HOST:
With me now Assistant Treasurer David Bradbury and Shadow Minister for Small Business, Bruce Billson. Gentlemen, it's good to see you both. Bruce, obviously a good thing, you would say, the Prime Minister holding talks with President Yudyhono and as you heard the Minister say this morning, Brendan O'Connor, these are scheduled talks and we shouldn't be expecting any magical solution when it comes to the issue of asylum seekers and people smuggling.
BILLSON:
Yeah, it was curious wasn't it that Brendan's trying to make it sound like it's all rather routine yet the Labor spinning with all its might in the newspaper that it's some miracle contribution to improving their woeful record on border protection. Indonesia's a very important neighbour and should be part of an adult-to-adult relationship with such an important country. Tony Abbott's made the point time and time again in foreign policy – we need more Jakarta, less Geneva. He's said that if we're able to form Government that the first trip internationally will be to Indonesia. I think again it's a bit of catch-up footy from the Prime Minister. Interestingly they leave domestic politics at home when they're abroad, but here it seems like it's all about domestic politics and using Indonesia as a backdrop for maybe another boat visit like David's before the last election when he jumped on a patrol boat up in Darwin to let his electors know he was fair dinkum about border protection. Are you travelling as well? Are you going with the Prime Minister?
BRADBURY:
No, I'm not but I think if I was travelling I'd be certain that the Prime Minister would raise issues of national concern and interest. I think the point that has been made in the domestic political debate, putting this visit to one side, is that Mr Abbott has been out there talking very tough when it comes to his turn-the-boats back policy, but at every opportunity that he's sat down with the Pressident of Indonseia, he's failed to raise the issue. Now, if what Bruce says is correct and this is Jakarta not Geneva, I've got to say the foundations of their foreign policy are built on very shaky grounds. If the first thing they want to do in office is turn the boats back, we know that Indonesia say that's not acceptable. I don't know what he thinks is going to change that situation. Julie Bishop might be out there suggesting there's some sort of secret deal, but that's been exposed. The reality is that the turn back the boats policy is a sham. We've sought to expose that now. If these characters get into office they'll show people they can't do it.
HOST:
Is that a risk here, that Julia Gillard goes to the talks in Jakarta; SBY is asked, 'what do you make of the turn back the boats?' And if he says the same thing as the Vice-President and the Ambassador, it'll be that 'we won't cooperate'.
BILLSON:
I think that's a bit of an overreach on what has been said about this policy. I mean, David tries to make it sound like, that, you know, the Australian Navy will intervene and hook a line to a boat and drag it and dump it on a beach in Indonesia. That's not our policy. Our policy, in terms of how we conduct ourselves and ensure our borders are strong and our migration program is orderly and has integrity, is in international waters where there's a boat with no good purpose, no legitimate reason, to be heading to our country, with its motive to drop off people who have paid a people smuggler, to claim asylum in Australia, where we can re-provision it and send it back to where it came, with an Indonesian crew, on an Indonesian boat with an Indonesian flag, back to an Indonesian port. That doesn't infringe on anyone's sovereignty. What David's trying to talk about is if Indonesia, rightly respecting their territorial integrity, as we do, that's what adult-to-adult relationships are about, this doesn't infringe that at all. They're trying to amp it up as if it does, it just really shows –
HOST:
Well let's go to David on that one, because the point on this one, and this is the argument that the Coalition puts, and it's a pretty potent argument when they say 'we've done it before'. They did do it before and Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd both argued it could be done and that they were going to do it.
BRADBURY:
Until they started scuttling the boats. The question is, what happens – Bruce says this is only in international waters. Okay, so they go and they turn it around. He says it's not a tugboat all the way into the shore, fine. They turn the boat around in international waters, what happens then? So, the people on board, what happens if they scuttle the boat? Bodies in the water. What happens then?
HOST:
The problem is there are already bodies in the water. There've been 600 drownings in the last [inaudible].
BRADBURY:
But not as a consequence of Australia's direct Government action. This is what you're talking about. If people get instructions to turn boats around on the high seas and bodies end up in the water, what are we going to do? Well I would assume, and they haven't said this, but I would assume that even under a Coalition Government, Australian border protection or defence personnel would go and pick those bodies up, put them in a boat and bring them back to Australia.
