WOOLEY: Prime Minister, I notice The Australian leads with a story that ‘we won't raid the nest egg' and it is attributed to you, Kevin Rudd. That you deny there is a $41 billion pool of funds which will be a pork barrel at the next election.
PM: Well Charles, there is a big choice for Australia's future, and that is whether we are going to have a national government which is committed to the business of nation building, using the taxpayers money to do that. Because it is the people's money, it is not our money. Or alternatively, whether you do as the previous Liberal governments have done which is frankly waste this money on consumption.
What we have decided to do is create three major investment funds for the future. One is, a Building Australia Fund worth $20 billion to invest both with state governments and with the private sector in major projects in road, in infrastructure, in ports, in rail, as well as in broadband.
Second is a $11 billion fund called the Education Investment Fund, designed to improve TAFE's and universities around the country.
And the third is a $10 billion health and hospital fund to also invest in the future needs of our public health system. I think this is the right way for the future. And we believe that the country at large wants these big infrastructure challenges dealt with, and not just ignored.
WOOLEY: The Howard Government's policy of putting of this money in the bank and in future funds was the so called ‘locked box' model, where you couldn't get at it, but a lot of us voted for you Prime Minister because we knew there was a crisis on the Murray, there was a crisis in health, especially in regional Australia, a crisis in Indigenous health, I mean people are actually dying. A crisis in the environment with the highest species extinction rate on earth, in this first world democratic country. But there was feeling amongst some people, if we were waiting for a rainy day, isn't this it? Hasn't the future arrived now?
PM: Well it's true that is why we have created these funds, and we have said quite explicitly that they will be drawn on from next year. That is why also in this year's Budget we have committed $75 million in feasibility studies on major infrastructure projects right across the country. For example: in Sydney in metro rail; in Melbourne in some of their inner transport needs; and Adelaide, a traffic congestion study; a traffic management study for in and around Perth Airport; also, similar studies for the future needs of the Bruce Highway, as well as the Gateway Arterial Road system in and around Brisbane itself, to name just a few.
You can either, as the Australian Government say ‘not my problem', and handball it to the states or somebody else. Or you can say, let's roll our sleeves up and do something about it. And on the question of economic responsibility, it is possible to do that, that is, be a nation building government, and at the same time, make proper provisioning for the long term future as well.
The Future Fund that you spoke about before, which is to provide long term financial support for the retirement income requirements of Australia's public servants and superannuation needs - that continues, and further investment has been made in it. So that there is responsible provisioning for the future as well. But we believe it is far better to invest in these critical areas which have been neglected by the previous government for so long, rather than just believe that the people's money is our money.
WOOLEY: Can I put the flesh on the Murray story. I was down in the Coorong recently, at Lake Albert and Lake Alexandrina. Lake Alexandrina, I think 900 square kilometres of fresh water, or it was, our biggest fresh water natural lake. Lake Albert has all but disappeared. Huge toll in the wildlife but also the other endangered species, the Coorong dairy farmers. In one area I visited, 70 who had already gone and the ones who were struggling on were buying water at a few thousand bucks a week. They couldn't last until - I mean I know you can't do miracles - but they can't last until 2015, 2017, 2019.
PM: On the question of the Murray Darling, remember, we have been in office for five months. Our predecessors were there for 12 long years. What we have done within four months is for the first time, established a single national authority to manage the entire river system. And that was achieved at the last meeting of the Council of Australian Governments in Adelaide. And we now have the single authority running the Murray Darling Basin. We think this is the first step forward.
On the immediate challenges of the river mouth and in the Lower Murray Lakes, I am acutely conscious of the needs there. These have been raised with me in recent times by the Premier of South Australia among others.
WOOLEY: And your Water Minister of course is from South Australia.
PM: And Senator Penny Wong from South Australia. We are acutely conscious of these immediate challenges and are doing now what we can between the Federal Government and the state government, to see what can be done in terms of the dire condition in which those lakes now find themselves. I am aware of this. But you see our challenge Charles is this, dealing with the immediate problems as best we can. But also having a plan to deal with the nation's long term infrastructure needs. And water infrastructure is one of the infrastructure needs we need to be planning for as well.
WOOLEY: I understand Prime Minister that at times like this everyone wants a piece of you. In fact I was a budget winner because you gave me, or you gave my Tasmanian Devils $10 million. Thank you very much. If you don't ask, you won't get.
PM: Well you did raise this with me on behalf of the good people of Tasmania just before the last election and I said yes, we will do that. And that money, as you know, has been committed in the Budget. The Tasmanian Devil, as you know, has since February 2006 been listed as vulnerable to extinction under the State Threatened Species Protection Act. And more recently they have been included under the Commonwealth Environment Protection Biodiversity Conversation Act.
