BONGIORNO:
Thanks for joining us Treasurer.
TREASURER:
Thanks Paul.
BONGIORNO:
Well have you done enough to win the election for the Howard Government?
TREASURER:
I think this is an important Budget because it helps families. Families front, families square, families centre, and they’ll be receiving additional payments, and there will be better tests in relation to family assistance. There will be help for mothers as they come out of the workforce to have children, and there will be help to get them back into the workforce with more outside school hours care. We also increase the incentive in the tax system, so that people on middle incomes don’t have to pay tax rates which are as high.
BONGIORNO:
People earning under $52,000 don’t get a cent in tax relief. How do you justify that?
TREASURER:
They get big family benefits. Many of those people, there are some families that pay no income tax at all, so if you just cut taxes, you won’t help them. If you don’t pay any tax, you can’t be helped by tax cuts. So rather than do that, we decided to target assistance to every family including those that don’t pay tax and they will all get at least $600 per child.
BONGIORNO:
It’s a very tightly targetted Budget. It’s been suggested tonight it’s targetted precisely at the sort of swinging voters that you need, but it leaves out 6 million families without children, single people and also leaves out people who don’t have children who are on that $52,000.
TREASURER:
Well it doesn’t leave out single people because they can take advantage of our retirement savings initiatives. This has got to be the best deal for retirement savings – you put in a dollar, the Government’s going to match it with 150, $1.50. It’s going to match it 150 per cent. And that’s available to people up to $58,000, so that’s a pretty big incentive.
BONGIORNO:
Is there a risk that Labor can top you, do you think?
TREASURER:
What Labor can’t do, is it can’t do economic management. None of this comes out of thin air. It doesn’t just happen. This is the result of strong economic management over a long period of time. We’ve got Australia back to the forefront of the economies of the developed world, and now we can start doing things to improve the situation for families.
BONGIORNO:
You’ve left a surplus of $2.4 billion, some would see that as an election war chest. Do you have something else up your sleeve, ahead of the election?
TREASURER:
I think it’s important to keep the Budget in surplus. When we were elected, Labor had a $10billion deficit, as you know, and we fought to get the Budget back into surplus and we want to keep it there.
BONGIORNO:
Just finally, with rising oil prices and the falling dollar, is there a risk that some of the assumptions for growth that you have in your Budget may not be realised?
TREASURER:
I don’t think so, but the rising oil price will hit people at the petrol pump. It’s not something that’s related to anything here in Australia.
BONGIORNO:
I know, but it impacts here.
TREASURER:
Yes, it can impact, of course it does, but there’s not much we can do about it. It’s related to events in Iraq, as you know, and until things are stabilised there, I think that will be a difficulty.
BONGIORNO:
Treasurer, thank you.
TREASURER:
Great to be with you Paul.