PRESENTER:
Good afternoon to the Treasurer Joe Hockey. Hi Joe.
TREASURER:
G’day, Chris.
PRESENTER:
Now, in the spirit of reciprocal singing would you like to return a tune for Clive Palmer?
TREASURER:
No.
PRESENTER:
I thought not.
TREASURER:
I know what my core skills are and singing is not one of them I can assure you.
PRESENTER:
They’re not his either by the sound of it, anyway, I want to start our chat this afternoon talking about two animals. How did you ever get through the interview you did yesterday with David Speers with, I think they call it, a murder of crows stealing the show?
A CUT OF SPEERS’ INTERVIEW:
TREASURER: …blocking all the things we are trying to do; the Carbon Tax, the Mining Tax, PBS co-payments, everything else, the problem for the Labor Party is, they’re just not credible. They’re not offering an alternative.
PRESENTER:
The birds don’t like it either.
TREASURER:
They’re probably Greens.
PRESENTER:
Whose carcass were they hovering over?
TREASURER:
They weren’t vultures!
PRESENTER:
Just crows.
TREASURER:
Yesterday was a bit of a difficult day doing interviews. I had constant feedback on my AM interview with Chris Uhlmann and sat down to do an interview with David Speers and the birds were going nuts and all the journalists, you know, the cameras started hovering around us, in the middle of the interview. So, you’ve got to be made of stern stuff for this job.
PRESENTER:
You do; you also portrayed, this is to the second animal I wanted to refer to in our interview, you also portrayed the behaviour of Tony Bourke as being akin to a puppy you bought before Christmas:
AUDIO FROM QUESTION TIME:
TREASURER:
The member for Watson is like this little dog that I got for the family before Christmas. I keep saying, in training the dog, 'Don't run out on the street into the traffic.' That is what the member for Watson keeps doing—he keeps going out into the traffic and then we have to pull him back and point out that in fact it’s very dangerous for him to do that, because he gets his numbers wrong. Just as he got his numbers wrong on every single occasion in the past, he keeps doing it again. So my best advice is; stay off the road.
PRESENTER:
You were on fire, you and Barnaby Joyce yesterday.
TREASURER:
Well, I mean, Tony Bourke just keep deluding himself that there was no Budget problem. We point out that he is factually wrong and that the Labor party did leave a mess and then he goes quiet for a while and then he goes back out on the road and says ‘well, you know, there’s no problem.’ We’ve got a new little puppy and I’m trying to prevent it from going out onto the road. You know, dogs these days, they’re made in test-tubes I think. Whereas if you had an old Blue Heeler he’d soon learn the lesson, you know, when he can’t bite the tyre.
PRESENTER:
Has the puppy got a name, it’s not called Tony?
TREASURER:
It’s called Prince. It’s a Cavoodle.
PRESENTER:
Yeah, very good. You’ve had a pretty good week in terms of economic data. The economic growth data was very good. It looked stronger than anticipated, but I should point out, as you did as well, that it doesn’t cover that period during which you delivered the Budget, which may show up a stall in confidence and less activity than may have been expected. You’ve also got a weakening in exports. You have got some challenging data coming down probably in three months’ time.
TREASURER:
Well, that may be the case, but look, we’ve got strong foundations and the key thing is, I mean, you’ll remember Chris, late last year, early this year, Bill Shorten was saying: ‘look we’ve got an Armageddon in jobs at the moment, jobs going everywhere, SPC and Holden and Ford’. The fact is that in the first four months of this year 106,000 new jobs were created in Australia, new additional jobs, and 79,000 were full time, which is a terrific number.
PRESENTER:
But can you continue that momentum?
TREASURER:
Well, I’m hopeful that we can. You know, we were expecting 6.25% unemployment in Australia, which is a legacy we were left. The unemployment numbers that come out in the next few days will be a very important indicator of whether we are able to avoid getting to that level, I mean it’s currently sitting at around 5.8% but I’m working damn hard to make sure that we do everything we can to have an economic environment where job security is paramount.
PRESENTER:
But this is not going to help either; the $18.70 rise in the minimum wage this week.
TREASURER:
Well in US dollar terms we have the highest minimum wage in the world. Only about 2% of Australians are on the minimum wage and many of those people actually don’t stay there long. It’s usually a first job or a temporary job for many people.
PRESENTER:
And I don’t know what you did when you had your first job, but I remember my first job. They gave me money for doing it and I thought, ‘you get paid for this stuff do you?’ I never ever asked what I was getting in my first pay packet because I was so thrilled to be working. So thrilled to be doing a job. Yet you’ve got welfare groups screaming out loud saying that our minimum wage is nowhere near where it should be. They’re even screaming about the $18.70 rise.
