28 June 2010

Interview with Leigh Sales, Lateline

Note

SUBJECTS: Sustainable population, leadership

LEIGH SALES:

One of the speakers at a population summit tomorrow will be the new Minister for Sustainable Population, Tony Burke, who's with me here tonight in our Sydney studio.

Good to have you with us.

TONY BURKE:

G'day Leigh.

SALES:

Why did your portfolio need a name change?

BURKE:

Well, certainly there is a significantly different view that Julia Gillard has to what Kevin Rudd's view was on the concept of big Australia. At the moment we're in the beginnings of a new portfolio which has never existed before in going through the community consultation.

Now, one of the parts of consultation is people want to know what your starting point is. Julia Gillard's starting point on these issues is very different to what had been said previously by Kevin Rudd. And it was important to make that difference absolutely clear, and I think the change in title does part of that.

SALES:

I'll come to the question of the difference shortly, but you're the Minister; did the idea for the change come from you?

BURKE:

It's something that I had spoken about, but I'm not going to go through each private conversation.

SALES:

And when did it dawn upon you that perhaps a different approach was needed, because as you said, you've been consulting. When did it become clear to you that perhaps the approach Labor was taking wasn't resonating out there?

BURKE:

Well, you can see examples in media interviews, but you'll find an identical situation in direct conversations whether they be opinion leaders or whether it be general community views, there was a view that the Government had a target of 36 million.

There was a view that the Government didn't understand that there are many parts of our cities in particular that are absolutely stretched in terms of current infrastructure and where people have been concerned about whether or not urban sprawl has any sort of limits.

SALES:

And when you were hearing that view when you've been out and about, how pervasive is it?

BURKE:

It has been a very strong view, a very strong view. I know, and it's been quoted back to me in interviews in the course of today, the number of times I've said, no, no, no, we don't have that target, the truth was community believed we did. And it's also true that Julia Gillard's view is very different to Kevin's and it's important to have a very clear change of it.

SALES:

So perhaps when people were hearing Minister for Population, what they were actually hearing was Minister for Population Growth?

BURKE:

That line was specifically put to me in a number of meetings.

SALES:

So, you've said a few times that you're actually changing policy, that this isn't just a rebranding, but Kevin Rudd was talking about sustainable population growth as well. In fact, let me quote him from 15 April: 'The key thing is to develop Australia's first ever sustainable population policy.

How is that any different to what Julia Rudd - Julia Gillard is suggesting, sorry [laughs]?

BURKE:

The strategy itself is something that I was given a 12-month timeframe to put together and that 12-month timeframe remains unchanged. Now with the community consultation, we'd set up the start of the process of the three panels to deal with that - a pro-growth group headed by Heather Ridout; a group focused on the sustainability issues headed by Bob Carr; and Graham Hugo heading a group that deals with urban design.

Now, that consultation and that process was underway, but the direction from Julia now is the work on sustainability is something that she doesn't want in any way sidelined and she wants a very strong focus on those issues.

SALES:

So does that mean with those panels, are you putting aside the ones then that say, headed by the business community that wants to see growth?

BURKE:

You would have found Julia on the weekend made specific reference to the importance of skilled migration.

SALES:

But are you disbanding that panel, then?

BURKE:

No. As I just said, Julia Gillard referred to the specific importance of skilled migration and the need for those areas where employers are crying out for workers, that we need to be able to do that. Now that's the work of the...

SALES:

But Kevin Rudd said that too.

BURKE:

...that's the work of that panel. But the starting point for the community engagement in terms of big Australia versus rejecting the concept of big Australia and having sustainability as a core focus is a different emphasis. There's certainly some extra work that no doubt we are going to have to do in working through some of those issues of what urban sprawl means in environmental terms.

There's some interesting work, for example, that they're doing in south-east Queensland where, as new housing estates are put in, work's being done to not only limit impact on native habitat, but also to have to do some rehabilitation work.

So there's different works that are happening - different jobs that are happening in a patchwork way around the country. We want to be able to bring some of that together.

SALES:

Well, this different emphasis, as you put it, as I mentioned a second ago, the peak business groups want growth because they see it as a driver towards prosperity. You've already had one bruising battle with business over the super profits tax. Are you ready to have another one over population growth?

BURKE:

Well, I think you've mischaracterised what Julia's said. The focus on skilled migration is a very specific acknowledgement of the fact that for a number of reasons, because of rapid growth in some sectors of the economy, or because of some underinvestment for a long time in training and education, we have some chronic skills shortages. That requires a skilled migration program to be able to meet those needs of business.

But we have to also take into account, do some sections of Australia have what - with my agriculture hat on - gets referred to as a carrying capacity? I think people started to deal with this for the first time when we hit some serious water shortages during the course of this drought; that not every part of Australia is going to be able to have some sort of unlimited, unconstrained growth. And certainly that concept of where do we have carrying capacity, where do you have to draw lines on endless urban sprawl, these are very big priorities for Julia Gillard.

SALES:

Well, the Whitlam Government embraced decentralisation famously through its Albury-Wodonga project. Is that the sort of thing that you're thinking of doing when you're talking about trying to look at places that can carry capacity? Could we see the Gillard Government look at a policy like that?

BURKE:

I'm wary of it being seen as a simple city-country divide. For example, you've had places like Goulburn that have had to look at trucking in water at different times and you've also had very serious skills shortages in places like Perth. So it's not a simple city-country divide.

