RICHARD KING:
And joining me now is Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones. Good morning, Stephen.
STEPHEN JONES:
Good morning. Good to be with you.
KING:
Thank you. Thank you for your time. Look, in the lead‑up, for weeks your government was telling us that this would be a family‑friendly budget. How is this a family‑friendly budget, Stephen?
JONES:
Well, families have bourgeoning costs of child care. They’ve got older Australians – they’ve got relatives, they’ve got parents in aged care. They’re struggling with the costs of medicines. They’re keen to see their wages growing again. They’re paying out hundreds of dollars a month in medicines. And these are what we’re targeting in this budget, through our child care boost, ensuring that families can make rational decisions about the returning to work and not having to worry about the growing cost of the child care bill. Ensuring that we can do something to make housing more affordable, whether in rental accommodation or whether you’re trying to buy your first home. A range of programs wrapped around our new Housing Accord to build new houses, get the housing issue sorted and make housing more affordable. And a reduction, the biggest single reduction, in medicine prices, a $12.50 co‑payment reduction in the price of medicines. We can’t do everything, and we acknowledge that. We acknowledge that families are doing it tough. What we can’t be doing is be writing billion‑dollar cheques and making the inflation problem even worse. So, targeted responsible relief for households.
KING:
Targeted, responsible relief for households. I did speak with Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor in the last hour, and I did put it to him your comments that in your opinion you felt that Angus Taylor was in denial about the fact that the budget was left in a mess, and this is part of what he had to say in response to that –
ANGUS TAYLOR (SHADOW TREASURER) (TAPE):
They received a $50 billion windfall in the budget and they’re just spent it all. The result is if governments can’t manage their finances, then households have to do for them, and that’s exactly what’s happening here. The fact that they have in this budget a recognition that the electricity prices are going to go up by 50 per cent and yet they committed to a $275 reduction, this is Labor that’s saying, “Look, everything we said in the election campaign was all wrong and we’re not going to keep those commitments anymore.” And even worse than that, this is a Budget designed to raise taxes.
KING:
“A budget designed to raise taxes” – what’s your response to that comment?
JONES:
Well, Angus can’t count. We inherited a trillion dollars’ worth of debt and the three biggest budget deficits on record. We have got a structural deficit in the budget because they spent and couldn’t save. There’s not a person in Parliament who is responsible for the increase in power bills more than Angus Taylor because he was personally responsible for destroying every single attempt of the former government to put in place a long‑term energy policy. And to make matters worse, before the last election he hid from the Australian people the fact that he authorised a 20 per cent increase in electricity prices. So, there’s nobody in the Parliament, nobody in Australia, who is more reasonable for the mess that we have in energy prices than Angus Taylor. A bit of humility wouldn’t go astray from Angus Taylor.
KING:
Okay, but his point too that you did make a commitment that there would be a $275 reduction in energy costs to us taxpayers. I mean, that’s not happened. And obviously you point to the world situation, it’s changed and you’re not backing away from that. You’re saying, “Look, we had to do this because of what’s happening around the world.”
JONES:
We made a commitment that we would transform the way we’re generating and distributing energy in this country through our Rewiring the Nation policy. Certain energy and climate change policy so that we can end the climate wars that Angus Taylor is so keen to continue. Ensuring we have sensible energy policy so that we can get generation and distribution back on track in this country. Let me just give you one example of the mess that we inherited. Over the last eight years, we’ve had four gigawatts of energy, baseload energy, leave the national energy generation system and but only one gigawatt enter. The reason we’ve had that is because the chaos in energy policy under the former government. People wouldn’t invest. If you have got more energy going out than is coming back into the system, of course, you’re going to have a problem and power prices are going to go up. Our policy is about reversing that madness and ensuring we have certainty in energy policy. We want to do more to help households. We’ve already sorted out the supply issue with gas by mandating that gas companies must serve Australian businesses and households first. We need to do more on price. We’ll do that. And we’ve also indicated that we want to work with the states and the generators to put to downward pressure and to work with them around providing relief to households. But what we’re not going to cop is a lecture from the person who made the mess demanding that we clean their mess up in the first 24 hours of the government. That’s just crazy.