TREASURER:
Well, there is no doubt that the higher the minimum wage the more reluctant an employer is to take someone on board, certainly a first employee in a small business.
PRESENTER:
And Fair Work and the Fair Work Commission acknowledge that penalty rates in particular were stopping businesses opening on Sunday and therefore thwarting jobs.
TREASURER:
Well, there’s no doubt about that. Over the Christmas period, I mean, like many other Australians you head to the coast or you go on holidays over January or over Easter and you can see the transition in the fact that the number of shops, coffee shops or even in some cases, pubs, that don’t open on a weekend or don’t open late because of penalty rates. You know, that’s something we said we’re not touching and we’ll deal with that in the lead up to the next election and we’ll go to the next election with a proposal for the Australian people about how to ensure we have a fair workplace, but also one that helps to create more jobs and better paying jobs.
PRESENTER:
Graham Richardson writes today: ‘in short, Abbott and Hockey never told anyone that to make Australia financially healthy again, living standards had to drop’. Are people reacting up in arms against the Budget because they feel deceived?
TREASURER:
Well, no. I think Graham’s wrong if he said that. I haven’t read his article, but we certainly don’t want to see a drop in living standards. In fact, everything we are doing is about trying to maintain and if possible improve living standards, and why? Well, because if the Government is borrowing money, and we borrow in competition with every small business and every home borrower out there, we’re in the same market borrowing money as they are and at the end of the day, 70% of the money we borrow comes from people living overseas. So when we pay a billion dollars a month in interest on Government debt, $700 million, 70% of it, goes to people living overseas. Now, there’s only so much money that is available. And if you’re competing with the Government in Canberra to borrow money, at some point it is going to become much more expensive for you or it’s harder to get money. So what we’ve got to do is start living within our means as a Government, and if we do that, then our call on taxes and our call on credit is going to be less. Now, the best thing you can do to give people prosperity is to have smaller Government and bigger community. And I am not sure Graham gets that, but the fact is we have been warning about this for years.
PRESENTER:
But have you said enough about this? What I’m trying to get to here, along the same lines as what Graham has written today, did you sell, to the public, prior to the Budget, the idea that we are in deep ka ka, and that yes, 70% of the money we borrow is coming from overseas, did you sell that hard enough? Or maybe you did sell it hard enough, and the Australian people have just got used to getting handouts and they’re a little bit more selfish nowadays? One of them has to be right.
TREASURER:
Yeah, well it’s probably both. I mean, in one sense, it’s not a surprise, I mean, I’ve been saying for more than two years that we’ve come to the end of the age of entitlement and Tony Abbott and myself and the entire Coalition team went to the last election promising a number of things. Number one, we said we’d stop the boats, and we’ve done that. Number two, we said we’d get rid of the Carbon and Mining Taxes, well you know, we’re trying to do that; Labor’s blocking us. Number three, we said we’d build the infrastructure of the 21st century, and we’re doing that, WestConnex and Badgerys and all of those things are being rolled out. But number four, we said we’d fix the Budget, and we talked a lot about Government debt at the last election and we’ve talked about it for years.
PRESENTER:
So if you did sell it well enough it means that the public are a little more selfish than what we thought.
TREASURER:
Oh no, I don’t think the public is selfish, but there has been a culture in Australia for the last 10 to 15 years that at Budget time, the Government hands out things to people. What’s in it for me? And it’s either tax cuts or $900 cheques or new school halls or pink batts or whatever it is; increases in family payments and so on. And you know, during the Howard years that was based on income that came into the Government. The Government was getting more income than it originally expected therefore it was giving more back to the people in tax cuts and increases in payments. But then Labor came in and instead of saying, ‘Well, you know, we can’t afford to do this anymore, they spend more; but they borrowed it. They didn’t do it off the revenue, they did it off borrowings.
PRESENTER:
It’s a mental culture that you’re trying to change here and it’s tougher than you thought probably, which is why the masses are still upset.
TREASURER:
Well, it is. It is hard to change a culture. You can’t do it in a nanosecond in history. The reduction in Government expenditure in our Budget is less than previous Budgets believe it or not. I mean it was certainly less than Costello in 1996 and a number of Keating’s Budgets as well, but, the fact is they were all based on previous Budgets that had also reduced expenditure, whereas in this case, I’ve had Government handouts for years. Now it had to come to an end and we always said it would. The payback for the $900 cheques would have to come sometime down the track. Well we’re at that point.
