passed Parliament to do more about future situations where this could occur and we've also said that the KPMG inquiry and review that's going on, whatever recommendations come forward from KPMG we will accept as a government. We want to do something about this and we will.CIOBO:
Steve, I've just got to say, I never knew that Bernie had as much front as he does and even as I'm standing here...
RIPOLL:
More front than Myer.CIOBO:
For a Labor member to start saying 'all of a sudden for the independent Peter Slipper.' I mean, for goodness sake. Craig Thomson all of a sudden is the independent member in the House of Representatives.
AUSTIN:
You're as guilty as each other.CIOBO:
Talk about (inaudible)
RIPOLL:
Boom, boom. We got one each. Good on you.AUSTIN:
Well, let me ask you about the NDIS. I want to go back a little bit it's sort of sprang up in an unusual way and I need to go back and forth on some key points but as I understand the National Disability Insurance Scheme plan originally, Bernie Ripoll, it wasn't going to commence until 2020. The trial is starting next year, but the actual scheme was not going to commence until 2020. Now Tony Abbott wrote to Prime Minister Julia Gillard on three separate occasions asking that he be included to get the NDIS underway. Why did she reject him? Why did she not reply?RIPOLL:
Well, there hasn't been a rejection.AUSTIN:
Or reply?RIPOLL:
Well, there hasn't been a rejection. I don't know whether there is a reply or not. I'll take your word for it.(inaudible)
AUSTIN:
She did nothing. I call that a rejection.RIPOLL:
Call it what you like. The reality is this, we as a Labor Federal Government have taken on something that nobody else has in the past. That is one of the most important public policy issues in this country and that's the National Disability Insurance Scheme. It is not easy. It is not cheap. But it's absolutely worthwhile doing.AUSTIN:
Tony Abbott said he wanted to be involved in it in a non-partisan way (inaudible)RIPOLL:
And he said he supports it too and we welcome that. I certainly welcome that and we welcome that and we want to move forward on this. It is complicated. It costs a lot of money and the Federal Government will stump up literally all of the money. But we do need some help and I think people understand and accept that. We've signed up most of the states to providing some assistance for a trial. All except I think Western Australia and now Queensland. We're not asking for a lot of money for the trial. I think $20 million per state, something like that, correct me if I'm wrong.AUSTIN:
The Federal Government has put $1 billion on the table.RIPOLL:
We've put $1 billion on the table.AUSTIN:
But two-thirds of that is taken up by administration and employment, just to run the scheme.RIPOLL:
But this is part of the trial so, you're right it will be and this will be to get the scheme up and going. Once the scheme is up and going then, like all things, you have the administration part of it. But the goal at the end of the day, is to have a Medicare style or like scheme, that means regardless of how you obtain your disability you get treated the same and fairly. I think we all agree on that. There is going to be a bit or argy-bargy in terms of how we get there. You might expect that as well. But I think it is worthwhile and I do think that the states will be shamed into all participating in some particular way. It's just not good enough to say we haven't got the money on this.AUSTIN:
This looks like a political lever that was brought forward to give Julia Gillard a chance to sort of lever back at the conservative states that have built up around Australia. It wasn't due to come in until 2020. We seem to have been missed. It's quite some way down the track. Yes, the Federal Government has put $1 billion on the table. But two-thirds of that are going to be taken up in just running the scheme and with most of the money just employing public servants, not actually looking after families and people with disabilities.RIPOLL:
Well, what it will mean is that there's more money on the table for a start and it will take about seven years to get the scheme up and running fully, so fully functional. You've got to build into this. It's not something you can just whack on the table and go 'yeah, it's a success'. So, we'll build up to this and at least I'm happy with this federally. At least we've got both sides saying they support it and look, I'm very pleased about that. Because I think this is just too important of an issue to have it carved up or finished before it gets started on some political disagreement. So we'll keep working. We'll get there on this one. This one's more important than just about any other.AUSTIN:
Steve Ciobo?CIOBO:
Well, I'll make two points Steve, the first is that I'm in agreement with Bernie and the Coalition is in fact in agreement with the Labor Party on this. We support National Disability Insurance Scheme. There's not a, to quote Kim Beazley, a cigarette paper between us. The fact is the Coalition is supportive of NDIS. The second point I'd make goes to .. that's the niceties of all this and we can join and say we want to make this change to help a lot of people, a lot of Australians who face enormous challenges and I think that that is a thing we should do as a first world country frankly and we can afford it. The second point I'd make though is with respect to the financing of all of this. Now there is one issue that you can't shift away from in all of this, Steve. It's expected to cost, I think, $4 billion per annum. To actually run the NDIS, $4 billion per annum. Now, out of that $4 billion the reality is that if we weren't in such a diminished fiscal state we could have the scheme up and going. If we weren't in a situation where we had so much debt and we're now going to be spending $8 billion a year servicing debt in this country, whereas five years ago we had zero, we would be able to fund it, this scheme, in complete totality from now. We can't (inaudible)
RIPOLL:
Woulda, coulda, shoulda.Ciobo. Now Bernie, I listen to you, please do me with the same respect. My point is there is an opportunity cost. That's the point I drive home, that people need to understand as well. Opportunity cost from the spending splurge that has just taken place over the last five years, which means $8 billion dollars a year in interest. $4 billion for an NDIS we could have funded it in total from now.