It is not just a Tasmanian icon, it is an Australian icon. We need to act. And we have got funding there to assist this important research project which I seem to recall is at the University of Tasmania.
WOOLEY: It is, it is indeed. And as I said, we do have the highest species extinction rate in the world, it would be nice if we could draw the line at the Tassie Devil. Prime Minister, can I talk about working mums and baby bonuses. This was all a very hard thing to work out I would think, for you and your Treasurer when you sat down. Hard to do this kind of stuff without offending someone?
PM: I think that is true and no one is suggesting that it has been easy to work these things out when it comes to the baby bonus and the impact on working mothers. But we have to draw a line somewhere. And that is, when it comes to these sorts of income support payments, where do you draw the line? The line that we have drawn when it comes to means testing here, is $150,000. We believe that it is not responsible for the Federal Government simply to provide open ended income support for people who are in much higher income brackets.
I know this hurts and offends a number of people, I accept that. But we have got to make sure that we are looking after people who are in real financial need and that is why we have done this measure. We have also got to produce a proper, balanced Budget as well. And that means making some hard decisions as well.
WOOLEY: The other people who mightn't have come out so well were those mothers who decided - and lots of early childhood development experts say this is the way to go - decided to stay home for the first couple of years of the life of their child. Are they now worse off under the Rudd Government?
PM: We fully respect the importance of the role played by stay at home mums. And therefore, when you look at some of the challenges faced there, for example under Family Tax Benefit Part B, the fact is 97 per cent of the 1.4 million families with stay at home mothers who currently receive Family Tax Benefit Part B will not be affected by the Budget changes at all.
And on the broader question of means testing can I just say this Charles as well. We've had something of a debate on this in the parliament. On the one hand we've had the Leader of the Opposition saying that he'll have to look at the fine print about whether he supports $150,000 as a means test or not.
Then we have the person who wants the Leader of the Opposition's job, Mr Turnbull saying, I think yesterday or the day before on Melbourne radio, when asked is $150,000 the right point at which to abolish eligibility, “I think a means test it's probably in today's age, it's probably about the right point if you're going to have a means test.” So I've got to say, there is a lack of clarity in terms of the alternative government on this.
It is a hard decision, but I emphasis again both on this and in relation to Family Tax Benefit B. We stand by the decision, we're sorry for those who it affects. But our job is to produce a responsible budget with a strong surplus on the one hand because that necessary to put downward pressure on inflation. And secondly to make sure that in helping working families and I've got to say tipping the scale in the direction of working families, that it's necessary to provide every bit of support to families who are on much lower incomes.
WOOLEY: PM, can I just ask one final question, a foreign policy question. The appalling death toll in China, it takes Burma off the front page. Does it distract the attention of the world from a much worse situation in Burma and what can we do about it?
PM: Well I think both these represent massive humanitarian tragedies. In Burma of course, when you look at the numbers involved and the appalling response of the regime, it makes all of our blood boil. The poor long suffering Burmese people don't deserve the regime that they have got. What we've got to do as an international community is work with the cards that we're dealt with. And that means, and we've had to take some hard decisions on this ourselves, authorising the Royal Australian Air Force to fly in, provide emergency medical and other emergency assistance, on the airport in Rangoon, hand it over to the Burmese authorities, and, because we're not allowed to have our personnel in. The Americans made the same decision.
WOOLEY: The problem is, the Burmese Generals are stymied, they cannot now stand down or mend their ways because should that happen, they would be tried as, for international crimes against humanity, wouldn't they?
PM: Well I'm the first to admit on this question Charles, we face an absolute dilemma in dealing with the Burmese. If I had a magic wand I'd make it different. But I don't. What I got to do is work within the constraints of what we've got. But there's another point too and that is to work throughout the international community and that's why I've been on the phone to the Secretary General of the United Nations, the President of Indonesia, the President of Singapore in recent days on this very question, about how do we leverage the Burmese more generally into accepting effective humanitarian assistance from the around the world. There is an impact of pressure over time. But frankly time has now run out or is running out for the poor people affected by this extraordinary tragedy in Burma.
WOOLEY: Ok Prime Minister, I do appreciate your time and once again thank you for the $10 million for the Devils. I'm sure that future generations will bless your name.
PM: Well let's hope that the research project produces the outcome and I'll be down in Tasmania and I'll be visiting those guys when I'm next there.
WOOLEY: I won't ask you for more until we run out of the $10 million.
PM: Well done Charles, thank you bye.