PRESENTER:
I want to ask you about what the welfare groups have been quoted as saying today. I also want to ask you about how you’re going to get some of this stuff through the Senate and I also want to ask you one question about the Wild Duck Restaurant. Can I just take a quick break, Treasurer?
TREASURER:
Sure, of course.
PRESENTER:
If that’s OK I’ll take a quick break.
TREASURER:
We’ve all got to earn money.
PRESENTER:
Exactly, especially 2GB, coming first doesn’t come that easy you see.
[Break]
PRESENTER:
I want to ask you about these welfare groups. Charities say the changes to welfare access will push the problem of poverty and homelessness from the domain of Government onto charities. In fact, they identified 550,000 that will end up coming to charities for help. What do you do about that? Will you call a summit with charities to forge some kind of strategy to handle that or will you just leave the charities to pick up the mess.
TREASURER:
Oh no, I don’t think there will be a mess. We’ve been very clear, that for under 30s we expect them to earn or learn, but we have built an enormous number of safety nets under that program including, where necessary, emergency relief and we can provide additional money to non-government organisations. There is already a significant amount of money that goes to them for this sort of work. We hope that the emergency relief will never be used. We are making sure the safety net is there. We have got wage subsidies.
PRESENTER:
But they can’t all be wrong, Joe, these people have got together, the Brotherhood of St Lawrence, four other bodies and they’ve been part of the same story. I think I saw the story in The Age this morning in Melbourne, they’re all saying the same thing.
TREASURER:
Well, that’s why we’ve appropriated money, but, it is hopefully not going to be used. It wasn’t used when the previous Government allocated additional money, we believe, we genuinely believe, Chris, that if you’re under the age of 30 and you have the capacity to work, that we need you to work and we’ve got to help you find that work. We provide an enormous number of subsidies for education for young people. We’ll have Work for the Dole programs, there are a range of things that we’ll put in place including helping them to get their CVs together and so on. But they have to accept some personal responsibility for their lives, and the worst thing that can happen is that they get stuck on welfare straight out of school and they never get out of it.
PRESENTER:
Your big stumbling block through all of this will be what the Senate decides to do; the newly configured Senate and Clive ‘banana split’ Palmer standing the way. I get the feeling that he’s out for revenge on Tony Abbott, so he’s going to take a while of convincing. Are you prepared today to nominate aspects of your Budget that you’re prepared to negotiate on?
TREASURER:
PRESENTER:
None?
TREASURER:
No, they’re two different things. You know, we have an obligation to put down what we think is the best, most sensible policy to fix the mess and to lay the foundations for future growth. Now, everything we have done in the Budget is about asking people to contribute so that we can build something out of it. So, in health we’ve got a co-contribution on Medicare so we can build a medical research fund that will fund the research that will find the cures for Alzheimer’s and dementia and diabetes type 1 and so on. Because only through finding those cures are we going to reduce the long term costs of healthcare.
PRESENTER:
TREASURER:
And the same in higher education. We’re asking students to contribute now so they have better quality degrees and better universities and better job opportunities in the future. Everything we’re doing is focused on the future and if we make a small contribution now, that’s what it’s about. So when people say, ‘what are you going to compromise on?’, I’d say, ‘I don’t want to compromise on anything’, but we are also trying to be realistic and we hope that others would be realistic. Ultimately, you know, Bob Hawke said it during the week and it was quite profound and John Howard as well, when they both appeared at the Press Club, they both said that ‘you need an opposition that is prepared to be bi-partisan’, and unfortunately the Labor Party is not being bi-partisan in any sense at the moment. And that’s going to rebound on them ultimately.
PRESENTER:
Yeah, it’s interesting, you’ve got a barrier and a half to face. Especially on days like yesterday, where Barnaby Joyce belittles a number of them and then you’re calling, you know, Tony Bourke, similar to your dog at home. I just wonder whether there is any goodwill to be forged between you and Labor at all.
TREASURER:
There is; part of that is the banter of Parliament. Look, we’re always prepared to discuss things, what happened was, for example, in relation to the deficit levy, Bill Shorten said he was implacably opposed to it. He was, you know, going to oppose it no matter what, then he changed his mind, now he’s supporting it.
PRESENTER:
Good point.
TREASURER:
So, I mean, I don’t think they know what they believe in. That’s part of the difficulty for us. It seems as though our political opponents seem to have different policy positions every day. So really what’s important is that we are consistent and predictable with our policies; which we are. And we put them up to the Parliament and if the Parliament rejects them then we have got lots of different options, but the main focus has to be on laying down the policies that are in the best interest of the nation. If anyone else has a better policy, put it up.