KING:
I think there seems to be unilateral support for the NDIS as being a great program, but certainly the Budget last night highlighted the blow‑out in the cost. And obviously that’s something the government has got an eye on. Nobody seems to be talking about reining in the cost of the NDIS, but that’s obviously something that will have to happen, Stephen.
JONES:
Yep, we’ve got to rein in the pace of growth. I’m passionate about the NDIS. One of my first jobs in the workforce was working with people with disabilities. I know the needs, passionate about the NDIS and ensuring we can get it on a sustainable footing. We don’t want to see it collapse under its own weight, and that means we’ve got to constrain the pace of growth. At the current trajectory we will be paying more on the NDIS than we pay on Medicare. And the number one thing we’ve got to do is ensure that we’ve got – if there are rorts going on, if there’s misspending going on in the system – we think the overwhelming majority of people are doing the right thing but we’ve got to get the misspending out of the system in the first place. And we’ve got some growth constraints in the system to ensure that every dollar that we’re putting in there is going directly to where it is intended and that is supporting people with disabilities and their families to live a normal life. That’s the priority, but we can’t have this collapsing under its own weight.
KING:
I spoke to you several weeks ago about the cyberattacks and cybersecurity re Medibank. It’s a possibility that every Medibank customer has had their private details hacked. Do you agree with our Cybersecurity Minister Clare O’Neil that, quote, “For a cybercriminal to hang this over the heads of Australians is a dog act. It’s scum of the earth, lowest of the low territory.” And obviously this increase of fines to companies who have been hacked, you obviously are 100 per cent behind that.
JONES:
Clare’s really nailed it there. That is a dog act by criminals here and overseas who are attempting to hold Australians and their health insurers to ransom. We know we’ve got to do a lot more to provide protection and security for households and businesses. We’ve got to get businesses to lift their game. They’re ultimately responsible for protecting the data that they collect on behalf of their customers. But from a government perspective, we also want to ensure we’re doing more to lift the game around scams and fraud prevention. It’s why in this Budget we’ve put aside $10 million to start work on our national anti‑scam policy, the anti‑scam centre, which I’m spearheading, and ensuring that we’re going to have a whole‑of‑government and economy approach to protecting households. We’re losing $2 billion a year on scams to these criminals and fraudsters. So, we’ve all got a responsibility, but government can’t shirk its responsibility either.
KING:
Right. Okay. But what happens in the situation of Medibank now the ransom has been demanded if a million people have had their private details hacked and Medibank say, “No, we’re definitely not going to pay the ransom”? Do you think it will come to a stage where companies will have to start paying these big ransoms?
JONES:
I think we’ve got to just call the criminals out. If you start paying ransoms, it never ends. If you start paying bribes and ransoms and handing over dough to these criminal gangs, they go, “Right, we know we’ve got one.” And they will be back again for more and more and more. So, we’ve just got to have a hard no on this and ensure that we’re putting in place greater protections to stop these sorts of things happening down the track.
KING:
Lidia Thorpe for obvious reasons has been attracting a great deal of publicity. Are you of the opinion that the Federal Parliament is not a place for the likes of Lidia Thorpe?
JONES:
Look, I think that’s a matter for the Greens Party as to whether she remains their Senate member for Victoria. I think she showed an extreme lack of judgement on this and, frankly, on other issues as well, but that’s a matter for the Greens Party as to whether she continues to be one of their Senators for the State of Victoria.
KING:
I notice a couple of the major sponsors, obviously not Hancock Prospecting – the sponsors of Netball Australia are happy that more athletes are becoming activists. Do you have an opinion on that one or do you think that elite athletes when it comes to sponsorship should keep their mouth shut?
JONES:
We can’t celebrate our elite athletes and congratulate them for speaking out on things if we agree on and then condemn them if they speak out on things that somebody doesn’t agree on. I think it’s good that we’ve got athletes who are adding their voice to important social issues, so I just don’t think it works if you try to put a muzzle on people. From time to time, elite athletes have said things that I fundamentally disagreed with. You can call them out on that but to try to muzzle people for expressing their views, that’s not the Australian way.
KING:
All right. Thank you very much for your time. Busy day ahead, Stephen, but thank you very much for your time. Much appreciated.
JONES:
Good to be with you.