CARY: Prime Minister, good morning.
PM: Good morning Greg, Kevin will do fine.
CARY: Kevin, Leigh Matthews (inaudible)
MATTHEWS: (inaudible) Prime Minister.
PM: Hey Leigh, how are you mate?
MATTHEWS: I'm well thank-you.
CARY: We were just having that discussion you've come in at the end of, as a result of a discussion I had earlier about obesity. There is a group saying we need to legislate more with certain products being not too healthy for our children, having little presents in them that they can advertise. My take was more we have got to get parents saying no more often to their children. How do you see that?
PM: Look I think with all these things, it's a question of getting the balance right. First and foremost, you have got parental responsibility and providing proper role models for your kids in terms of healthy eating and also providing proper and healthy food on the table.
And that ultimately comes down to a question of good parenting. Secondly, of course, there is a wider responsibility in terms of responsible advertising for food and food types which are healthy for you or less than healthy for you.
It's getting this balance right. I don't think there is a magical formula to this. I think one of the good things which has happened over time has been the complete revolution of the way in which food is provided in school tuck shops, I think that's been a really good thing.
I don't know about you Greg, but when I went to school, the stuff that we were served up at the tuck shop would probably be, you know, a good recipe for coronary heart disease.
CARY: Sausage rolls -
PM: Well yeah, with a Chiko roll chaser and then followed by a pastie of some description. All of which I don't think would make it to the good food guide as far as healthy eating is concerned.
And our tuck shops today are different. And that is good and that is to our P&Cs and P&Fs should be congratulated for that. It is getting the balance right.
MATTHEWS: Kevin how are the various Governments around the country going with trying to get a greater exercise level, because that's the other side of the coin of eating in our young, to try and provide the stimulus for them to exercise more.
PM: Leigh I think it is a really mixed picture. As I travel around the country it is quite plain that in the different state and territory education systems of Australia, what we used to call PE is taken with greater or lesser seriousness.
But you go to the actual heart of the problem. What are the two ingredients to a healthy lifestyle? What you eat and how you exercise. And we've just been talking about setting the right example for kids in terms of how to eat. Schools have a big role to play there and I think they are doing a better job.
But on the exercise front and having all kids active, this is equally critical. I think as a nation we can do better on this. I know our Minister for Sport and Minister for Youth, Kate Ellis, is passionate about this. She's 30 years old herself and wants to see a bigger, bigger national program.
If we get kids, by the time they leave school with two things drilled into their minds, “I should exercise every day” and “I should eat properly”, the impact on their lives would be huge but also the impact on the health bill of the nation in 20, 30, 40 years time would be better under control as well.
CARY: Yeah it comes to what, $68 billion or thereabouts. Prime Minister you would be very aware of the controversy here and the debate about the sale of public assets. Can I ask you as Prime Minister how you see the proper balance between the ownership of public and private assets?
PM: I think Greg it is all a question of having to make tough choices, as far as Anna Bligh is concerned. I said this at the state conference of the Australian Labor Party on Saturday when I was speaking. These are tough choices. From the Commonwealth point of view, we believe that there are certain things which are very important to retain in public ownership. For example we have that in relation to Australia Post, we think that these are important national institutions.
There is always going to be a debate about what should be in and what should not be. The key thing is to make sure the service is properly delivered to the Australian people, to make sure that it is delivered at a reasonable price to the Australian people, and to make sure that you get all those all balances right.
But Anna Bligh has had to make some tough decisions and tough decisions are rarely popular in my experience.
CARY: How are you feeling at the moment about the unfolding of the swine flu outbreak? We've had some bizarre circumstances over the last 24 hours related to State of Origin teams and a worrying inconsistency between how Victorian Health, Queensland Health and NSW Health are dealing with these things.
