HOST: Julia Gillard, good morning to you.
PM: Good morning, Jon.
HOST: We had, in fact, a very positive reaction on talkback on this radio station but I'm astonished to see that the next morning the written media - the press - pretty much universally say that your policy has been badly received and on the skids.
PM: Jon, I understand people are under financial pressure, and when you first ask them about paying a levy I'm not surprised some Australians think ‘gee, I'm going to have to consider that', but overall I think Australians are very generous people, that we want to pull together when times are tough, and people will ultimately come to understand why the levy is necessary as one way of working together to recover from the Queensland floods, but also from floods in other parts of the country, including Victoria.
HOST: Are you going to rethink your policy after the reaction that you got from it?
PM: No, I'm not, Jon. I'm determined to rebuild as we need to around the country. Our preliminary estimates are that that's going to cost $5.6 billion. It's a lot of money. We've made some room in the federal budget through cutbacks, but we also do need Australians to make a contribution through the levy-
HOST: -Well, you don't. You've could cut another $1.8 billion from cutbacks if you wanted to find it that way, but why don't you?
PM: Well, I've determined that the best package here is for us to cut back on the federal budget, and we have. For every $1 we're asking Australians to pay in levy we've cut back $2 on the federal budget, but I think that this is a fair proposition. For the vast majority of people it means that they'll be paying less than $1 a week. Even for someone on $80,000 a year we're in cup of coffee territory in terms of what they're being asked to put in.
HOST: Do you blame Tony Abbott for politicising the flood disaster?
PM: I would say about Tony Abbott's reaction that at times like this people want to see us all pulling together and I think Australians have really pulled together. What I'd say about Tony Abbott's reaction is, look, he's not opposed to levies. We know that - he's not opposed to levies. He was a supporter of Howard Government levies. He was a supporter of a levy to fund his own election promises. What he's looking for here is the politics of it, the political advantage, and I really don't think that's what Australians are expecting of their political leaders at times like this when we've got a lot to do and a lot of rebuilding to do.
HOST: He's cashing in on a lot of suspicion that in fact you're Government and your predecessor Kevin Rudd were running a Government that just doesn't know how to spend money responsibly and that's a reputation that he says you've earned.
PM: Look, Tony Abbott has just come out against the levy holus bolus, despite the fact that he's been a supporter of levies in the past, so this is him looking for political advantage and he made a speech over the weekend about how he thinks this can be something that assists him and the Liberal Party back into government. I don't think Australians want to see that kind of approach from their political leaders. They want us to get on with the job and he's got no fundamental objection to levies. He can't have - he's supported them in the past, including paying for his election promises. So, really, Jon, I'd say if it's been good enough for Tony Abbott to support a levy to pay for his election promises then surely it's good enough when we've got so much rebuilding to do around the country.
And I understand people want to see value for money. I want to see value for money. That's why I've deferred $1 billion worth of infrastructure - so we don't create capacity constraints which cause price to go up. And we will be working with the Queensland Government; we'll have two people on the recovery authority board; my Minister, Joe Ludwig is sitting on the State Cabinet committee that is dealing with flood recovery; we'll have auditing at every level for us to make payments, including against the $2 billion prepayment we're going to give the Queensland Government; there will need to be audit sign-off, including audit sign-off by the state Auditor-General; and of course we made Mick Slater available here, a very senior Defence Force official, who will bring all of his expertise to the task.
HOST: Warren Truss claims that you're pork barrelling the infrastructure rebuild.
PM: I've seen those claims and, Jon, the simple circumstance here is when we looked for what we could defer in terms of infrastructure spending we obviously had to select projects where we didn't have contracts underway and people working doing them. That is, we had to select projects that were in the planning stage and not under fixed contracts. So, when you're looking across your infrastructure expenditure there's only some many projects that fit that bill, and we worked through with the Queensland Government to select the right projects to be deferred.
That deferral is important because we need to ensure we're not bidding up prices. We need to make money available, but you need concrete, you need workers, you need skilled workers to come along and rebuild things and just to put it really simply we can't do everything at once, and that's why we're deferring some infrastructure that was otherwise planned.
HOST: What's wrong with a permanent natural disaster fund? It would take very little to start building up a capital fund for all of these sorts of events that may occur in the future.
PM: I understand that people are going to want to have that conversation, Jon, and my only message is that we can't hold up getting started on the rebuilding from this huge natural disaster while we have that conversation. And I'd also say, just in terms of our disaster preparedness and our disaster resilience, that we should note that this has been an extraordinary set of circumstances. This is probably the biggest natural disaster we've ever faced in economic terms-
HOST: -Yeah, but we're warned to expect more of them in future.
