SUBJECTS: SMH Opinion piece, Sydney, Melbourne, public places, Nation Building and Jobs Plan
PHILIP CLARK:
Assistant Treasurer Chris Bowen is on the line. Obviously there are financial issues to talk about but I was struck by a piece that Chris Bowen wrote in the newspaper the other day about Sydney and he said: ‘I’m biased; Sydney Harbour is the finest body of water in the world. We have a beautiful mountain range to our west, the botanic gardens are breathtaking, we have plenty hill, rivers and creeks. Now for the controversial bit: Sydney’s natural beauty is making us lazy.’
He says: ‘We know Sydney is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, the trouble is, the built bit of it isn’t much chop’.
He is on the line. Chris Bowen, good evening to you.
CHRIS BOWEN:
Good evening Philip, good to talk to you.
CLARK:
Well you are a Sydney-sider; I suppose we are allowed to bag it aren’t we?
BOWEN:
Well I think I was making the point, as you say, that we do have a very beautiful city; we all love Sydney; I think it is the best city in the world, but how much do we rely on the natural beauty? And I use the example of Melbourne where I think, objectively, Melbourne is not as beautiful as Sydney, but they try really hard, but they try really hard at making their city a beautiful place. They have great urban design; they care about the way they live, about making the places they live not just spaces but places to go. Places that are interesting and interactive and I made the point, that there are some councils [in Sydney] who are involved in place making and place management and having people responsible for place – whose job it is to be responsible for…
CLARK:
What do you mean by this? Because we have the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge – iconic buildings, Melbourne has nothing like that. They are fabulous.
BOWEN:
And I make the point: we’ve got those but we have been relying on those for a long time. They are great icons and they make Sydney great, but the small and interesting can be as important as the grand and the great. If you have small square, be it in the Sydney CBD or a local CBD, with a statue of somebody who has done great things for the community. That can be a great and interesting thing. I made the point that I think that Melbourne, I use that as the example, Melbourne works harder at that than Sydney has, in the past, just a community thing. As a city and as a community we need to think about that and whether or not we care about that.
CLARK:
I agree with a lot of what you say, I think apart from the cenotaph at the bottom of Martin Place, the rest of it is pretty meaningless and we need spaces.
BOWEN:
Well, you look around, and you see that there haven’t been many statues erected for a long time, of course though there is one of Ben Chifley in Chifley Square, which is nice, but go to Melbourne and look at the ones they have constructed more recently. And we could really look at ourselves and think ‘we’ve got the harbour, we’ve got the mountains, we’ve got all of these great things like the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House but let’s not rest on our laurels, let’s really care about the design of the city and…’
CLARK:
If you had a go what would you fix first?
BOWEN:
Oh, look, the whole…it’s not just about the CBD, as I said in the article, it’s also about the places, it’s about social justice, it’s about giving people nice places to live across Sydney. And I think councils in Western Sydney and other areas doing it tough, need more help and resources and making their places nicer, leafier, more interesting. I live in Western Sydney but I think generally, we could have that conversation as a city about what we could do better.
CLARK:
That’s a fair point, but if you go to the western suburbs of Melbourne, they are lacking in amenity in the same way we are in Sydney.
BOWEN:
No, no, that’s a fair point and I was in Broadmeadows in Melbourne last week and they have similar issues. I was making the point more about the comparison of CBDs.
CLARK:
Yeah it is a fair enough point. It’s all the fault of the Labor Government in the great state of New South Wales.
BOWEN:
Well as I say, as a city, and Melbourne has been doing this for as long time, we in Sydney could do better and could have been doing better for a long time. Not just for the last few years, but for a long, long time.
CLARK:
Well what do people think? 13 18 73 is the number. A few shenanigans down there in Canberra tonight.
BOWEN:
Yes, very disappointing to see the…
CLARK:
What’s happening? Are you putting the bills back up?
BOWEN:
Yes, we will be re-introducing the bills. We need to keep on at this Phil, it is very important, the nation needs this economic stimulus to support jobs and provide log-term investment into the future. And every respected economist and economic organisation believes that governments need to be doing this sort of thing. And for this to be defeated in the Senate is very, very disappointing, but we are going to keep at it, we are determined.
