RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
And joining me in the studio is Mark Dreyfus, he is the Shadow Attorney-General and the member for the seat of Isaacs. Mark welcome.
MARK DREYFUS:
Hello Raf, good to be with you.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
And joining me from Frankston from his electorate, I think from Frankston, yes Bruce
Billson the Minister for Small Business. Bruce Billson good afternoon.
BRUCE BILLSON:
Good afternoon to you Raf, Mark and your listeners.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
Ah look I want to have a little listen to the education Minister Christopher Pyne. It’s very refreshing to see Government front benchers being freely available to the media. I think Christopher Pyne has done about eight interviews in a day and a half. He appeared to my mind to be blaming the journalists for the idea that the Coalition has broken an election promise. He spoke to Adelaide ABC radio this morning.
ABC ADELAIDE HOST:
You are only guaranteeing effectively the Gonski model for one year, that’s 2014. And then you say that the model is going to revert to the Howard model. You weren’t saying that during the election campaign. There’s no mention of the Howard model.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE:
But im not saying that now Matthew. I’ve never said that we would be reverting to the
Howard model so I don’t know where you’ve got that idea from.
ABC ADELAIDE HOST:
Well it’s on the front page of the Fin Review.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE:
Well the Fin Review is lying.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
There you go, make of that what you will. Christopher Pyne did answer my questions yesterday, the Education Minister. Bruce Billson I will start with you. Um, is it a broken election promise or not? My reading of all the quotes before and after the election is four years, no school being worse off, same funding model. Is that right or wrong?
BRUCE BILLSON:
Well it’s an attempt to fix up a dogs breakfast. We’ve found that the proposition that was being advocated by the previous Government wasn’t actually supported by a budget commitment. The pre- election fiscal outlook which is a long way of saying the bureaucrats effort of what the budget actually looks like in the lead up to the election Raf, actually didn’t have money committed for a number of states and now we’re left with a vast variety of arrangements that differ from state to state – have different burdens and obligations on different states. Have different methods of indexation and it’s surrounded by confusion. So what’s needed now is to recognise that the funding that labor inferred that it had for these changes wasn’t actually provided in full in the budget - but $1.2 billion short – and now there’s a need to put some more money in and provide some predictability. So that’s what’s actually going on and its quite a difficult time to turn the dogs breakfast into something meaningful, predictable that supports our students and our schools for the years into the future.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
I’m not sure that clarifies for me the off quoted quote from Christopher Pyne. This is what he said in August. ‘You can vote liberal or labor and you will get exactly the same amount of funding for your school.” That was in the context of course with the Coalition saying they were going to do the same thing for four years. So is each school going to get the same amount of money for four years?
BRUCE BILLSON:
Well what will happen is the same amount of money that was budgeted under labor will be carried forward. Some of the commentary has revealed Raf there are a number of school jurisdictions that don’t actually know what the precise wash out would be for individual schools. There have been broad agreements in some cases. The only jurisdiction where the detailed model has been rolled out in specific numbers have been presented is in New South Wales, where some schools have seen an advantage under these changes and about 200 have seen a reduction in the resources that are available. So that still had to be worked through. We saw that in New South Wales the SRS or the Student Resource Standard was discounted and that the requirement for indexation was different than a discounted arrangement in Tasmania which was less than the requirement on Victoria. I mean, it’s all over the place and that’s
essentially the problem with what’s supposed to be a national funding model. It’s different all over the place.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
So Minister I will get to Mark Dreyfus in a moment but. Um. There’s not really that many people outside of the Government who agree with what you’re saying. There are many people who are generally very supportive of your side of politics and there are two Coalition governments in Victoria and NSW who say you’re breaking an election promise. So is everybody getting it wrong?
BRUCE BILLSON:
No I think what’s happened is in the lead up to the election, the labor government made much of a funding model that turned out to be applied very differently in different states and for different school systems. When the pre-election fiscal outlook or the budget update that the bureaucrats do away from any fiddling or any influence that ministers may have there was $1.2 billion less than was needed to actually implement what labor was saying so that’s the first obstacle that we have run into. That what labor was actually telling the electorate wasn’t actually committed in funding and now there’s a need to push on with funding negotiations that recognise three states didn’t have any agreement to begin with. Other states had broad heads of agreement and now there’s a need to put $230 million extra, above what the previous labor government had allocated to provide school systems some predictability for the year ahead.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
Mark Dreyfus it is the case, from my understanding of Bill Shorten’s words yesterday, he didn’t dispute that money was removed from the forward estimates.
