PATRICK CONDREN:
Mr Hockey, good morning.
TREASURER:
Morning Patrick.
PATRICK CONDREN:
Those Treasurers are very verbose, I’m sorry I couldn’t get to you sooner but they do tend to prattle on a little bit (inaudible).
TREASURER:
Well, what Tim is trying to do for Queensland is right in my view and you know, it is the message I am taking to the world up here at the G20 in Cairns and that is that governments just haven’t got the budgets to be able to deliver the infrastructure necessary to grow the global economy or grow our local economy so you have got to try and better utilise existing assets and try and get the capital and put it into new productive infrastructure; stuff that is going to build the new economy.
PATRICK CONDREN:
So, you are up in Cairns as you say, you are there for the G20 Finance Ministers’ Meeting this weekend; what do you hope to achieve?
TREASURER:
Well, we are – Australia is leading the debate on driving a new wave of growth for the world economy and look, the challenge is as simple as this: basically governments around the world have run out of money. They haven’t got the budget capacity to be able to build the infrastructure that the global economy needs, whether it be water infrastructure, roads, rail, airports, ports, governments haven’t got the money and central banks have now more accommodative interest rates than at almost any other time in history; I mean, in Australia they are at record lows. That is not going to continue forever. So, the only way that we can build economic growth is to form partnerships with the private sector to build infrastructure like the ports, and rails and roads, and they have got to be public-private partnerships. Government has to put in a bit of money and we can’t increase taxes because ultimately, that means that you are going to slow economic growth. So, we have got to redeploy money from existing assets into new assets and you know, at a Federal level, we are doing that by selling Medibank Private, taking the money out of that and selling it to the mums and dads of Australia, taking the money out of that and redeploying it to people like Tim Nicholls, so that they can in turn, build the new wave, the new Medibank Privates, the new ports, airports and roads and we are doing that on a global basis and that is exactly what we are talking about this weekend in Cairns with all the Finance Ministers of the top economies of the world.
PATRICK CONDREN:
I read yesterday that the Australian involvement in Iraq and or Syria could cost as much as half a billion dollars a year, how will we pay for that?
TREASURER:
Well, it has to come out of the Budget ultimately, it comes out of taxpayers’ pockets but this is a threat that is as much domestic as it is international. These are evil people Patrick and there are Australians over there fighting for ISIL, estimated at least 60 Australians fighting for ISIL and as many as 100 Australians supporting those 60. We have an obligation to ensure that the tentacles of the most evil terrorist group we have ever seen do not extend to our local communities.
PATRICK CONDREN:
You spoke a lot in the lead up to the election last year about a Budget emergency; can we afford to spend half a billion dollars on this sort of military intervention?
TREASURER:
Well, the first duty of government is to protect its people, that is the first duty of government and we…
PATRICK CONDREN:
But Australia isn’t under threat, with respect.
TREASURER:
Well, it is under threat, it is under threat and you know, the fact that there are Australians there and the Australians over there are encouraging other Australians here to engage in terrorist activity; it is not for no reason that there has been an increased terrorism alert in Australia but we have a duty to protect our community and protect our people and we will do whatever we must to do that.
PATRICK CONDREN:
Okay Mr Hockey, I know you have to go. I do appreciate your time, thanks for it this morning.
TREASURER:
Thanks very much Patrick.