YAXLEY:
Joe Hockey, you say that everyone has to wear some of the pain in this Budget for the greater good. Who’s going to wear the most pain out of this document?
TREASURER:
Well, it’s not a question of who’s wearing the pain; it’s about everyone being asked to make a contribution in order to build things that build us a strong future. Now, as you can see, in education, our deregulation is going to build a stronger higher education system where we can compete with the world more aggressively. In infrastructure, we’re asking people to contribute with a one cent a litre increase in fuel and that will build – contribute to the building of $120 billion of new infrastructure in Australia – and road infrastructure within 6 years, 7 years. And the big one is if people are prepared to make co-contributions of $7 towards a visit to the GP with appropriate safety nets, you’re going to see all the money, all the money, go into the biggest stand-alone medical research fund in the world. This is what we’re good at: medical research. Australians being creative and, my god, if they find a cure for cancer, or Alzheimers, or, you know, we can lead the world in this area. We’ve got to invest, and we’re asking Australians to contribute and that will all go into the fund which will build double medical research.
YAXLEY:
That fund, though, is tied to the co-payment, which might not get through the Senate. So it’s a risk isn’t it?
TREASURER:
Well it is, but you know we can’t build something like that if we haven’t got money.
YAXLEY:
Have you done this deliberately, though, to put pressure on the Senate to get that co-payment through?
TREASURER:
No. You don’t design policy to put pressure on the Senate. You design policy for the best outcomes for the nation. Now, you know, obviously, it’s a test for the Senate or for the Labor Party or the Greens and everyone else. But if you want to have a $20 billion – the stand-alone medical research fund – that increases, doubles, medical research funding every year forever, then you’ve got to, you know, ask people to contribute.
YAXLEY:
Now, higher education is also being deregulated. It’s a similar question and it’s been put that this could be a deterrent to low income earners going; particularly because fees now can be completely uncapped. What do you say to that?
TREASURER:
Well, the fact is that of the growth in receipts out of the Higher Education Fund, 20 per cent of all the money is going towards access for disadvantaged people, which is a much stronger safety net than exists at the moment. And the principle still applies that you won’t have to pay a dollar whilst you do the degree, but when you earn more than $50,000 you have to repay the loan. So taxpayers are providing a concessional loan, if you like, to students to study and then they only have to repay it when they earn $50,000 or more. And they’re likely to earn $1 million more than someone who hasn’t gone to university during their lifetime.
YAXLEY:
Does it get us a 2-tiered system, though, where you’ve got poorer people going to the Unis that don’t charge as much and the wealthier going to the really good Unis?
TREASURER:
No, not at all, because access will not be determined on wealth. Access will be determined by ability and the cost of the degree only comes in when you start earning money. So, if Australian universities are better, and Australian recruits or graduates are seen as more valuable, my goodness, they’ll earn more during the course of their career. I mean we’re training – we’re now putting people through university who are going to compete with the world. So it’s not about competing with other Australian universities, we are competing, particularly with new, emerging, unbelievably well-funded universities out of Asia. We’ve got to compete.
YAXLEY:
There’s a $10,000 payment for employers who take on people who are older who’ve been unemployed or on the disability payment for 6 months. What about those older people now who are saying that they’ve got to work til they are 70, cause that’s the new pension eligibility age. What is in this Budget for them to help them face that?
TREASURER:
Well, for a start, that doesn’t kick in until 2035. When, you know, that’s more than two decades away.
YAXLEY:
But someone who’s 47 now will face a 70 year old and if they’re in a physical job they may be thinking about it now, tonight.
TREASURER:
Well, yeah, that’s right. Well, I’d urge them, like everything else, because they would, of course, would have had to work until they’re 67 under Labor’s rules that they’ve put in. So, they’d be asked to go another 3 years a decade and a bit later. But, the fact is, that we are going to have many careers during our lifetime and whether you’re a farmer, or a bricklayer, or you’re a professional footballer, you don’t necessarily expect you’re going to be doing the same job for your entire life. Especially when there is a lot of physical work involved. So what we’ve got to do is start by changing attitudes. Now this $10,000 restart payment to employers starts to change business attitudes.
YAXLEY:
A final question Mr Hockey: you say everyone’s got to share this, but there’s a big cut for foreign aid as you pause that growth. Is Australia sharing its role in the world if it’s pausing that spending?
TREASURER:
Well, we’ve still got a very generous foreign aid program of more than $5 billion a year. The bottom line is that we can’t borrow money then give it away, we can’t do that and we’re not doing that with the Australian people, and we can’t do that with people internationally.
YAXLEY:
Joe Hockey, thank you.
TREASURER:
Thanks very much.