E & O E - PROOF ONLY
HOST: Prime Minister, welcome to the studio.
PM: Thank you very much, I was just worried that that chair was squeaking then and you could hear the squeaks.
HOST: We'll get some WD-40 on it.
PM: Good, thank you.
HOST: Try and spend some of that extra money you've given the ABC on a new chair. Prime Minister, you're here to listen as well as to spruik your message. What have you learned? What have you heard?
PM: Well we have Community Cabinet around the country, we do it regularly. We did it last night in Boothby and the reason we do it is to get feedback from people about what's on their mind.
It was a really broad cross-section of questions ranging from youth violence to mental health, a focus on refugee and asylum seeker questions.
But the feedback there, the messages I'll take away is people are very concerned about a number of things involving our young people, particularly young kids who drift away from school and then maybe get caught up in things that can mar the rest of their lives and their ability to make a future for themselves.
HOST: Is it a problem for you, though, that people have stopped listening to you, you might be listening, but they've stopped listening to you?
PM: Well as Prime Minister I get on with my job and speak to the Australian people about the issues that matter.
I make myself as available as I can be to meet with Australians in all walks of like and around the country and to have a good old conversation, and I always enjoy that and I think it's a conversation both ways. I'm heard and I listen.
HOST: I know the standard line is ‘well polls, I'll just let them wash over me,' but we know and you know as a pragmatist, that polls count in politics otherwise political parties wouldn't spend so much money on polling.
You know that the latest Nielsen Poll is very bad for you personally, and for your Government. You have Tony Abbott now as preferred Prime Minister, not by a lot but he's preferred Prime Minister.
How do you tackle - I mean has it got toxic, and if it gets toxic and people stop listening, then what do you do?
PM: I just don't accept any of that analysis.
HOST: None of it? None of the fact that the Labor Party spends money on polling-
PM: Let me go through it right from the start. There are published opinion polls weekly, basically, we get Newspoll every fortnight, then there are AC Nielsen polls and there's Galaxy and Essential and on and on and on it goes.
If I worried about the contents of every poll and the volatility between polls I literally would not do anything else. So I don't.
HOST: But is that a problem, that many in your party are literally not doing anything else, they're just worrying, and leaking, and upset, and panicking?
PM: I believe that at the end of the day people came into politics, I came into politics, with a sense of purpose about what you want to get done, what you believe in, what you think should be changed in our nation.
I came into politics having grown up here in South Australia in the electorate of Boothby, understanding I think what really makes a life for a family - access to good work, making sure that kids get the best education, the only reason I'm sitting here is because I did get a great education, making sure that there are Government services when your family needs them, so we want to extend, for example, Government services into supporting people with disabilities. So it's those things that drive me still.
What am I focussed on this year? Our economy, in this time of change, and making sure people have got jobs, delivering the new funding system for schools to make a difference to kids' life chances and starting the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
And I don't let the atmospherics and the polls and all the rest of it deter me from that.
HOST: You believe Labor can still win. Why do you think people will return to Labor on polling day?
PM: I certainly do believe we can win the election when it's held, and I believe that election will be a very clear choice between a Government with a plan for the future, with a focus on what matters for families, the strength of the economy, meeting the needs of families now under modern pressures as opposed to just negativity on the other side of politics.
HOST: You believe in your heart of hearts that despite all that's gone on, come polling day in seven months' time, there's going to be a change of heart?
PM: Absolutely.
HOST: People will wake up on that day? When I say wake up, they'll just wake up!
PM: Well I hope everybody wakes up on election morning! I hope everybody wakes up on election morning feeling fit and well!
HOST: But why would they turn around like that? Why?
PM: People will focus on what is then the decision and the choice in front of them. The choice that matters is not the choice that you gabble down the phone to someone who rings up from a polling company.
The choice that matters is when you're standing in a polling booth, you've got the ballot paper in front of you, you've got the pencil in the hand and you're going to mark the squares.
HOST: Now Prime Minister we've got lots of questions and we'll move on from polls to policy, and you'll probably be quite happy about that. This is a question earlier this morning though, after 6am this morning, from Christina. Are you able to hear that okay, we'll just make sure you're getting audio there through your-
PM: Yes I am now.