MARK DREYFUS:
There wasn’t an agreement reached before the election with Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory. That was known before the election. All of this, the pre-election final outlook, known before the election, spoken about by Joe Hockey. What we’ve got here is massive obfuscation from Bruce, disgraceful deliberate confusion being created by Christopher Pyne, to be contrasted with what is in fact a massive broken promise. Before the election Christopher Pyne talked about a unity ticket. I didn’t talk about a unity ticket. Christopher Pyne said vote labor or liberal you get the same amount of funding for your school …..
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
But the overall amount of funding is the same.
MARK DREYFUS:
No for your school.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
But the overall amount of funding is the same and not every school knew how much money they were going to receive.
MARK DREYFUS:
But what Christopher Pyne and Tony Abbott were saying before the election was “your schools going to get the same amount of money.” And we have signed agreements with the Liberal government of Victoria. We have a signed agreement with the Liberal government in NSW. We have signed agreements with the governments of South Australia and Tasmania and the ACT. And it appears that Christopher Pyne is walking away. He’s ripping up those agreements and that’s why the Premier of NSW, you don’t have to take it from me, you can take it from Barry O’Farrell, he’s so upset. And why the liberal government in Victoria is so upset with this Abbott Government because what they promised they’d be before the election is not what they’re delivering and…
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
Regardless of the semantics, most of the extra cash came in the last two years of the six years. The deals that you made when you were in government with the States, that Kevin Rudd especially signed with Denis Napthine here in Victoria. Most of the extra cash was backloaded in the fifth and sixth year. Now the forward estimates only go over four years. They’re usually reasonably unreliable. That was a really easy promise to make wasn’t it.
MARK DREYFUS:
But it’s about giving a trajectory of funding and the most important thing about this Raf, and this is the great disappointment. This is the first time Australia has got a truly needs based funding system applying across all sectors. And what’s disappointing is that Tony Abbott is walking away from that and we don’t know what Christopher Pyne is proposing. We don’t know what Tony Abbott is proposing. Far from creating certainty, they’ve created a huge amount of uncertainty and we need to know now what are they going to replace this carefully worked out system with. Is there going to be funding loadings for disability? Is there going to be a loading for kids with learning difficulties? Is there going to be a loading as there is under our system for remote and regional schools?
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
Look 1300222774 you can put your own questions or maybe you just want to pass judgement over Mark Dreyfus and Bruce Billson. 1300222774. Bruce Billson I just want to play you a small part, just 14 seconds of Victoria’s Education Minister Martin Dixon. We heard this after the 3pm news. He pretty much wants you to stick to that six year agreement.
MARK DIXON (PLAYBACK):
I’ll be going in there defending Victoria’s interests, standing up for Victoria because as I said we’ve got this contract that we signed with the Commonwealth and we’d like to see that through. We’re prepared to fulfill our commitment. We’d hope the Commonwealth do theirs.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
You’ve got a signed contract Bruce Billson and regardless what you say is the condition that the budget left you in. Don’t you have to honour agreements that are signed and agreed?
BRUCE BILLSON:
Well that’s always the aim Raf. I think what you just heard Mark saying was essentially what the Abbott Government is doing is implementing where things were left by the previous government.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
It doesn’t sound like a Government that says what it means and means what it says. The no surprises government. All those sorts of words from Tony Abbott now I don’t know which promises to believe. I mean, sometimes there are promises you can fulfill and other times you can’t because of labor. How do I know before the election?
BRUCE BILLSON:
Well here is a classic example of a shambles being left to an incoming Government and now labor trying to make much of the mess that it’s left behind when it left office. I heard Martin Dixon’s interview as well and I share his ambition to do what’s best for Victoria and for Victorian students cause that’s part of my role as well. But what we also need to recognise is this is supposed to be, as Mark described, some revolutionary new arrangement of funding schools. Yet on Friday when the Education Ministers sit down and talk about how to move this challenging issue forward with Christopher Pyne, Martin Dixon the Victorian Education Minister will find that the deal that he had discussions with, with the previous Government, is different.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
None of that tells me which promise I’m supposed to believe. I want to leave aside the commentary on labor’s budgetary management. We can actually assume that the election was in some ways a verdict on labor’s management of the budget. I want to park that. How on earth do we know, as voters, which promise to believe? Because it sounds very much like core promise, non-core promise.
BRUCE BILLSON:
Well I wouldn’t have thought so. The promise was very clear that we would carry forward the funding arrangements that labor had entered into in terms of the quantum of funding and that’s exactly what we are doing.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
I think you’re verballing your Education Minister who said on 17 November ‘I said we would keep the new school funding model over the next four years.’ He said it twice on Sky.