AUSTIN:
The Productivity Commission says that it is something that the Federal Government should fund and that their idea was that the states make up their commitment using money they already spend funding their own existing disability schemes. But a state like Western Australia spends the most per capita, so in a sense they are already at a disadvantage and this is part of the beef for the states isn't it? That the Productivity Commission says that the feds need to fund it, the states just using their already quarantined disability funding. But states fund it in different ways. So the levels of funding they have creates an instant disparity between the states.RIPOLL:
Yeah, look. There is a few things that we've got to work through. But it's the same old story and it's the continual same old stories. Woulda, coulda, shoulda. Twelve years in government, with plenty of surpluses. They had zero debt. They had plenty of money, but not one dollar for national disability. They had plenty of money, they'll tell you that every single day and they left the place in a fantastic place. Plenty of money in the bank, too bad it wasn't invested in people that needed it. It takes a Labor Government to get in and make the hard calls and the hard decisions and the last five years, again, let's be at least honest about what's happened in the last five years, is we had a Global Financial Crisis and we had, also, last year and a little bit before, the worst natural disasters that this country has faced in over 100 years which took a whole percentage point off GDP and had a bigger fiscal impact on us as a country than the GFC did. Now that doesn't come without cost. What we've done, is we've maintained unemployment at around five per cent. The books are actually quite good and, look, whether it's a wafer thin surplus or not, it's still going to be there. We're just about on right in terms of balancing the books. Not a bad outcome for a GFC and the worst natural disasters in over a century.CIOBO:
Incidentally Bernie, both of those things, that is the GFC and the natural disasters...
RIPOLL:
They did happen.CIOBO:
They did happen, that's right. But both of them were pale in terms of their economic impact on this country and GDP output in comparison to your carbon tax. That's just one point in passing. I think that the reality though is though, Bernie, I think it is a shame that you would seek to politicise it. By turning around and saying shoulda, coulda, woulda. We invested as a Government. I mean, $1.9 billion for autism for example. There is a whole raft of initiatives that we undertook as a government that are good things. I think best leave those things alone because we did that, we are supporting you on this. My point is simply to say that there is an opportunity cost from the debt that we are now in and an example of the opportunity cost is that we can't now fund NDIS.
RIPOLL:
You can't have it both ways, mate. It's as simple as that.AUSTIN:
This is 612 ABC Brisbane, it's 28 minutes past nine. I'll move on and give you a chance just to briefly address the Olympics, if I may. Before I do that, on Friday I interviewed Dr James Connor who had done a close look of funding of sport in Australia. Let me just play you briefly something he said on this program.JAMES CONNOR:
So the federal funding over the last four years is about $588 million for Olympic sport and that's a really low estimate because that doesn't include what's spent on the academies of sport in states, so like your Queensland Academy of Sport. Doesn't include that funding. Doesn't include what the sporting organisations themselves spend on pushing sport forward. Doesn't include AOC funding, doesn't include, of course, that really big contribution that many people miss, is what athletes themselves and their families pay.
AUSTIN:
On an optimistic estimate of twelve gold medals at this Olympics, roughly $49 million, very conservatively placed, per medal.
JAMES CONNOR:
Definitely, $50 million from each of us for those gold medals that we are going to get.
AUSTIN:
James Conner, earlier, sorry, on Friday last week. Gentlemen, remember the Crawford report? It was on the future of sport in Australia, it was commissioned, I think, by your government Bernie. I think from memory. It didn't seem to go anywhere, but it said we were funding sport incorrectly, that we need to fund it at a grassroots level, rather than top down like we are currently doing. Any thoughts given what you are seeing in London at the moment?RIPOLL:
Yeah, look. Couple of thoughts just to bring it into some context. Whatever we spend as a national government, whatever that government it is, it will never be enough in terms of what people think we ought to spend in terms of sports...AUSTIN:
James Connor's point is that we are actually giving it to the wrong, we need to give it to the grassroots level, not focussing on the elite athletes, focussing on the grassroots and let them grow into it.RIPOLL:
I get his point. Whether that's the case or not, I haven't actually done a review myself. I probably have a view. I like sport and I like local sport and I think we do a bit in that area as well.AUSTIN:
What happened to the Crawford report? Because it was a three-hundred page report that seemed to go nowhere.RIPOLL:
I'm sure it's still on someone's desk and they're still reading through it. Like a lot of reports in government Steve. What happens is bits and pieces are taken out of those and governments don't necessarily agree with everything that is in reports. That's a constant, that's a given. But the reality is, each government will make its own decisions in terms of what it believes it ought to spend in terms of sport and whether it's elite or whether it's grassroots. The reality is we do both. The reality is there's a lot of money that goes into grassroots sports. I don't think there's enough money that goes into cycling personally, but I'll declare a conflict of interest here. (inaudible)AUSTIN:
Go for your life, you're a cyclist.RIPOLL:
I am a cyclist. I think...AUSTIN:
You're a lycra wearer Bernie.RIPOLL:
I am. Mumble pants they call them. If you've ever seen them, it looks terrible. But we're not going to go anywhere with that. The reality is I think cycling is one of those fantastic sports. We do well at it at an elite level, but it also contributes to the economy in terms of, you know, reducing congestion, makes people healthier. It's good for your mind as well. I'd like to see more. I'll put in a bid right now, I'd like to see more money spent on local cycling projects and more cycling schemes.AUSTIN:
Steve Ciobo?CIOBO:
I'm in such a conciliatory mood Steve. I agree. I do think though that we've got to fund both. I mean, I am someone who's, I'd call it old-school, I believe in celebrating excellence and celebrating success and I think that a national sense of identity comes from knowing that this is what Australia can achieve. I think that that sends so many signals, beyond what a teacher can teach in a classroom about what we should be doing in terms of healthy lifestyles. Celebrating national heroes, what can be achieved through hard work and discipline, those types of things.
AUSTIN:
Thanks for coming in to the both of you.
RIPOLL:
Thanks Steve.