HOST: You are now, that's great. Our studio's cleverly designed so that the dials are confusing. This is Christina, Prime Minister.
CALLER: I'm just wondering how she expects the single parent families out there, both male and female, to survive on the money that they receive at the moment when there's no jobs available, where there's jobs that as soon as they find out you've got children they're not interested in hiring you, and rent costs and living costs are going through the roof. It's impossible. Each week I have to decide between food and rent.
HOST: Prime Minister.
PM: It is very tough for single parent families; it's very tough for a lot of low-income families.
We've got to focus though on helping single parents get the benefits of work - often part-time work because that's what enables them to balance up work and family life - and the reason we're so focussed on that is all of the evidence tells you that if kids grow up in a home where no one works, then they can take that disadvantage with them into the rest of their lives.
HOST: So it's a deliberate policy to make it harder on single parents?
PM: No, it's a deliberate policy to make sure that we are working with single parents so that they get a work opportunity. It is not in their interests to be there, out of the labour force for ten, fifteen, sixteen years and then try and get back into the labour force. That doesn't work. It's not in the interests of their child to grow up in a home where no one works.
By the standards of comparable countries, we have less single parents working than in comparable nations, so we're trying to support people through into work, appropriate training, childcare support, all of that is available.
HOST: This question came in earlier via our SMS line: The changes, says Gary, to the private health insurance will hit in the new financial year delivering a $1000 slug for a lot of middle Australia. He asks, how you think that's going to affect your popularity?
PM: Well it's not about popularity. It's about what's right in terms of the use of resources that taxpayers put into the Government pot. The money we've got is the money the taxpayers give us, and we've got to use it wisely.
And I simply don't believe that someone on my income level for example should be getting public support for their private health insurance.
So we've taken what for many might seem like a tough decision, but I think it's the right use of taxpayers' dollars to say that people who are in a better position to look after themselves do, people who need support still get support, and we focus on putting more money into health, which we are most certainly doing.
HOST: Elizabeth from the Adelaide Hills has called us on 891 Breakfast at 8.50am with Prime Minister Julia Gillard in our studios. Good morning Elizabeth.
CALLER: Good morning. I'd like to say firstly it's a disgrace that there are only five weeks of sittings between now and the next seven months, but my question to her is, could you please tell us exactly what the debt is? In my listening I have heard that it is over $200 million and that they are still borrowing money.
HOST: Prime Minister, I think it means $200 billion but you'd be quite happy with a $200 million debt level.
PM: There's more than five weeks of sitting - I think she's referring to the session that we're in now, and then we'll have the budget session.
But we have Parliament when we need it in order to get legislation through, and we've been very successful in this Parliament in getting legislation through.
In terms of Government borrowing and Government debt, we're going to peak at less than 10 per cent of GDP, but I'll take the opportunity to explain-
HOST: When's that going to happen?
PM: The peak is soon, and then of course we'll start seeing debt go down.
HOST: Why?
PM: Because we'll be repaying it. But can I explain why the debt is there, because I think this is one of the least understood questions and needs to be understood. We got slugged in the global financial crisis just like the rest of the world.
So around the world, the global economy starts to tumble, it hits into company profits. That hits into Government revenues, and it reduced Government revenues by $160 billion. That's a lot of money.
Now if you were going to cut Government expenditure to match a reduction in revenues like that, you'd have to do something as big as stop paying the aged pension to all pensioners. It's simply not possible.
And if we'd done that, a cut as mammoth as that, that would have tumbled our economy into recession and obviously thrown people into poverty.
So what we chose to do at that time - $160 billion slug to revenues - was stimulate the economy. That required some money too. That is what has caused the debt and deficit, and as you move to the next stage of the economic cycle, into growth, then you start repaying it.
HOST: Sure, you say you're going to start repaying it. Is that the same Treasury projections that said you'd get $2 billion from the MRRT, the mining tax, and you're getting $126 million?
I mean, why would people have confidence in any of those predications; that you're going to repay debt?
