AMANDA:
High incomes earners and small businesses will be the biggest winners. Joining us now is the Treasurer himself, Scott Morrison, or ScoMo, as many of the media want to call him, ScoMo, good morning.
TREASURER:
Good morning Amanda, nice to be with you, and you Jonesy.
JONESY:
Hello ScoMo, I like the fact that you’re coming to us from our Canberra studio, which I didn’t even know we had a Canberra studio, so that’s a win-win situation for us.
AMANDA:
We’ve learnt something.
TREASURER:
You guys are omnipresent.
AMANDA:
That’s right. Now this was always going to be a safe Budget, wasn’t it, going into the election was that your motivation when you sat down with pen and paper, don’t scare the horses.
TREASURER:
The key thing was making sure this just wasn’t another Budget, I mean Budgets down here, they happen every year and they’re usually just a grab bag of things, sweeteners going around and the rest of it, and that’s not what the economy needs, I mean if you’re up there in Townsville at the moment or you’re down in Whyalla or parts of Sydney or things like that, if you’re feeling how this economy is transitioning and it’s a bit tough for you, the last thing you want is someone to throw some sweeteners at you, what you want is a real plan that is going to get the economy through and keep you in your job. So that’s what was focusing my mind and Malcolm’s mind and I think we’ve delivered a real plan to get us through, what is a tough environment, but Australia is doing really, really well, in comparison.
JONSEY: In your world what is an exciting budget? In your lifetime do you ever remember a Budget, because everyone is saying this budget is boring, do you have one where you go. Man! I remember that time in, I don’t know, the Fraser era when that Budget was so exciting.
TREASURER:
Well no I don’t sort of think of it like that, I mean there are some people. I remember, when I was at University we used to have a professor, back in those days, it wouldn’t go up on the internet, and he drove all the way to Canberra so he could get one of the first Budgets to come off the presses. I was never that sort of guy I mean, Budgets have got to provide a plan, and I think what this country wants at the moment is not a bunch of, you know, wild ideas or things like this they, I think they want a sober hand, and something careful but something that keeps our growth going, I mean, we had 300,000 jobs last year, but the one I’m really pleased about is in the last 18 months 50,000 young people have got a job and I think that’s really important that we keep that going and we had a lot to say about that last night.
AMANDA:
Joe Hockey’s last Budget, it seemed there were harsh cuts, because it was very important we got back in to surplus, that seems to have dropped away a bit, suddenly surplus doesn’t matter so much.
TREASURER:
Oh no it does matter, and by 2021 the projection is that’s when we will get back across the line and in this budget the deficit is reducing, over each and every year how much many we’re spending as a Government as a share of the economy, that’s falling every year which it needs to because if you’re working on a Budget the way you support jobs and growth, you don’t do it by whacking up taxes to chase even higher and higher levels of spending so where we’ve made changes to taxes, going after the multinationals who are avoiding tax, or dealing with those very high end superannuation concessions, we’re putting all that money back in to tax cuts for small and medium sized businesses that are taking people on and growing the economy and expanding the middle income tax bracket so if you’re on an average income, middle income that you don’t pay more than 32 and a half cents in marginal tax.
JONSEY: But what sort of document did you use for the title page is the big question we all want to know.
TREASURER:
My wife…
JONESY:
Was it a word document or did you go old school did you just get the burnt edges of the paper to make it look like it came…
AMANDA:
School Project.
JONESY:
From ye olde world.
TREASURER:
Well my chief staff used to be Peter Costello’s chief of staff, for all those twelve years, so he’s been around the track a few times and he has a few good little hints and Peter gave me some good hints on the weekend as well which, I mean Peter has been a great mentor of mine over many years, but when it comes to the title page, my wife is the king, she used to do the best title pages, she used to tell me for her school exercise books, and they were a work of art and my two little girls they are following in their mother’s footsteps.
AMANDA:
Did you colour it in with some Smiggle pens, is that what you’re saying.
TREASURER:
There may have been one or, there are Smiggle pens in my offices when you’ve got a six year old and an eight year old they tend to spend a bit of time in the office with you.
AMANDA:
Some say Scott, that this was your audition, I guess for, to be a Prime Minister, future Prime Minister, do you think Malcolm Turnbull is thinking. I want you to do a good job with the Budget but not too good a job.
TREASURER:
No, Malcolm wanted an economic plan, because he knows that’s what the country needs and we worked on this very closely together. Malcolm and I have known each other a very long time, almost twenty years, and tonight, last night, we had the opportunity to put forward some things that we believe very strongly in, and one of those is getting these young people into work, I mean, we’ve seen lots of programs try things and all the rest of it but when I was Social Services Minister, it honestly used to be, used to stop me in my tracks when I would think about the fact that if you’re on welfare and you’ve grown up in a jobless family and 12 percent of kids are growing up in jobless families. If you’re on welfare by the time you’re about 25 the likely hood is that you’re going to just stay there the rest of your life and that’s just not good, and we can’t have it, and there will be kids out there listening to your program today, young people, and I want them to know we’re going to do everything we can to give them the skills so they can go and get a job and support the businesses that are going to give them that job, that was something that we’re very committed to.
JONESY:
Good work and I’m looking forward to seeing the title page, because I was the king of title pages at school, that’s all I did though unfortunately, I had no,
AMANDA:
you didn’t do the project.
JONESY:
It was all tip and no iceberg, but thank you for joining us Scott Morrison that’s great, good work you, and good luck with the election.
TREASURER:
Thanks Jonesy, Thanks Amanda and thanks very much for having me on.
AMANDA:
Nice to talk to you.
JONESY:
The Treasurer, Scott Morrison there.