BRUCE BILLSON:
Yeah Raf, I’m not sure anyone would suggest anyone necessarily verbal’s Christopher Pyne. But what we’ve got, is the funding arrangements, the package, the quantum of money that’s been available for school funding is being carried forward. The incoming government is actually outperforming the previous labor government by adding another $230 million, recognising that there had been no agreement entered into with Queensland, Northern Territory or Western Australia. In other states there had been a general memorandum that had been worked up but no detail in terms of how that would be implemented. Even in the area of the independent schools Raf where Mr Shorten was boasting how that was all done and settled and sorted. I’ve had independent schools contact me saying “we don’t know
what’s supposedly done and sorted”. So this is a shambolic arrangement that’s been left in place that an incoming government has to deal with and turn into a meaningful, predictable funding model so school
communities can get on educating kids so they can achieve their best for the future.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
I will, I know Mark Dreyfus is dying to have a response. We’ve got callers as well. I want to briefly pause and bring you a traffic update. 1300 222 7774 is the phone number. Cathy has your traffic details.
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RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
Mark Dreyfus, Shadow Attorney General and Bruce Billson, Minister for Small Business with us. Let’s go to a few calls. Alan has called from Bendigo. Hi there Alan.
ALAN:
Yeah good morning Raf. Ah good afternoon Raf. Look I think a lot of this gets bogged down and what’s not being spoken is that there’s a fair bit of ideology going on here. We’re not talking about…
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
Great we love ideology in politics. What are we not talking about? What are we not talking about?
ALAN:
Well one of the questions to ask would what be the definition of the “needs based funding?” That’s one of the big questions that needs to be answered. And I think it’s fairly valid that the now Government have said “look in terms of the funding that which was to be set aside by the previous labor government we would honour.” Then they’ve gone in and found, oh oh, they actually slipped a billion and a half out of that. So there’s questions around that. But largely it is the ideology- the way in which the money is handed out and the level of bureaucracy that overarches.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
So Alan can I just clarify. Are you saying that there was too much ideology in labor’s funding model and the Coalition needs to sort it out.
ALAN:
Absolutely too much and I think you’d find…
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
Can I just…Look I want to get a comment from both of them Alan. So can you give me an example or you know what brand of ideology do you say was infecting labor’s funding model?
ALAN:
Well it’s this question of needs based funding. What does that mean? Where they are saying there’s an extra fee paid for a person with a particular disability or learning difficulty or where they might….
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
So are you saying that’s the wrong thing to do?
ALAN:
Ah well no it’s the way in which it’s done and the two sides will have a very different definition of what a need, what a fair and reasonable need is and the extent to which the Government is able to fund the need. I can create a need a mile long for you, but it may not be practical to fund it. And it will boil down to a lot of that stuff in the model and I think when you find Christopher Pyne comes out, I don’t think he’s any dill and I think he’ll have pretty clear directions on which to base it on.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
Okay let me put that to Mark Dreyfus Alan. Thank you. There’s too much ideology in your funding model Mark.
MARK DREYFUS:
Oh I think that would come as a surprise to David Gonski and all of the people that worked on the committee. I think that would come as a surprise to the Victorian Government or the NSW Government who have signed up to this model. But if I can summarise it and just say that there is an assessment made of the number of kids with a disability in a particular school, the number of indigenous kids, the number of kids with learning difficulties….
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
But you don’t know that the Coalition’s not going to end up with a similar criteria.
MARK DREYFUS:
But that’s precisely it Raf and Alan we’ve got a real problem here that we’ve got a government that’s signed up to give four years on what they call the unity ticket. The same school funding model, providing certainty for all of Australia’s education system and now Christopher Pyne said only for one year and with no idea what he is going to replace it with. It’s very distressing.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
Bruce Billson I will give you a chance to respond in a minute. I think Simon from Vermont
South has a question for you. Hi Simon.
SIMON:
Hi Raf and good afternoon Minister. Oh and Shadow Minister. Raf my difficulty is, is that Julia Gillard as Prime Minister said “political circumstances have changed. A promise that I thought I would be able to keep I have changed.” Tony Abbott is now saying financial circumstances have changed. This is a promise we can’t honour. Can I just ask the Liberal Minister why couldn’t Tony Abbott be gracious enough to grant Julia Gillard that same flexibility now that the circumstances have changed?
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
Bruce Billson
BRUCE BILLSON:
Well a couple of things. Our election commitments were clear that we would maintain the aggregate of funding and then we would also try and simplify the model and that was the issue that Alan touched on earlier Raf. What we are aiming to do is do simply that and in addition to that, in addition to fulfilling those undertakings we’ve put in an additional $230 million…
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
Sure and I understand that Minster but if you could address the principle please.