PM: Well people should have confidence in the professionalism of Treasury.
HOST: That's exactly my point, the Treasurer and Treasury.
PM: Let's be clear. The projections, the forecasts come from Treasury, from the professional public servants whose job it has been over time-
HOST: And they got it wrong.
PM: Well, over time, to advise this Government, the former Howard Government, governments in the future, so it's not appropriate-
HOST: And they got it wrong, Prime Minister.
PM: I'm going to address that, but it's not appropriate to cast aspersions on their professionalism and what they do.
In terms of the Minerals Resource Rent Tax, we saw commodity price volatility that took everyone by surprise, including those in the mining sector that did have implications for MRRT revenue.
That doesn't mean that the professionalism of the public servants who exercise their best judgment in doing to forecasts should be questioned, and it doesn't mean that the budget forecasts generally should be subject to question.
HOST: Okay now Prime Minister we know you've got other engagements, I think, so we're just about to wrap up. We've got a little function we want to do with you.
PM: Sure.
HOST: On Tuesdays in Adelaide on this program, and this is the only program in the world I think that does this. We have something called lucky dip Tuesdays, it's based on the old fete, we have a lucky dip and listeners get to ask us a question. And then depending on the best question we let them dip into the lucky dip box. Now, I'll show you the luck dip box. This is a new one for you, this is it here.
PM: Okay, right. Well no expense spared on the box, clearly.
HOST: Nope. My wife bought me a new mop during the week.
PM: You're wife bought you a new mop!
HOST: So this is our lucky dip box. We're quite proud of that box. It's a lot better than the photocopier box.
PM: I'm impressed.
HOST: Now, we'll spin the chocolate wheel. We do this every Tuesday. Do you have a question for us?
PM: Can I ask, where is the chocolate wheel?
HOST: Prime Minister, nobody has ever asked us that question.
PM: I can hear a chocolate wheel. I can't see a chocolate wheel.
HOST: That is worthy of a lucky dip prize from the lucky dip box. Would you like to pick something? Just be careful because there's some ABC merchandise in there that's defunct. We don't want to tell you what to pick but there's a box in there with, ‘PM pick me' on it.
PM: I've picked the box that says, ‘PM pick me'.
HOST: That's right, everything is rigged on the ABC. Be very careful of this.
PM: Okay, I have some trepidation in opening this. Righto, I've got it open. Oh, hang-on.
HOST: What do you think?
PM: Um, thank you very much.
HOST: Describe. It's a brown-
PM: It's a brown; it's a kookaburra, is it?
HOST: Yes!
PM: Right, yes. It's a brown kookaburra.
HOST: It's a brown ceramic kookaburra. Now some people think we just cleaned out our sheds.
PM: Yes.
HOST: We did.
PM: Well I think if you're going with the fete theme. Certainly at a fete on a second-hand odds ‘n' ends stall you could have seen this kookaburra. I think that's true.
HOST: Would you put in in the Lodge?
PM: Do you want me to put it in the Lodge?
HOST: Yes. My wife would be so chuffed if you put that in the Lodge.
PM: What if I take it to the Lodge and we get a photo of it sitting there and we'll send it through to you? Would you like it in the garden or in the house?
HOST: No, in the house on the mantelpiece.
PM: In the house.
HOST: You're not going to put it in your shed are you?
PM: Ah, no, it will go into the Lodge because you've ask for it to go into the Lodge and we'll put it on the mantelpiece and we'll take a photo of it.
HOST: Straight to the poolroom as they say. Based on your experience would you encourage people to ring in on a Tuesday morning and play lucky dip Tuesday?
PM: I don't see why not.
HOST: It's the calibre of prizes.
PM: If that was supposed to make a point about ABC funding, you've made it!
HOST: Oh dear! Prime Minister Julia Gillard, thank you for coming into the studio. We know you have other media engagements.
PM: Thank you very much.
HOST: And thank you for struggling with the traffic too.
PM: I was a little bit of a hard journey this morning.
HOST: Well it's almost mad-March in Adelaide. It's the time of year. Prime Minister, thank you.
[ENDS]