But certainly, there are many regional areas that are desperate for growth.

Now, some of this might be possible - and this is some of the work we want to be able to model. To date we've always worked on the basis that you have to live near where you work. As broadband goes out throughout the nation, for some occupations, that's going to change. Exactly what that means in terms of when you only have to attend the central workplace once a fortnight or something like that for some jobs, what that means for urban design, what that means for where people live and how they preserve a new style of a way of life is something that we want to be able to work through in the strategy.

SALES:

When you're looking at those questions of urban design and associated issues - water and infrastructure transport, all the rest of it - don't you need some sort of target that you think is a sustainable population for Australia? Don't you need an actual number?

BURKE:

That might be the case, but the answer will differ for different parts of Australia. One of...

SALES:

But you still add them all up together and get an overall population for the country?

BURKE:

Look, that may well be the case. There may well be some areas where there's a need for more people but the infrastructure needs to be fixed before you'd look at it. There's some sensitive calls there, but...

SALES:

But is that what you're working towards with your policy?

BURKE:

With the strategy we want to be able to work through what we can measure and what policy levers we can use to be able to affect those outcomes. Now, the one thing that I really want...

SALES:

Sorry to cut you off. I just want to say before you move on - but doesn't all of that depend on what you say the number actually is, because how do you know what levers to pull and what levers to even use if you don't have a rough idea of how many people you're talking about?

BURKE:

Yeah, this is exactly what I was about to go to. What matters is the numbers on a regional basis. The starting point for debate, whether it was the Intergenerational Report or how these issues are being spoken about in Australia by politicians - not by local communities, but by politicians for years - has always been, let's look at the big national number.

Now, that has massively different implications for people in the Pilbara to what it has for people in Penrith. The starting point for all of this has to be: how can we get this down to a regional level? Now, if that ends up with a situation where you can add it up for a national number, you know, I'm not saying, you'd never do the addition. But the important thing is that it's actually targeted for the needs of local communities.

We had a whole group of mayors in Canberra a couple of weeks ago and I met with 40 to 50 of them, and the fascinating thing was just how different the views on population policy and strategy were in those different parts of the country.

SALES:

Won't you - that 36 million figure is a Treasury projection, it's not a target, it's a projection, as you've said many times before. If, under Julia Gillard, you don't want to be hurtling towards fulfilling that projection, aren't you going to have to take some steps such as pruning immigration?

I know you've said you'd protect skilled migration, but there's other areas in there that you could trim. Isn't that something you're going to have to look at?

BURKE:

These are issues that'll end up being worked through - I mean, people talk about natural growth and we have to remember as the intro story referred to, we've got natural growth in Australia no matter what and it's largely driven by ageing population. So, you know, that's there.

SALES:

That's fixed.

BURKE:

Yeah. So, certainly immigration is going to be one of the issues dealt with in the strategy. But we're also talking about environmental footprint, we're talking about urban design, and about infrastructure. It's a much broader pallet in front of us.

SALES:

Let's turn to the events about last week. What were you hearing in your electorate about Kevin Rudd?

BURKE:

Two things were coming through very strongly. One was people were questioning where we were at and what we were doing. Secondly, we were increasingly - I was increasingly receiving comments saying, we think the deputy might be better.

The question that I think you have to ask, and I notice - I saw it batting away on Q&A when I was outside. I think the question that you really need to ask at these moments is: would we be a better government? I took the view, very confidently, that the best government we could be would involve Julia Gillard as Prime Minister.

SALES:

Was that purely - you said people weren't sure, you know, what you were doing. Do you mean the substance of what you were doing, because that presumably won't change that much, because you've got basically the same frontbench? Or was it simply a problem of messaging, I suppose, under Kevin Rudd?

BURKE:

Look, when people tell you they don't know, they don't necessarily analyse why it is that they don't know. But the most important thing for me was that simple question of would we be a better government. I believed we were a good government but I believed that we would be a better government. In those situations the responsible thing to do is to put the best possible government to the Australian people.

SALES:

Prime ministers often - former prime ministers often play pretty big roles in election campaigns, particularly at campaign launches. How is Labor going to use Kevin Rudd in its election campaign?

BURKE:

I've got to say, I think the media release that Kevin put out today made clear that Kevin, you know, is obviously disappointed about how things have transpired, but is absolutely wanting to help in whatever way he's able to.

SALES:

[Interrupts] Should he be front and centre at your campaign launch?

BURKE:

Oh, I don't think I should be making calls on his behalf, but I do think he deserves, you know, a situation where people like myself do pay credit to the way he's been handling it.

SALES:

Would you be happy to have him come down to your seat with you and do a bit of doorknocking and a bit of campaigning alongside you?

BURKE:

One of the problems with my seat at the moment is mixing an urban seat with being the frontbencher for agriculture. Sadly, you know, before I can start inviting other people to be in my seat with me during the course of the campaign, I'll be struggling to get there as much as I'd want to myself.

SALES:

But would you be happy to have Kevin Rudd there alongside you?

BURKE:

Oh, I have no objection to it, but I don't want to start to create an anticipation where I'm trying to work out how often I'll be able to be there for those few weeks.

SALES:

Tony Burke, well thank you for making time to come in with us tonight, another evening out of your own seat. But thank you very much.

BURKE:

Good to be here.