PRESENTER:
Put it up. Now I want to talk just very briefly about this Wild Duck Restaurant meeting between Malcolm Turnbull and Clive Palmer, let’s leave Malcolm out of it, that’s been covered in full over the past week and a half.
TREASURER:
You’re not wrong.
PRESENTER:
Martin Parkinson turned up to this meeting. You, I presume, had no idea that he was having dinner with Malcolm Turnbull and Clive Palmer. Would you have liked to have known?
TREASURER:
Oh look, it was a coincidence, I mean I spoke to the Secretary of the Treasury afterwards and he pointed out that it was just a coincidence and that was that.
PRESENTER:
Did you pull him in and ask him ‘what were you doing there?’
TREASURER:
I asked him in passing, and he just said that it was a coincidence and he explained that at Senate Estimates, look I know he’s been previously, well, he is a friend of Malcolm Turnbull’s, has been for a few years. I have no problems with that. You know, there are other public servants that I’ve known for years as well. That’s just the way it is, Canberra is a small town.
PRESENTER:
Will you, Joe Hockey, Treasurer, be setting up a meeting, whether it is at the Wild Duck or, you know, the Thai Fresh Inn, or whatever…
TREASURER:
I can’t afford the Wild Duck.
PRESENTER:
…with Clive Palmer, will you personally be sitting down with Clive Palmer at any stage in the future to discuss these Budget policies?
TREASURER:
Well, Chris, we’re prepared to sit down with anyone.
PRESENTER:
Well, he’s got to ask you? Or you’re going to ask him?
TREASURER:
No, no, we’ve offered to have chats and I’ve spoken to him a few times about different things. We’re not being so head strong that we’re saying that we won’t speak to anyone. We’re saying that we won’t speak to anyone, we’re prepared to, in the national interest, you do what you can to get the best policy through and we’re prepared to do that. But, there’s got to be goodwill on all sides and there is certainly goodwill on our side. The bottom line is our policies are going to build a stronger economy.
PRESENTER:
But how do you deal with Clive Palmer when he knows nothing about Tony Abbott’s Paid Parental Leave Scheme, because he made a link between Peta Credlin and the Paid Parental Leave Scheme and it’s got nothing to do with Peta Credlin, nothing to do whatsoever, so if you’re dealing with a dummy like Clive Palmer, what hope do you have of getting anything through him?
TREASURER:
Well, you’ve just got to work through the issues.
PRESENTER:
Has he got such a grudge against Tony Abbott, he’s being as obstinate as he possibly can?
TREASURER:
Chris, you’re asking me to be a commentator, I couldn’t be a commentator in that regard, I’m just doing my job, everyone else should just do their job.
PRESENTER:
Do you have respect for him?
TREASURER:
Look, my views about Clive Palmer don’t matter. What matters is…
PRESENTER:
We’d like to know.
TREASURER:
Oh, well, you know, what I’m focused on is, I’m focused on building an economy that Australians can be proud of. I’m focused on jobs for my children, I’m focused on jobs and job security for everyday Australians.
PRESENTER:
But you’ve got to start focusing on what Clive Palmer thinks about stuff as well.
TREASURER:
We will do that, but ultimately, what everyone needs to get back to is focusing on policy, there has been a lot of political banter, a lot of commentary in the last few weeks about politics, about who knew what and process and who wants what job and so on. I would urge everyone to focus on the policies that would build a stronger Australia, a stronger economy, and that’s exactly what I want to do.
PRESENTER:
But you understand why the masses are up in arms, because Sydney is the fourth most expensive city in the world. You talk to people at barbeques and they say, ‘have you looked at my electricity bill, Smitty?’ They say, ‘I don’t need any more taxes placed on my fuel’. You know council rates have just gone up 4%. There are 18 councils, I think, that have just got permission to take them above the rate pegging. How do you sell more pain to people when they’re feeling pain already?
TREASURER:
I’m glad you raise that because it’s a reminder that we’re trying to get rid of the Carbon Tax, which is $550 each year on people’s bills. And it’s going up again on the 1st of July. And the Labor Party, which said they were going to terminate the Carbon Tax, are now doing everything they can to prevent us from getting rid of the Carbon Tax. We’ll hopefully get it through in early July, I mean, Clive Palmer said he’s going to support the repeal of the Carbon Tax; great! That’s one step forward in reducing household bills. And overall, as a result of this Budget, we collect less tax than would have been collected if Labor were re-elected. I mean, Tony Abbott and myself, we made commitments on tax that you get less tax under a Coalition than you get under Labor and we’re delivering it as the Budget papers indicate; but that’s been lost a bit in some of the political smoke over the last few weeks.