PM: I think all countries around the world are wrestling with the best possible response to swine flu. The Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon and the Chief Medical Officer of the Commonwealth have been working exceptionally well on this since the outbreak of this, quite some time ago now. And given our country and given the fact that we've got six states and two territory health systems, it's worked relatively well. Remember also the preparations that we took as a nation for this, prior to this thing breaking out, which is to make sure we had sufficient stockpiles of antivirals, both Relenza and Tamiflu. And as a proportion of the population I think we are probably the best prepared of any country in the world, with something between eight and ten million doses of these antivirals either in our possession or currently on order.
CARY: Does it worry you at all on that, that we're worrying more about it than a disease?
PM: Look we have made a point Greg all the way through this to respond calmly and rationally to the advice given to us by the health professionals. And each time we have increased the public warning, we have done so purely on the basis of their expert medical advice. Each of the practical steps that we have taken in terms of changing the Commonwealth laws for example to enable mandatory quarantining where necessary. Also the arrangements put in place in various states in terms of temporary school closures and also the distribution of antivirals, all have been done based on the systematic advice of the health professionals. We think that's the right way to do it. It's important not to under-react. It's important not to overreact as well. We're trying to be as methodical about this as possible.
CARY: Okay a couple of emails on a story today on news.com.au, part of the Henry Review. Up to 90 per cent of recent retirees are unlikely ever to meet their expected investment returns after the market crash of the past year, many likely to run out of savings and wind up dependent on the aged pension. The Henry Tax Review considering proposals that would reduce the heavy dependence of retirees on the share market and I saw figures that said most countries at 10 per cent or less, with no other countries having more than 50 per cent according to IMF research, Australia has 80 per cent of her assets in shares or mutual funds, does that concern you?
PM: Well one of the reasons we have the Henry Commission of Inquiry underway at present, that's Ken Henry the Secretary of the Treasury, is to look at the future of the tax system. And that also includes the taxation treatment of superannuation as well, which goes also to the overall construction of retirement income policy. We've got to get this right for the future.
Secondly, remember we've had this extraordinary event on global share markets, and this has been an event which has been triggered by the worst global financial crisis we've seen in three quarters of a century.
But one of the things that we've done in response to the impact on people's earnings is on self funded retirees. There are 950,000 self-funded retirees in Australia, all of whom have taken a big hit because of the global economic and global financial crisis.
One of the things we've changed is, we've brought about what's called minimum drawdown relief. That is, if for example self-funded retirees who choose to take their superannuation benefit as an account based pension rather than a lump sum are required to draw down a minimum amount each year. What we've done because of the crisis is halve the minimum amount they have to draw down next year from their savings and the reason for that is to assist pension account balances to recover from capital losses associated with the global recession.
But also a few other things as well. The economic security strategy payments - that involved one-off payments of $1,400 for single, $2,100 for couples and that went to holders of Commonwealth Seniors health cards, as well as a number of self-funded retirees would also be eligible for the tax bonuses which came out as part of the Nation Building and Jobs Plan.
CARY: Yeah I respect that but I'm just wondering in terms, and I think this is where they are getting at in the Henry Review, about a real hard look at our superannuation and the priority placed on the balance of the monies in the share market.
PM: Well we of course will be very attentive to what the Secretary of the Treasury has to say through his review. Remember we still have a balanced strategy in terms of the holdings which people can have through their superannuation accounts in terms of equity markets and other forms of investment. And the advice I have is that as of the financial year to end April 2009, superannuation funds had medium losses of about 13.7 per cent and remember the decline in our share markets is something like 33 per cent in the same period and this is because we have in Australia an arrangement whereby there have to be balanced portfolio holdings.
Now let's see what Mr Henry has to say about any changes to the system in the future but one of the reasons the balanced arrangements were put in place in the past when the previous Labor Government brought in superannuation in the first place was to try and provide maximum protection, against complete risk.
MATTHEWS: Kevin, do you think that superannuation being such a long term mechanism has to be sort of above the various governments altering it?
PM: Well, I think it's, Leigh you're, it's very important that people have confidence in the future of the superannuation system. And therefore it's important to have continuity with it. There'll always be a need for some fine tuning, but Greg's obviously raised a pretty fundamental question just before in terms of the internal balance of the portfolios.