BRUCE BILLSON:
I’m trying to answer the question as well as I can.
SIMON:
All I’m saying is Julia changed her mind. Tony does. He attacked. He said kick her out. Why shouldn’t we do the same to you?
BRUCE BILLSON:
Well I’m putting to you a view that’s the proposition we took to the election. It was to maintain that funding envelope to simplify the model. We’ve done both of those things and then added additional funding to recognise that in the transition from the labor government in the lead up to the election, $1.2 billion was ripped out. That money is not there so we’ve carried forward what money was allocated and committed by labor. Added $230 million to deal with the jurisdictions that haven’t been a part of them…
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
Personally Minister I’m getting lost in detail there.
BRUCE BILLSON:
Trying to find a consistency into the way in which that models applied. Like the point that
Alan was making, when I was at secondary school at Monterey in the Pines in Frankston…
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
I’m going to stop you there Minister, I’m not sure I’m interested in where you went to school. Is it the same thing as Julia Gillard and the often repeated accusation you made of her? It is just changed circumstances and that’s why you’re breaking a promise? Or are you not breaking a promise?
BRUCE BILLSON:
No a commitment is being implemented as it was presented. Carry forward the funding model that labor had and in addition we’re over fulfilling that promise by providing additional funding to deal with the jurisdictions that haven’t had any arrangement entered into.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
Simon look thank you for your question, I think you’ve received the answer that Bruce
Billson is going to give you. I want to have a quick chat to Greg who’s called from Gippsland. Hi Greg.
GREG:
Good afternoon. I’m involved with a small private school in the outer suburbs and we’ve still got no idea what funding we’re getting for next year both from state or federal and in fact the state funding model is in fact, I think they’re going to use…the old model for at least 12 months because they’ve got no idea what’s going on either.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
Do you think that’s because of the political argy bargy, the uncertainty?
GREG:
No there was a mess.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
The original agreement was a mess and that’s the problem?
GREG:
The whole thing is highly inconsistent right across the states and no one in Victoria still has a clue what funding we’re going to get and when we get it we won’t know whether it’s right or wrong.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
Ok look Greg I thank you for illustrating the point I was to ask both of my guests a quick question on Indonesia. Andrew Robb has gotten himself into a bit of trouble. The Trade Minister was speaking to ABC TV this morning. He appeared to do what governments seek never to do and that is confirm that Australia had bugged the Indonesian President’s telephone. Have a little listen.
ANDREW ROBB (PLAYBACK):
It is unfortunate that this taping that took place several years ago has been made public.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
Look Andrew Robb has put out a statement saying he is not privy to intelligence matters but I want to try and get a bit of bipartisanship from both Mark Dreyfus and Bruce Billson. I’ll start with you Bruce Billson. Is the relationship on the mend with Jakarta? Briefly, if you can.
BRUCE BILLSON:
I believe so. It’s a very important relationship. This strong feeling surround the relationship. Much history and a great future together and we need to make sure that we are good partners, mutually respectful of each nation and its citizens and that’s the basis on which the relationship is. That’s the trajectory and that’s what I want to keep contributing to wherever I am able.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
I’ll try this one. Do you know if the Prime Minister tried to telephone the Indonesian
President? We haven’t had a definitive answer on that. Do you know if he tried?
BRUCE BILLSON:
No I can’t add any light to that Raf. I don’t know what the Prime Minister’s phone activities are.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
Sure. Mark Dreyfus, this happened when you were in government and you had a security related portfolio. Do you think the damage that’s been rort by the revelations will be overcome? Is it all going to disappear in time?
MARK DREYFUS:
Well I’m not going to confirm any of the premises in your question even Raf. There’s a very long standing convention that ministers and people who have been Ministers, including national security ministers like me, do not comment on operational intelligence matters and I’m not about to start but I am pleased that there appear to be signs that this incredibly important relationship we have with Indonesia is on the road to repair and that’s to be encouraged. As an opposition we stand ready to assist the
government in anything that needs to be done to get this very important relationship with Indonesia back on track.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
And I suspect it might not have mattered who was in government. This would have been tough. These stories would have been difficult and it might not have mattered what words were used is that right or wrong?
MARK DREYFUS:
I think both the Opposition, when in Government as we were until the 7th of September, and the present Government have exactly the same obligation to make sure that we have as good a
relationship as possible with our very large neighbor to our north.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
Ok I’m not really sure what that answer means. Mark Dreyfus Shadow Attorney General thanks for joining us. Bruce Billson from Frankston thanks for joining us. Bruce is of course the Minister for Small Business.