ASHLEIGH GILLON
Good morning and welcome to AM Agenda, I'm Ashleigh Gillon. We're on the cusp of another resource boom and Julia Gillard says that means it is time for all Australians to pull their weight and contribute to economic productivity. In a speech last night, the Prime Minister pledged to get more Australians off welfare and back into the workforce. The details are being saved for budget night but it appears the focus of the reforms will be on unemployment benefits and disability payments. But, this morning the Opposition Leader has slammed the PM's speech saying it lacked vision and was devoid of new ideas. Joining me this morning on our panel of politicians from Sydney we have the Shadow Small Business Minister Bruce Billson, good morning to you.
BRUCE BILLSON
Good morning, Ashleigh.
GILLON
And here with me in the studio, David Bradbury the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer, good morning.
DAVID BRADBURY
Good morning, Ashleigh.
GILLON
David I'll start with you. Of course the unemployment rate, it just dropped again to 4.9%. There are a lot of Australians that would like to work but are mentally or physically unable to do so. Julia Gillard was pretty vague last night when it comes to exactly how you're going to get people off welfare. Where are you going to start?
BRADBURY
I think the obvious point to make is that we'll be rolling out more detail behind our plans to try and assist more people to make that transition from welfare to work. I think the points that the Prime Minister was making are basically common sense and they go to the issue of the strength of the Australian economy and the challenges we face across a patch work economy. On one hand in parts of Australia where the mining boom is sucking resources from all around the country, there are skill shortages and labour shortages. Then there are other parts of the country, some of the parts we might want to refer to include my electorate or other parts of regions like Western Sydney or other parts of the country where there are people that are not only unemployed but in some cases, they are the product of intergenerational unemployment and all of the challenges and social disadvantages that come with that. The approach the Prime Minister outlined last night is one that goes to the very heart of what the Labor Party is about. We are a party of work, not welfare. We are a party that wants to ensure, regardless of the family or family situation that they're born into, they're given those opportunities. But equally, with opportunity comes obligation and they will be the centrepieces of our approach to try and tackle these economic challenges.
GILLON
Well Tony Abbott has a lot of those values as well, he jumped the gun, he got in first last week outlining a range of measures that he wants to take to get people off welfare. Is it likely that the Government might embrace some of those ideas for example suspending unemployment benefits for those who live in areas, like in mining towns for example, where there are jobs they just aren't taking them up?
BRADBURY
Well I'm not going to be announcing the specifics of any policies the Government is about to undertake on this program here today…
GILLON
You can if you like.
BRADBURY
I know you'd like that, and I can't do that. But what we can say, and I saw that Tony Abbott said the only difference between the Prime Minister's speech and his speech a couple of weeks ago was that he provided detail and the Prime Minister didn't. Well, I think we'll go one step further when we announce these measures in the coming weeks. Not only will we announce the detail, but we will announce something that Tony Abbott didn't announce and that is how we will fund this…
GILLON
But you won't rule out embracing some of those ideas Tony Abbott has already put forward?
BRADBURY
The measures we undertake will be a range of measures. At the heart of them, will be this notion that we want to extend the opportunity to people who aren't currently in the workforce who have the capacity to enter the workforce. Without embracing and extending that opportunity, we are consigning people to a future of welfare dependency. I think that is something that we are committed to not doing particularly in the national interest, but because of the skills and labour shortages elsewhere that demand we take action.
GILLON
It is interesting to note that after Tony Abbott's speech he had a lot of criticism about the way he delivered it, why he was delivering it but not much about the content. I don't think I've heard any Ministers actually slamming what he had to say and the ideas that he did put forward but Bruce Billson let's bring you in, of course when Tony Abbott did put forward his ideas for welfare reform he was criticised for being heartless and lacking understanding for the challenges facing the unemployed and the disabled. What do you make of Julia Gillard's handling of quite a controversial area of welfare reform?
