PRESENTER:
The Treasurer joins us. Good morning to you. Where are you going to make those cuts?
TREASURER:
Good morning. The first thing to do is identify how big the challenge is and that is what we did yesterday. We identified that unless action is taken we are going to end up with $123 billion of deficits and $667 billion of debt. That is the legacy and we are drawing a line in the sand. Over the next few months we will be working away identifying where we can reduce expenditure to ensure that Australia lives within its means
PRESENTER:
There are some pretty obvious ones aren’t there Treasurer to get underway? Do you want to share some of them with people this morning? People want some certainty where they are heading. What about the Paid Parental Leave scheme?
TREASURER:
Let’s start with what we took to the election. We took a significant amount of savings to the election to pay for our election commitments. That included $13.7 billion of savings associated with the mining tax. Now we have put them to the Parliament already -the Labor Party are opposing them. The Labor Party are now opposing in the Senate – they are blocking in the Senate - the savings they took to the last election which means that at the moment the Budget is looking as though it is going to be at least $20 billion worse off because of the way our political opponents are behaving now after the election rather than what they said before the election. So this is part of the challenge.
PRESENTER:
You are going to have a more attractive looking, from your point of view, Senate next year. So you will have the ability to get a lot more of decisions through come next year. Why don’t you put them all on the table? The Paid Parental Leave scheme – this was Tony Abbott’s baby, pardon the pun. But a lot in your party, including it’s rumoured you, Treasurer, aren’t a fan of that scheme. It is going to cost us way too much.
TREASURER:
We have fully accounted for it – we are fully paying for it. It is about ensuring that we can lift our productivity as a nation. It is hugely important that we have equal pay …
PRESENTER:
Can you guarantee there won’t be any cuts to the National Disability Insurance Scheme?
TREASURER:
The National Disability Insurance Scheme isn’t up and running at the moment, in full. It is a pilot program. At the moment, contrary to what the previous Government claims the National Disability Insurance Scheme pilot program has blown out massively in expenditure. Now, we want to deliver the scheme in full but we want to do it an affordable manner, otherwise it won’t be sustainable whether Labor is in or the Liberal Party. We are focused on making sure that we get better value for taxpayers’ money because, mate, the taxpayers’ money is incredibly precious and it has never been more precious than it is now.
PRESENTER:
We all know that, therefore Treasurer you are going to have to break a few promises, whether you want to or not. You are going to have to break a few promises, aren’t you?
TREASURER:
I don’t accept that. You are too much of a cynic, I don’t accept that.
PRESENTER:
Really?
TREASURER:
You are too much of a cynic. We actually will keep all our promises. It is hugely important that we do so and we will.
PRESENTER:
But all these promises you have made we now can’t afford. You declared yesterday we may not see a budget surplus in your lifetime?
TREASURER:
We have never said that our promises are unaffordable. That is because we did the hard yards before the election – identified savings to pay for all of our Budget promises and our election promises and we have done that. In fact the statement I released yesterday made all the announcements – made all the decisions to fund all of our election promises. So we are off to a good start and our election promises overall improve the bottom line of the Budget because we were very prudent in Opposition. We are going to be more prudent in Government and we are going to make those decisions that strengthen the balance sheet. But most importantly, why are we doing this? We are doing it because we want to maintain and improve the lifestyle of everyday Australians. If we don’t start pulling back on Government spending , and if we don’t get rid of the waste then we are going to end up with a lesser quality of life than what we have had in the past and that is unacceptable to us.
PRESENTER:
You are going to have a stressful Christmas going through all of those spending measures and working out what has got to be cut. I appreciate your time this morning Treasurer.