PRESENTER:
Joining us is the Treasurer. More debt is not the answer to debt - how do you answer that claim?
TREASURER:
Labor has left us with this debt. You do not just get elected and switch off all the locked in expenditure which Labor left us with. You have got to actually deal with it over time. We want to get the debt down, of course we do, but Labor is opposing everything we do. Labor not only is opposing everything we promised at the last election, they are now opposing the things that they promised at the last election – including $2.3 billion of savings in education to pay for Gonski, and the abolition of tax cuts that were meant to be compensation for a rising carbon tax. Labor is opposing the savings they announced at the last election to pay for promises that they now want us to keep.
PRESENTER:
Do you just throw out the baby with the bath water though with this debt ceiling? Peter Costello, for one, has said that it is a good discipline.
TREASURER:
He never had it, Peter Costello never had a debt ceiling. For most of Australia’s history, until 2007 – from 1901 until 2008 – there was no debt ceiling in Australia. That is because the executive is actually in the Parliament. We prefer to have a $500 billion debt ceiling, because Labor has left us with a debt that is now going to be well over $400 billion. So we said, ‘OK, you need a buffer for the markets’. $500 billion is the right level that Treasury have advised us is going to be the legacy of Labor’s debt. Then they said, ‘No. We are not going to support that $500 billion, we will give you $400 billion.’ Hang on, it is Labor’s debt. What we said was, we are prepared to offer you, the Labor Party, briefings from the Secretary of the Treasury and Bill Shorten rejected those briefings. He did not want to know what the story was. He just wanted to oppose it. And then they are crying crocodile tears because the Greens are proving to be more sensible than the Labor Party.
PRESENTER:
The economic-fringe dwellers…
TREASURER:
It is amazing isn’t it?
PRESENTER:
You have bagged them up hill and down dale, well certainly Tony Abbott has, and now you have done a deal with them.
TREASURER:
They have come to the sensible middle and the Labor Party is now consigned to the back of the garden. The Labor Party is stuck in the basement on economic policy. It is all of their own making. They have made themselves irrelevant on economic policy. The only way they could possibly rebuild their credibility on economic policy is to be sensible. But not only are they showing a great lack of common sense in relation to the debt ceiling – the one they created – they are also opposing not only our savings which help to reduce the debt, they are opposing their own savings.
PRESENTER:
They are saying that $2.3 billion that you referred to in higher education cuts is because you are not tying the states to commensurate increases in their education funding like they did.
TREASURER:
They did not. Labor did not…
PRESENTER:
The two for one.
TREASURER:
… Labor is completely conning people about this because, as was evident by Denis Napthine’s statement after negotiating with Bill Shorten on the Saturday before the election, there aren’t any strings attached under Labor.
PRESENTER:
But surely Treasurer, you will not be happy if you’re doling out $2.8 billion and the states start cutting their education funding.
TREASURER:
South Australia just announced that they are cutting education funding after striking a deal with the Gillard Government, with Bill Shorten as Education Minister. The Labor State Government announced this week it is cutting education funding under the Gonski plan.
PRESENTER:
But under your watch [inaudible]
TREASURER:
They have announced they are cutting education spending under the Gonski plan that they signed up with the Federal Labor Government. So the hypocrisy needs to end here. Labor is now without principle, without direction. It does not believe in anything.
PRESENTER:
What about you letting the Greens come out and announce it. Is that a good look?
TREASURER:
I went to the Parliament to announce it. I tabled the agreement between the Greens and myself and I confirmed it in the House. There are no side deals; there are no winks and nods about anything else. I did it in the House to prove that there are no side deals or other agreements which was part and parcel of the Labor Party dealing with the Greens.
PRESENTER:
I want to ask you one final question, Ian MacDonald is bagging the operation of the Prime Minister’s office. What is going on there?
TREASURER:
I think Ian MacDonald is understandably upset about not being promoted. That was widely reported. I do not think he does himself or the team any service. The Prime Minister’s office is operating no differently to previous Prime Ministers’ offices and I am not quite sure what is focusing on.
PRESENTER:
Mr Hockey, thanks for your time.
TREASURER:
Thanks very much.