BILLSON
Well it was a similar performance we saw earlier in the day from Greg Combet where there was a whole lot of generalities being talked about but no specific proposals. Tony Abbott some weeks back again identified the Coalition for many years this is a key area that requires focus and that the Government of any persuasion must persistently pursue this as a policy challenge. We did that when we were in office, Tony Abbott outlined a comprehensive plan with specific measures and how we'd finance those. Then, a couple of weeks later the Prime Minister, well talk about work, she did a lot of headline hunting last night but none of the hard work about what you'd actually do about these challenges and I suppose that was her attempt to try to look engaged on this topic without having anything new or specific that might attracted some criticism. But, talk about doing the hard work, the Coalition does the headway work and raises the issue, holds Labor to account for it's opposition to many measures the Coalition sought to pursue when in office and now when a comprehensive plan is laid out by the Coalition we have Julia-come-lately doing a very vague and vacuous speech two weeks later saying that they will do something about this as well. David talked about the mining boom, I mean this challenge is not a mining boom initiated or a mining boom instigated issue, it's been with us some time and David was trying to suggest there was some new environment that would require action on this policy challenge when it's been a policy challenge for years.
GILLON
To be fair though Bruce, of course, I don't recall any Coalition Government ever outlining, you know, the key parts of its Budget a few weeks before it was unveiled. This is something the Prime Minister will pad out, we're going to assume, on Budget night. This is not something you really thought Julia Gillard was going to give us all the details of last night, that it's a part of the budget guessing game.
BILLSON
Well, it was hard to know what the motive was. Whether it was a distraction from other challenges the Government faces, a need to keep pursuing announcements of some description, free of the detail people are really interested in, it was hard to know quite what the motive was last night. I noticed David has been quite adept at not answering your question, your very direct question, how many of the Abbott initiatives and Coalition ideas are we likely to see rolled out and claimed as their own by Labor on Budget night or some time after.
GILLON
Last night as Julia Gillard was delivering her speech here on SKY News, Graham Richardson had an interesting take on the way the Government is travelling at the moment saying that Julia Gillard is running a big target strategy, have a listen to some of this.
*AUDIO* Graham Richardson
The Gillard Government has been working on a new strategy, something entirely new for Australian politics. It is called the big target strategy. That is where you work out how to alienate, annoy and irritate every single part of Australian society. Now, I don't know who they appointed to put in charge of this campaign but it must be somebody very special and very senior because while you can criticise a lot of the Ministers in the way they've behaved, you've got to say that whoever this one is he or she has done a first class job at alienating just about everybody.
GILLON
Graham Richardson also picked on the speculation that there could be cuts to medical research in this Budget, saying that that was just plain dumb, have a listen.
*AUDIO* Graham Richardson
I did my stint as Health Minister some time ago and what I remember about medical research is that there were always a hundred really good causes you couldn't support. A hundred places where great research was being done where you just didn't have enough money to do the job properly and now what are we going to do? Take $400 million out. Already there is a brain-drain of many of our brilliant scientists to overseas because they just aren't giving them enough. This is something that Australia does really well. It is a miserable, mean spirited consideration and if they do it they are just plain crazy.
GILLON
David Bradbury, he makes a few fair points there, doesn't he?
BRADBURY
I'll address the first set of issues that Graham Richardson raised there, and say that there is no doubt that in some of the policy challenges we are tackling there are a range of entrenched and vested interests that are mounting very vocal reforms against the measures we are undertaking. But, what we need to do is, we're not here to represent the sectional interests that some of those sections represent, we're here to represent the national interest. We make no apologies for the fact that sometimes there are a very large proportion of people out there that are not prepared to throw millions of dollars in to advertising campaigns and things of the like. Their views, their interests and the future direction of this country is something that we're the custodians of and we will walk up to the challenges that this country faces. That sometimes means that we will lock horns with some industry associations and special interest groups, but in the end, what is the alternative here? Is the alternative that we want Governments that will walk away from tackling the big changes whether it be putting a price on carbon, protecting our economy for the future by transforming it for a low carbon future? Look, Governments in the past have walked away from these challenges…
GILLON
Well your Government in the past has walked away from that as well, but that is a whole other issue.
BRADBURY
Governments have walked away from these challenges, and the challenges of the future and the challenges of a low carbon future persist. So we either tackle them, or we allow those special interest groups to crowd out with their noise and their big money, the views of ordinary Australians and stop us from doing what is right in the national interest.