CLARK:
So what is going to happen? So it’s being re-introduced in the House?
BOWEN:
Yes, we will re-introduce into the House of Representatives tonight where we would expect that it will be carried and we will keep at it…
CLARK:
So it will be back in the Senate tomorrow?
BOWEN:
It will go back to the Senate once it has passed the House. I’m not involved in the scheduling issues. I know it will go back to the Senate and we will continue to argue passionately…
CLARK:
What will you do if it gets knocked off again?
BOWEN:
We will keep on going, the nation needs this package.
CLARK:
Well you can’t ‘keep on going’. Will there be an election on it?
BOWEN:
Well no, I don’t think the Prime Minister is thinking about that. We are absolutely determined to whatever it takes to get this stimulus package up.
CLARK:
There has been a lot of debate and argue about it Chris – this is Chris Bowen, the Assistant Treasurer on the line.
A lot of people ringing here - and there is a lot of disquiet about it - I wonder what you think about it, and that is. A lot of people say ‘well hang on; it is a lot of money to spend. What is the lasting legacy of this? We understand that you need to spend and keep the economy going, but there is doom and gloom around the world; what is the lasting legacy of it? Where is the Snowy Mountain Scheme, where is the fast-train, where is something you can point to inn future generations and say: ‘we went into debt and this is what you’ve got’.
BOWEN:
One word Phil, schools. For every $1 that goes to direct payments to individuals and families there is $2 of investment and that includes in ours schools. I’ve spoken to school principals, out where I live in Western Sydney; they have never been so excited – new school halls, new libraries – this is about the kids. We all know that schools need more investment, so we took the opportunity to look at this, look at the economy, and to say: ‘what can we do quickly’. I mean the Snowy Mountains Scheme, large infrastructure projects take time. But what can be done quickly, but leave a legacy and the schools package is really…
CLARK:
I don‘t think anyone is arguing against that. I find it hard to raise anybody who would say: ‘I don’t want to spend money on schools’.
BOWEN:
Well this has been defeated as part of the whole package, this is part of the frustrating thing. Another example, we all get frustrated that every so often that there is an accident, a tragedy at a level crossing and everybody says, quite rightly, ‘you should do better, there should be more funding’. Governments say: ‘we don’t have the money’. Well, here is the opportunity, 200 level crossings will receive the treatment that we all know that they need.
CLARK:
Can I put a couple of questions to you – these are questions people have raised with me? They say, that’s investment in social infrastructure, we need to spend on infrastructure that might make us money down the track. And secondly, this is a big debt and how long is it going to take to pay off?
BOWEN:
Well look, the first question first. Infrastructure does pay back. Investment in schools does pay back. Educating kids, I mean, may not pay back tomorrow, but as a society you are going to be much better off if you investment in education. The second question, how long is it going to take to pay back? At the end of this, we will have debt as a percentage of GDP, at about 5%...
CLARK:
That’s $200 billion.
BOWEN:
Now compare that, to countries around the world that we would normally compare ourselves with. You look at the United States, the UK, et cetera. There you are looking at well over 40%. They are not groaning under their debt and we have got a plan in place, with rules in place to pay it back.
CLARK:
How long do you reckon it will take us to pay it back.
BOWEN:
It depends on how the world economy goes over the next couple of years. What we have said is that when economic growth returns to normal levels, we will do two things, which won’t be easy by the way, they will take a lot of tough management, but we will do them and that is to say ‘we’ll bank the tax income’. So when the economy starts to recover, our tax revenue goes up, more people in work, people working longer, businesses doing better – our tax revenue goes up. We will use that to make sure we go back into surplus; we will keep our spending under control, we will keep it at only 2% a year…
CLARK:
But is it going to be paid back in 5 years or 10 years?
BOWEN:
As I say, it depends on how the world economy goes. As soon as the economic growth level reports to normal then we will start to return to surplus.
CLARK:
Hmm, okay, great to talk to you Chris.
BOWEN:
Anytime Philip, always a pleasure to talk to you.
CLARK:
Bye bye.