KARL STEFANOVIC:
Well, Treasurer Joe Hockey has an awful lot on his mind at the moment, he joins us now. How was it for you, Joe, your first win in a while – the cut backs have worked!
TREASURER:
Well, that’s right and commiserations to you, Karl. But it’s about time isn’t it? That the Blues started to win?
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Well, no, no, when you’re a Queenslander it’s like, you know, I just want to keep winning the rest of my life until I’m laid to rest and my son’s laughing at me being laid to rest in relation to Origin. Anyway, too many layers, while we’re on the subject of Origin, billionaire Clive Palmer sat down for dinner last night, while Origin was on, with Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull and head of Treasury Martin Parkinson, what was doing there?
TREASURER:
I have no idea.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Come on.
TREASURER:
I don’t know what happened and I don’t know the circumstances so I’ll leave it to those people, but it doesn’t surprise me, in Canberra you bump into each other at restaurants. I mean, there are only a few restaurants in Canberra.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Joe, you’re ‘umming and ahhing’ all over the shop, come on! You’re doing a deal with Clivey aren’t you?
TREASURER:
Well, obviously Clive might have more than one meal a night so it’s quite possible you’ll bump into him at a restaurant. So I think it’s probably just coincidence, nothing more.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
I feel like Dr Phil, weeding this information out of you, slowly, I’m just going to talk about this…
TREASURER:
I honestly don’t know, Karl, I honestly don’t know. I was somewhere else, so I wasn’t there and, you know, thank God they don’t ask people what their private diaries are. I mean, we’ve had enough of that over the years.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
The only other possible explanation is that Malcolm Turnbull is positioning for a takeover.
TREASURER:
Of Clive’s companies or…
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Of Tony’s job?
TREASURER:
No, no.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Alright, enough of the play.
TREASURER:
If that were to be the case, I don’t think he’d be going to Clive Palmer because he hasn’t got a vote.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Fair enough, fair enough, now this clip has emerged of you; young, spirited, collar out like you were going to the Dally M Awards, campaigning for free education.
TREASURER (1987): We will continue to go out onto the streets and to protest and actively encourage the public to support us in our campaign for free education.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Politician in the making and he did make good on that. You were clearly, though, very passionate about free education as a student and that was over a $250 administration fee. Now you aren’t guaranteeing some degrees won’t double in price; it’s a very serious transition.
TREASURER:
Well, what it proves is 27 years ago was the time when there was an argument about free education and that argument was lost. It was a very a different time, Karl, you know in those days the government was collecting 90 per cent of the fee that was being paid and today it is a very different situation. There were no loans then, you had to pay the money upfront, and the campuses offered very little educational choice. What we’re offering today is much wider choice, much greater opportunity for people to go to university because we are going to extend the loan scheme to TAFEs and diploma courses and also apprentices. And importantly, back then, 27 years ago, there was no real competition out of Asia and now we’re facing massive growing educational competition out of Asia. So we’ve got to focus on the next 27 years, not 27 years ago.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Christopher Pyne reckons it’s got to the stage where HECS debt should be collected from the estates of those who die with the debt. Now I’m not sure about you but when I went to uni I didn’t have much of anything let alone an estate.
TREASURER:
Yeah, and that wouldn’t be much different today. Look, it shouldn’t be different to any other loan. It is only against the estate of the individual, it’s not going to go across families and so on and look that’s the same as any other loan, any other mortgage we have in our lives, and it wouldn’t be any different and it shouldn’t be any different.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
You don’t know though? Are you going to be pursuing that or are you going to rule that out?
TREASURER:
Well, no, if you owe money to the government or you owe money to the bank, that debt is applied to your estate if you pass away, but it doesn’t go to your parents or your siblings or anything else. So, it’s no different, it’s a loan and it’s still a concessional loan, Karl. I mean, no student pays a fee up front; 27 years ago they had to, now you don’t. And you never had to over the last 15-20 years. The issue at the moment, the debate at the moment, is whether universities have the capacity to charge what they need to offer the best for students. Now, we haven’t got a university in the top 20 in the world and the Government said, ‘hang on, Australia is fantastic at so much of what it does we need to be able to compete with the rest of the world’. Universities should be able to charge what they need to charge. Some fees will go down, some fees will go up, but no student will pay upfront and importantly, of the money that is collected by the universities out of these changes, one in every five dollars is going to go to the biggest scholarship program – for the most disadvantaged people – ever. So, there are big sweeping changes but they’re about delivering a better education system.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Well, I had a HECS debt, I wouldn’t have been able to go to uni without the government supporting me while I went to uni, but the point is it was reasonable debt to pay back and I didn’t mind paying it back but if it is going to triple it is going to be difficult for people to do that.
TREASURER:
Karl, I don’t think it is going to triple. Seriously, I mean, if universities start charging outrageous prices for degrees people are going to go to other universities. There is so much more choice now than there was, for example, 27 years ago. There are so many other universities and so many different options in life.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Finally, look, there is something that I want to raise with you that’s causing some level of discomfort around households around the country. Pointed out in the SMH and widely covered everywhere else, Peppa the Pig may be axed from the ABC because of cutbacks to the broadcaster. Shame on you, Joe Hockey, shame.
TREASURER:
Well, given in our household I have watched so many bad episodes of Peppa Pig over the last four years.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Bad? Don’t do yourself a disservice here, Joe.
TREASURER:
No, I’m sorry, some of my children are fans. Look, you know the ABC is getting a 1 per cent cut. So I think it is just a big try on from ABC management to raise this sort of cut. It is ridiculous frankly and I think, they haven’t had an efficiency dividend for 10 or 15 years when every other area of government has. Frankly, if they can’t get 1 per cent out of the management costs of the ABC, well, they’re not properly managing [inaudible].
KARL STEFANOVIC:
Well, it’s not just you, the Coalition doesn’t care about Peppa Pig in general. This is not going to be good for your ratings points. As she points out in the article this morning, Barnaby Joyce was asked about the pig yesterday and gave this chilling response, quote: ‘last time I had Peppa Pig it was number 23 at the local Thai joint’. Come on! Disrespectful, the Coalition, Peppa the Pig. I’m telling you, not good for ratings. Actually, they’re against us too, I don’t care if it goes.
TREASURER:
[Laughing] It just goes to show he must go to some fancy Thai joints because I’m always sweet and sour pork.
KARL STEFANOVIC:
We’ve got to go, Joe, good to talk to you mate, see ya.
TREASURER:
Bye, Karl.