HOST:
[inaudible] the Prime Minister doesn't use this foreign policy trip to play domestic politics, so it's hardly appropriate –
BRADBURY:
She would not be doing that. She has never done that and the point here is that these are regular arrangements, this is a scheduled visit, but the point that has been made and should be made in the domestic debate is that if you run around every corner of this country with a three-word slogan saying you'll stop the boats and that turning those boats around is the key policy, then you have to at some point acknowledge the fact that you've never ever raised that with a key international partner you are expecting to be at the other end of where the boat's going. And when they are out there actively saying, whether it be their Ambassador here in Australia, the Vice-President, they are saying this is not going to happen, never, not while we're here.
HOST:
But this is something the Prime Minister raised in Parliament yesterday, and David's raised it a couple of times this morning. Tony Abbott had the opportunity with the President, he did not raise this idea.
BILLSON:
Our senior team is working quietly and cooperatively. We're mutually-respecting the positions of different countries, understanding that an adult-to-adult relationship requires thoughtful, considered diplomacy, not this megaphone nonsense you get from Labor. Front pages of newspapers saying this is what this is about. It's a clear choice here. This is from a team that's just decided to cut off part of the food supply to our neighbour because of a television show, so thoughtful are they about Indonesia. This is the choice, you have a purposeful policy where the three words that really matter are 'it has worked'. They're the three words that matter. It is a considered policy versus this porous border policy that David tries to defend.
HOST:
I need to move on, I want to ask David Bradbury, the Assistant Treasurer, about this report in the Financial Review today that, essentially, Toyota had raised concerns about labour costs and productivity at a summit the Prime Minister held in Melbourne a few weeks ago. This followed the announcement by Ford that it was going to end manufacturing in Australia. Apparently a union figure had shut down any discussion on that, productivity and labour costs. Isn't that the problem here? That unions are having too much say when it comes to these ongoing high costs for a struggling industry?
BRADBURY:
Well if you want to attribute that as being the problem, then that is an over-simplification of the issue.
HOST:
But it's a problem isn't it?
BRADBURY:
It's an issue. All input costs –
HOST:
Then why didn't they let him discuss it?
BRADBURY:
I don't know if that's the case or not but what I would say is that our Government, like Labor Governments before, have always put a very high premium on the importance of improving productivity in all workplaces, but can I say, especially in the car industry. Now, what is at stake here is clearly there are a range of bigger challenges than just labour costs. Labour costs feed into the costs of the car industry, but they feed into costs of every industry in this country. Now yes, our labour costs are higher than some other parts of the world. There might be people in the Liberal Party that would like to drive down labour costs in this country to levels we see in places like South-East Asia where there is no representation from workers, where workers get completely screwed over. We want to go down a higher wage path. Now what that means is you have to get smarter about the way you do what you do. But can I make this point Kieran, that when it comes to our co-investment in the automotive industry, there are big challenges in this industry there is no question about that, but the choice that we have as Australians is a Government that is prepared to make that co-investment or an Opposition that is committing to rip billions of dollars worth of that co-investment away. If you want to ask –
HOST:
When you say billions of dollars, how many billions are you talking about though? Because I thought it was only $500 million.
BRADBURY:
There's $500 million that straight away they've said no.
BILLSON:
That's all.
BRADBURY:
No, then there's the failure to commit –
BILLSON:
[inaudible]
BRADBURY:
That's to 2015, and beyond 2015 we have locked in additional co-investment.
HOST:
And they're going to do a Productivity Commission review.
BRADBURY:
They have not committed to sending.
HOST:
They've committed to a Productivity Commission review, they haven't said they won't spend that money.
BRADBURY:
If they're not prepared to say they're going to spend it, we already know they're going to have this commission of cuts after the election, I would put it to every Australian out there that if you don't get a guarantee from this Opposition that they're going to spend money on something, have absolutely no confidence at all that if they get elected they'll spend one dollar.
HOST:
Bruce?
BILLSON:
I thought I was sitting through a fiction program there for a minute. I mean, this is the problem Labor has, they make it up as they go along. We've been clear that the billion dollars we have in the current period is the quantum of funds that's available. It was something available to three assemblies, now there's only two. We've said let's have the Productivity Commission review, there's been no statement about cutting contributions beyond that 2015. There is a conversation though to make sure that taxpayer funding actually delivers optimal outcomes, not see this farce where the Prime Minister hands over tens of millions of dollars saying this will create more jobs at Ford, only to see them walk out the door. That's not what's going to support the car industry. Productivity matters, it's got to be part of the conversation. Carbon tax, Mike Devereux's identified that as well. We need to take this industry seriously and give it a viable, sustainable future, not this nonsense.
HOST:
Bruce Billson, David Bradbury, have a good days gents.