MARIUS BENSON:
David Bradbury, you and the Opposition are in uncharacteristic agreement today on the proposals for greater transparency and more information on costings. Joe Hockey says that's a great idea.
DAVID BRADBURY:
Well I'm pleased to hear that Mr Hockey would agree with this idea and one of the important reasons why we need this is that what we saw at the last election. No mandatory post-election audit, but one that was required by the fact that we had a hung Parliament and the independents had required Treasury to cost the policies of the respective parties. As a result of that we saw that the Liberal Party had an $11 billion black hole. We think that while the Charter of Budget Honesty and the framework that puts in place has increased transparency, unfortunately what we've seen in recent times – and the last election was a great example in point – that parties can sometimes go to the election, withholding their policies until the last moment, hoping that they'll avoid any scrutiny. We want to make sure there are consequences that flow from that. It's important that the Australian people have a clear picture of what the true cost of what election policies might be.
BENSON:
But can any political commitments on the costing of policies be taken seriously, not even in an election context – for example, the Government, your Government, made great play of promising a surplus, then when circumstances changed the promise was abandoned.
BRADBURY:
Well you made the key point there Marius: circumstances changed. And when they change, as political leaders, we've got a responsibility to make sure our policy settings and our policies that are in place do reflect what's necessary and appropriate for the country. Circumstances have changed; we need to make sure we recalibrate our policy settings so that they're the most appropriate and effective in making sure we're able to build the strong economy that every Australian wants to see us building.
BENSON:
Given that all political promises depend on circumstances, maybe everyone should abandon making promises because you don't control the circumstances of the future. You promised a surplus – you're delivering a deficit. You promised a mining tax that you expected would produce $2 billion a year – it's producing something like a tenth of that.
BRADBURY:
Well on mining tax, let's just explode some of these myths.
BENSON:
Can I not go to the details of the tax but simply to the principle that promises aren't worth the paper they're written on, if they're written, because the circumstances change?
BRADBURY:
Well let's be clear about this. If the promise you are making can't be delivered on the day you made the promise, you are misleading the Australian people.
BENSON:
But if the promise is only good for the day you made the promise, maybe it's not worth making – that's the point I'm trying to resolve.
BRADBURY:
Marius, if people are making promises that they know they cannot keep when they made the promise, then that needs to be exposed and this process will expose that.
BENSON:
Is the reality then that all political promises are made but there should be, in brackets after them, 'unless circumstances change'?
BRADBURY:
I think clearly commitments that are given, Governments should do all that they can to honour them. All that they can. But political life is no different to life more generally.
BENSON:
Given that, was it a mistake to be so adamant about promising a surplus?
BRADBURY:
We were determined to return the Budget to surplus and we did everything within our control to achieve that.
BENSON:
But you said, unqualified, that you'll do it.
BRADBURY:
That was a commitment that was given, and earnestly given, and we have earnestly sought to deliver that, but there comes a point at which a commitment that had been given, when weighed against the impact of what was necessary in order to make that commitment be delivered in the end – and let's be clear about what that means – to make the cuts that were necessary to compensate for the huge write-downs in revenue that we experienced would have been irresponsible, it would have hurt Australians, it would have threatened their jobs and we are the Party of jobs and job creation o we were never going to go down that path. That is unfortunate in many respects, but that said we are doing what we think is appropriate and responsible for the country to make sure we can build a stronger economy as we move forward.
BENSON:
David Bradbury, thanks very much.
BRADBURY:
Great to be with you Marius.