GILLON
Bruce Billson, the Government can't win here can it? It was accused of not standing for anything, now it's accused for standing for too much. It's good isn't it to have the Government pursuing policies on a number of different fronts?
BILLSON
The Government is all over the place and the only upside in its many balls in the air and we'll fumble many of them approach is what David just illustrated then. You ask us a specific question about medical research and funding, there are so many other things you can grasp at off that topic to answer your question and we ended up about climate change. The point was, we do world class medical research in Australia, what that is up against is world class waste and mismanagement by a Government. So, here is Labor being sloppy and slack in the management of taxpayers' dollars now muscling up to Australians and muscling up to programs that are important because of its incompetent management of the budget. The school halls program for example, spent 40 times the amount of money that is being identified as a potential cut in medical research, 40 times. That is what Australians are telling me, they just don't think this crowd knows what they're doing. Even on issues about extra taxes, they're going, well why should we provide more money to a Government that's shown itself to be incompetent in handling those scarce tax payer resources? And what more people are saying is, this Government is not on your side.
GILLON
I think both of you are as good as each other at segueing from questions in to what you both want to talk about, we're pretty used to that chatting with you guys all the time. I want to get on to an issue that the Opposition has been pursuing this morning. Tony Abbott announced his plans to deliver more scrutiny of big infrastructure projects. He says if elected he would get Infrastructure Australia to do a cost-benefit analysis of all projects worth more than $100 million. Here he was making the announcement this morning.
*Audio* Tony Abbott
The next Coalition Government will revitalise Infrastructure Australia and will re-appoint Sir Rod Eddington as its head. We will keep it, we will fund it and we will listen to it. Because, important infrastructure decisions should be made on the basis of rational planning and not short term political pork-barrelling.
GILLON
David Bradbury more scrutiny, is it a good idea?
BRADBURY
I think if Tony Abbott ever gets elected all of the people over at Infrastructure Australia will be twiddling their thumbs because the record of Coalition Governments is they do not invest in the key infrastructure that our nation needs. Let's have a look at their record…
GILLON
Lets not have a look at their record lets look at the proposal Tony Abbott is putting forward right now, do you think it's a good idea for Infrastructure Australia to do a cost benefit analysis on projects worth over $100 million?
BRADBURY
A couple of points I'll make. You can't ignore the record because the reality is, when in Government they did not invest in the infrastructure projects our nation needs. In terms of cost-benefit analysis, Tony Abbott should send a memo to the National Party because the last time they were in Government there wasn't a lot of cost-benefit analysis going on with the administration of programs like the regional rorts program. In terms of the appropriate and judicious allocation of taxpayers' dollars on these projects, we were the ones who set up Infrastructure Australia for good reasons. This is a process that Government works through, whether it is over $100 million or not. We approach each of these infrastructure projects on the basis that taxpayer dollars should be well spent and should deliver what the country requires.
GILLON
Bruce Billson will this be doubling up? Aren't there enough bodies looking at this sort of spending, all the Government advisory panels and the like?
BILLSON
This is a very important commitment because Infrastructure Australia has and should be exercising a very important role. However, the Labor Government has used Infrastructure Australia as a flag of convenience. When it does some work that suits the Government, it'll listen to it. When it has made a recommendation that runs against the political interests of the Government, it ignores it. Who could forget the Parramatta to Epping Railway Extension? A project not even on the Labor NSW Government's 10 year capital works program that falls out of the sky because there were a handful of marginal seats to be addressed. Scarce resources are too important to be thrown around in a reckless way at infrastructure that doesn't pass the test of value for money and benefit for the nation so I think Tony Abbott's announcement is a very worthwhile one. Fund Infrastructure Australia properly, recognise its work and recognise the expertise that it brings to important questions about how to allocate scarce infrastructure resources.
GILLON
Yeah the less pork-barrelling the better, but it's worth pointing out that both sides of politics have been accused of doing that in recent years. David Bradbury and Bruce Billson we're out of time, thank you for your insights this morning.
BRADBURY
Thank you Ashleigh.
BILLSON
Thanks Ashleigh.