But remember, one of the reasons why an earlier Labor government brought in superannuation was to make it possible, most particularly through the taxation treatment of superannuation that people could provide properly for their long term retirement. The system remember hasn't been in all that long and it will take quite some time for it to become fully effective across the entire workforce.
But generally speaking, we need maximum predictability for the scheme but I think there will always be need for some level of fine tuning from time to time, that's why we're very attentive to what Ken Henry has to say. Of course, to put all these questions into context, Greg and Leigh, what we're wrestling with here is seriously the worst economic crisis in three quarters of a century.
Every economy around the world is being battered around the heads at the moment. The fact that in last year's economic growth, the last week's economic growth numbers, Australia was one of practically no other economies, of the advanced economies that was still growing I think indicates that we've had some success with the government's economic stimulus strategy. We're not out of the woods yet, but we'll still be pursuing our nation building for recovery plan to try and make a difference given that this global recession has belted so many people around the heads right around the world including their superannuation deposits as well.
CARY: Prime Minister, just before we go, and I know you need to go - we learned earlier about photos in Women's Day concerning your wife Therese who to her credit is on a fitness program and looking terrific and you must be very proud as well. And she must be very satisfied -
PM: How are you looking, Greg?
CARY: Terrific, and you?
PM: Leigh, Leigh, how's he looking?
CARY: (inaudible) Let's get off that topic -
PM: Greg, how's Leigh looking?
CARY: A million dollars. This is my point, you see, part of the unintended consequences of being in public life is the spotlight. You are entitled to accept it as part of the responsibility to a point. But when your wife goes to a gym, same as I go to a gym, Leigh goes to a gym, you go to a gym, you're entitled to be in there in privacy. How do you feel as both Prime Minister in a public sense and husband in a private sense that your wife's privacy is being destroyed by Woman's Day?
PM: I think I will probably just say two things. First is, I think Therese is looking terrific. I think she's always looked terrific and she's training to climb Mount Kilimanjaro.
CARY: Wow, good on her.
PM: So, good on her, she's been embarked upon that all year.
CARY: And you're not?
PM: That's far too rough for the life of me.
CARY: You did Kokoda.
PM: The tough people in our family -
CARY: (inaudible)
PM: That's right, well I walked Kokoda after Therese dared me. She'd walked it first and she said I wouldn't have it in me and she's probably right. When I came back I was a complete wreck.
CARY: But surely this is an invasion. We should say it loud and clear, it shouldn't be on.
PM: First thing I'd say is that I think she is looking terrific and she's embarked on this training program to train for Mount Kilimanjaro which she is going to be climbing a bit later in the year. Secondly if magazines choose to photograph people training at the gym through their cameras without their consent, well I presume that's a matter for those magazines. I think people will form their own judgment.
CARY: Yeah, yeah they will. They'll think it's terrible. I advocate that people not buy the magazine. Would you go that far?
PM: I think I'll just leave it there. I think people will form their own judgments. Greg, when people go to the gym I'm sure, Greg, Leigh when you go to the gym you're looking at your most glamorous, I always am.
CARY, LEIGH: Absolutely.
PM: Well, Leigh you'd be a lycra man I imagine.
LEIGH: That's the one.
(inaudible)
CARY: Trouble, trouble is there'll be more people going to buy Woman's Day because the media collectively, the written media hasn't got much respect to protect. All it is another bit of publicity. But you see, this Prime Minister (inaudible) made about the Chaser though. I think sometimes you've got to keep the focus on bad behaviour so as a community we can address the bad behaviour.
PM: Yeah, well it's a, I put up my hand to go into public life. I'm the bloke who gets elected and therefore whatever scrutiny I get, that's all fair cop, fair game. That's as it should be. I think others would have different views in terms of other members of your family, but she's one tough lady. I wouldn't like to be competing against her when she climbs Mt Kilimanjaro. I think she'd beat the three of us hands down.
CARY: Alright, you take care enjoy the day, talk soon.
PM: Thanks Greg.
CARY: Our Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd.