TREASURER:
That is a challenge that the board and management have and it is up to them to deal with that challenge. The Government is not in the business of running airlines. That is up to the board and management.
REPORTER:
Do you think these are empty threats or do you think…
TREASURER:
No, I think they are very serious. Qantas needs to determine its own destiny. It is not up to the government to determine the destiny of any one business. It is up to individual businesses, whether they be a small business on a suburban street or it be a national business, it is up to the management and the board to determine the future of that business.
REPORTER:
Would the Government be upset to see group changes or group cuts from Qantas?
TREASURER:
I am not going to speculate on that. I’m not going to micro design flight paths over Australia.
REPORTER:
5,000 jobs - is that potentially a condition of the support from the Government?
TREASURER:
Absolutely not, that’s the first time I heard of that was reading it in the paper.
REPORTER:
Just on workplace relations. Obviously there has been a lot of debate over high labour costs. Do you think that penalty rates and industry relations are holding productivity in Australia back?
TREASURER:
Labor re-regulated the workplace environment in Australia. Unemployment has gone up. We made solemn pledges to the Australian people before the last election, which we are keeping. We will have a review of the workplace relations system and any substantial changes; we will take to the community at the next election. That is not changing; we have said that. Work Choices is dead. The rise in unemployment is a creation of Labor, and Labor re-regulated the labour market. They ran deficits. They have left us with a legacy of debt. Frankly, I don’t want any crocodile tears from the Labor party about this.
REPORTER:
Mr Flaherty said that I’d be fairly confident that Canada can get that extra 2% out of their economy. Are you confident you can get an additional 2% on top of what you are looking at and where would you get it from?
TREASURER:
The fact is that the 2% is for the global economy and it is 2% cumulative over 5 years. How do we get it? Well in Australia if we don’t get economic growth above 3%, then we are going to continue to have rising unemployment. Currently we are around 2.5%. That’s not good enough. We need to speed up the Australian economy and that is going to come from structural reform of the Budget, and is going to come from investing in more productive infrastructure and getting on with that job. It is only going to come from the effort of all the Australian people. There is no silver bullet here that delivers stronger growth; it has to be a package of reforms. Okay no more?
REPORTER:
Canada right now is considering giving $200 million; we have had public requests from Sergio Marchionne of Chrysler…
TREASURER:
I heard about that.
REPORTER:
Writing in our paper about how he wants it. Did you guys have any conversations about the role of subsides in the auto sector and what’s happened here in terms of the three major manufacturers?
TREASURER:
Canada is different in that you have got the American market right on your doorstop. I think Canada- the Canadian Government is the largest shareholder in General Motors now I think, still is, or is one of the largest. These are matters for the Government that I am not going to give an opinion on from the other side of the world. What we have said is that, in Australia of course we wanted the motor vehicle industry to continue in Australia, but one of the challenges we had, was that our costs of production here, were far higher than Canada and our domestic market is much smaller than Canada. Australians effectively determined the future of the Australian motor vehicle manufacturing industry by not buying Australian made cars. They chose to buy cars that were made overseas and the market for Australian made cars fell dramatically. Therefore, they just did not have the volumes to justify their operations here in Australia. Unless you are going to mandate that, no amount of government subsidies is going to change that.
REPORTER:
Thank you Treasurer.
TREASURER:
Thank you.