PRESENTER:
Joe Hockey told Louise Yaxley he is asking for one big increase in Australia’s debt ceiling to avoid a series of political stoushes over it.
TREASURER:
I think the thing that undermines market confidence and business confidence is when the Government says they will not exceed a certain level of debt and then keeps going back to the Parliament or back to the Congress to get it lifted. What we want to do is be in a position where we only do this once to fix up the mess we inherited then get on with the job of starting to live within our means.
PRESENTER:
Why though compare Australia and the US? They are very different aren’t they? For a start $500 billion versus $17 trillion?
TREASURER:
We all go to the same markets to get our funding, whether it be the United States or Europe or any other country.
PRESENTER:
In terms of paying off the debt, how much can be offset by privatisations? And, are you happy for Australia Post to be sold off to help?
TREASURER:
The fact is that there is just not a lot of money left in privatisations at a federal level that is going to work to pay off the debt. The only way you can start to pay off the debt in any meaningful way is to grow the economy, to improve the state of the budget, to run year after year of budget surpluses which at the end of the day are going to pay down the debt. There is no Telstra, there is no Commonwealth Bank.
PRESENTER:
There is an Australia Post though.
TREASURER:
Australia Post is not the same business model as Royal Mail in Britain or others and frankly whether it be Australia Post or Medibank Private or any other number of entities, the combined value is very small compared to the debt levels we have inherited from Labor.
PRESENTER:
Will you be using the scope in the debt ceiling for some big infrastructure projects like a new Sydney Airport and is it Badgerys Creek as reported today?
TREASURER:
We have been very upfront in saying that we need to harness the enormous amount of public sector savings in order to build Australia’s infrastructure for the 21st Century. To focus on retooling the nation, the infrastructure we build must be productive infrastructure. We have already pledged - Tony Abbott has pledged - that we will deliver cost-benefit analyses of individual proposals that are going to ensure that we do not waste tax payers’ money but also provide a platform for private investment. This is a partnership to rebuild the nation and we need to encourage private sector investment in to Australian infrastructure.
PRESENTER:
Is Sydney Airport something that you see as a priority for getting Australia moving? Is that where your lot’s priorities lie?
TREASURER:
Without nominating individual projects, anything that improves the productive capacity of the nation is going to be a priority project.
PRESENTER:
Labor warned that an audit would mean big cuts and job losses. Does the fact that you put such a tight timeframe on this show that you want to get these politically painful decisions out early in the life of your Government?
TREASURER:
No. The timetable is focussed on getting on with the job. Labor complaining about the debt and then complaining about us trying to fix it is pretty rich.. The hypocrisy is astounding from Labor.
PRESENTER:
Clear up for us; if you cut health or education because, you say, you found wasteful spending, why should people not see that as a broken promise?
TREASURER:
Because we have always said that if you can make savings within portfolios and in the case of health and education and defence, reallocate the money within that portfolio so that the overall pool of funds is not diminished, then that is exactly the right thing to do.