PRESENTER:
There were so many tangents, so many tangents, I want to just get to two callers, and I know I’ve only got two more minutes with you and I do apologise to my listeners, because I did indicate to them that they’d have a chance to ask you questions, they will, but I’ve only got time right now for two. Paul, go right ahead, the Treasurer is listening.
PAUL (CALLER):
Great, hi Joe, doing a good job. Just have a quick question for you. When it comes to welfare why can’t we do it like the rest of the world where they get a certain period of time that they are allowed welfare from the Government and then that’s it, it’s up to you to find a job, why do we keep on tolerating on paying out so much money on welfare?
PRESENTER:
Joe Hockey, this has been one of my arguments over dole payments. That we should have a sliding scale, where when someone loses a job and they’re unemployed, give them a heap of money, support them as much as we possibly can, in six months’ time drop that money by half and have a sliding scale so they know they can’t keep on it forever.
TREASURER:
Well, in a sense, we’re doing that for the under 30s. That is, we’re giving them, basically, you can’t immediately claim Newstart, but you get a credit for every month that you have, every year that you’ve worked you get a month’s credit. So it’s a component of what you’re talking about.
PRESENTER:
A small component.
TREASURER:
A small component, and in relation to family payments, well obviously, family payments finish when your children reach a certain age as well. But, our system is a bit different to others and you know, we have a; Australia has a very expansive welfare system. I think for too long we focused on creating equality of outcomes rather than equality of opportunity, and the welfare system has become more of a cargo net than a safety net.
PRESENTER:
Which is why Paul is saying what he’s saying. How about we start tapering it off?
TREASURER:
I totally understand that, but I think that the Australian people want to be a part of the discussion about how we can provide even more support for the most vulnerable in the community, and the National Disability Insurance Scheme is an example of how you can do that, but at the same time not have such a wide net that you’ve got a vast percentage of the population that is relying on some form of payment from the Government. I mean, ultimately, you know, the welfare we receive, or people receive is going to come out of someone else’s pocket.
PRESENTER:
Paul had a supplementary question, it was, could we save money by abolishing state Governments, after what Bob Hawke mentioned earlier this week?
TREASURER:
Well, you know, in New South Wales, everyone’s always prepared to abolish the State Government because Sydney believes it runs the country to some degree, and you know, Australia is very much at the forefront of Sydney’s mind, whereas, if you go to Western Australia and say we want to abolish Western Australia or go to Queensland and say we want to abolish Queensland or Tasmania, you don’t get a very good reception.
PRESENTER:
I doubt whether you have that power. And one final question from Geoff on line one, go ahead Geoff.
GEOFF (CALLER):
Thanks mate, Government is destroying this country, it’s growing too fast, you’re not keeping your promise to reduce Government, you’re expanding it with the tax. This National Disability Scheme for example, could have been done by charities. You’re expanding and you’re not honouring your promise and I’m really disappointed by that.
TREASURER:
Well, don’t be disappointed, Geoff, because I announced on Budget Night, that we’re reducing the public service by 16,500 over three years. We’ve already decided to abolish 230 bureaucratic programs. When we got in, no one could actually tell us exactly how many Government bodies, boards, committees and councils existed, can you believe that? So far we have abolished 70 of over 900, but…
PRESENTER:
There are some embassies and consulates that could do with selling too.
TREASURER:
Well, it is a little difficult in relation to our offshore activities, because, I mean, the world is much smaller now. I know that Julie Bishop has looked at shared facilities with other countries, but Australians, you know, when you and I were growing up, Chris, I mean, there was pretty limited travel and ever since we’ve seen the opening up of China and opening up of Eastern Europe and certainly more Australians are travelling through Africa and South America so, we do, they have different roles now, but the consular activity is pretty important in various remote places.
PRESENTER:
You’ve been more than generous with more than 30 minutes of your time this afternoon.
TREASURER:
No, I appreciate the opportunity, Chris, I mean, it’s very good of you to give me the chance to speak directly to the Australian people, thank you.
PRESENTER:
That’s OK, and go the Wallabies on Saturday Night against the French.
TREASURER:
I can’t wait actually, although I thought he was bit conservative with the side, I mean I would have had Bill on the run on team, I must say.
PRESENTER:
As long as Israel Folau is there mate, that’s all we need.
TREASURER:
How good is he?
PRESENTER:
He’s unbelievable.
TREASURER:
What an incredible athlete.
PRESENTER:
Have a good weekend.
TREASURER:
Thanks a lot, Chris.
PRESENTER:
Thank you for that.