PM: Well, Jon, we're a nation that sees natural disasters. We've seen them in the past, we'll see them in the future - cyclones, fire, flood. Normally we are able to deal with that through standing natural disaster arrangements. What's been different this time is the sheer scale of it. I mean, 75 per cent of Queensland natural disaster declared; a city of millions, Brisbane, basically closed down because of a natural disaster; and then floodwaters cascading into other parts of the country, including, of course, into regional Victoria.
HOST: In fact Peter Ryan, the leader of the National Party and Deputy Premier here now in Victoria said that he couldn't believe, on this program early this morning, he said he couldn't believe that in your whole National Press Club speech you didn't even mention Victoria, and he and Ted Baillieu, the Premier here, are wary now they think you're going to cut back on infrastructure spending here in Victoria. What guarantees can you give?
PM: Well, look, I understand that people will make some of these political points along the way but the reality here is, Jon, I visited flood regions in Victoria. I wanted to do that to talk to people on the ground directly.
We'll work with the Victorian Government in exactly the same way we're going to working with the Queensland Government. There's a formula which is how much the Commonwealth contributes. We contribute 75 per cent of the rebuilding cost. We'll do that in Victoria in exactly the same way we're going to do it in Queensland, so I'll just get on with the job working with Premier Baillieu and his Government, same deal for Victoria as there is for Queensland, and we'll get on with the rebuilding.
HOST: What advice are you giving to Australians in Egypt?
PM: The advice we're giving to Australians in Egypt is certainly to stay away from any of the demonstrations and to try and stay in safe and secure areas. We're also saying people should commence to travel out of Egypt if it's safe to do so. Now, the airport is still open at this stage. We are obviously monitoring this very, very closely so that we can make the best possible arrangements for Australians to move out of Egypt and we are certainly saying to Australians who are here at home or in other parts of the world, do not travel. Do not go to Egypt.
HOST: Are you expecting a knock on, a domino effect as it's been described, across the rest of the Arab world?
PM: I think we can all understand the yearning of people in Egypt and in other parts of the Middle-East, the yearning for democracy, for freedom, for many of the things that as Australians we take for granted day after day because we live in such a peaceful and wonderful country. So, I think we do understand that yearning but we also want to see as much calm and restraint as possible. We don't want to see people losing their lives in a situation like the one that Egypt finds itself in now.
HOST: But we could see chaos replacing tyranny that could even become completely ungovernable?
PM: We're certainly calling on the Government of Egypt to respond to the very legitimate desires of the Egyptian people for change. I mean, ultimately the future of Egypt has to be in the hands of the Egyptian people. That's what we want for our own country, that we as Australians get to determine our future and so the people of Egypt need to determine their future, but clearly as we monitor the situation closely we continue to urge restraint in these difficult circumstances. We've seen a pretty high death rate already and we don't want to see more tragedy.
HOST: And just finally closer to home, there's been an internal brawl in the Victorian branch of the Labor Party, which you have more than passing familiarity with. Is it a good idea to recruit celebrity candidates? Frank Maguire to replace John Brumby in Broadmeadows.
PM: I think it's a good idea to recruit good candidates and good candidates can come from all walks of life. Some of those walks of life have already brought them to public attention. Some of those walks of life are quieter walks of life and no-one knows their name until they step forward for politics, but I think Mr Maguire will be a good candidate.
HOST: Mary Delehunty, Justin Madden, Peter Garrett, we could keep going through. They don't always work out in as spectacular fashion or to the expectations heaps upon them, these sorts of recruits, do they?
PM: Well, Jon, I'm not going to get involved in using the names of individuals. Peter Garrett's obviously working with me in the Federal Government, doing a great job in the area of school education, something very, very, very close to my heart.
I think when a political party like the Labor Party is looking for candidates we should look as broadly as possible. Some people that stand for the Labor Party will come from public walks of life and consequently they'll be people who are known. Some of them will even be from the ABC, Jon, we've seen that in the past, and some will be not known to anybody beyond their local community, not a public name at all, but will make a great Member of Parliament. There's not one path into politics.
HOST: No, there certainly isn't, but there's one path out in particular that no-one wants to take Julia Gillard. We will see exactly where-
PM: -Oh Jon, surely more optimism can be summoned at the start of a working week.
HOST: And at the start of what could turn out to be quite a turbulent year. We will see just how turbulent it turns out to be.
I'm grateful to you for your time today.
PM: Thank you very much.