GREG CARY:
Good morning, Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning, Greg. How are you?
GREG CARY:
Good, it’s good to talk with you.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good to talk to you too, mate.
GREG CARY:
Just before we get into a couple of the issues around the place, I’m just wondering, it’s been a couple of months now – you’re into it, are you enjoying the job? Is it what you thought it would be?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, look, I was pretty well prepared. I’d been in the Parliament almost 20 years. I’d been the Leader of the House of Representatives and in Cabinet for seven years, but nothing ever quite prepares you for a big job. It’s exhilarating and it’s exciting, but there are times when it’s daunting and frustrating as well and I guess you’ve got to take the smooth and the rough together in a job like this.
GREG CARY:
And you’re getting both already. A couple of things you’re dealing with already. You were in Brisbane yesterday supporting Bill Glasson who will seek to win Kevin Rudd’s seat of Griffith in the by-election in the new year. You went very close at the last election – won on the primaries, but lost on preferences. So, you’re probably expecting to win. To what extent will this be a referendum, then, on your first months in office?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, we’ll see, won’t we? It will, to some extent, be the voters passing judgment on the early days of the new government. It will be, to some extent, the voters passing judgment on the way Kevin Rudd left them in the lurch. To some extent, it will be voters passing judgement on the quality of the candidates – and Bill Glasson is an outstanding, outstanding candidate, Greg. He was the former president of the Australian Medical Association and a very well-respected ophthalmologist in Brisbane. He does a lot of work with indigenous people in western Queensland, he served with the Army Reserve for many, many years – a terrific bloke who doesn’t want to do it for himself, but wants to do it for the people of Griffith.
GREG CARY:
Just on former prime ministers, we had several calls following Mr Rudd’s resignation, after saying he would serve the term, and to be fair that happens on both sides of politics…
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I’m not sure when it’s happened on our side. John Howard was beaten in 2007. I suppose, Malcolm Fraser would be the last Prime Minister from our side who caused a by-election…
GREG CARY:
I guess the point I was going to get to, though, and listeners have raised it is the question of entitlements to former prime ministers. It came in at a time when prime ministers did sacrifice, well, politicians sacrificed a lot, prime ministers often times retired without a huge amount. Now, all former prime ministers are doing it very, very well. Do we need to look at entitlements for former prime ministers?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I’m not proposing to, Greg. Obviously, former prime ministers like all former members of parliament are entitled to whatever pension arrangements they’re under. Some, like Mr Rudd and Ms Gillard, were under the old parliamentary pension. If Bill Shorten gets to be prime minister and leaves the Parliament, he will be under the new arrangements. Like Mr Rudd, I’m under the old arrangements. So, former prime ministers just get the standard parliamentary pension for whatever position they’ve been in, but yes they do get access to an office and some staff and I don’t think that’s unreasonable because former prime ministers normally have some kind of ongoing public role. Mr Rudd, as I understand it, is writing a book. He’s certainly been pretty active internationally since the election. Ms Gillard is certainly being very active on the public stage since she left the Parliament, left the prime ministership. I think whether you approve of a particular prime minister or not, whether you voted for a particular prime minister or whether you didn’t, I think as Australians we should want our former leaders to be accorded a certain basic respect and I think an office and at least some staff is part of that.
GREG CARY:
Ok, today’s issues. You say in your article in The Australian today, yesterday marked the start of Australia’s presidency of the G20. We’ll be hosting the summit in the latter part of next year here in Brisbane. You make the point that it’s the most important international gathering ever held in Australia. What makes it that and what would you want to achieve out of it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Because, the leaders of the world’s 20 largest economies are here. You don’t just have the President of the United States – you’ve got the President of China, the President of Russia, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the President of France, the Prime Minister of Canada, the Prime Minister of India. This is an extraordinary gathering. 85 per cent of the world’s GDP, 75 per cent of the world’s trade and more than 65 per cent of the world’s population are represented by leaders who will be in Brisbane in November of next year. So, it is very important. The challenge, Greg, is for it to be more than just an occasion of goodwill, more than just an exchange of views. The challenge is to try to bring some concrete improvements out of it and one of the things I would like to see is better international taxation arrangements so that we don’t have the kind of leakage from people’s economies which we are currently getting through transfer pricing arrangements, particularly in an internet age and the principle ought to be that you pay tax on your income in the country where that income is earned. So, if a business earns several billions of dollars in Australia, it should pay tax on those earnings here in this country. It shouldn’t be able to transfer those earnings to Bermuda or somewhere like that and pay zero or very little tax on them.
GREG CARY:
Sure, it’s a difficult one isn’t it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, it is a difficult one and we’ve long had tax havens, but in the internet age, it’s a lot easier for this kind of thing to happen. If you’re an online business it’s certainly very easy for you to purport to earn income by various pricing arrangements in low tax jurisdictions and that’s why this is an important challenge for us.
GREG CARY:
Ok, talk about difficult ones. It was GrainCorp last week. It is Qantas coming up. Alan Joyce, the head of Qantas, is wanting some sort of government intervention and support of Qantas to shore up its credit rating at the same time as they’re insisting on maintaining its 65 per cent share of domestic market, the capacity that some in the industry say is killing them. John Howard point blank, as you know, refused to support Ansett. Does the Government have any role at all in this?
PRIME MINISTER:
Our role is to try to ensure that we have a strong and competitive aviation sector. That is our principle role. Obviously, as citizens we would like to see the flying kangaroo flourish but our principle role as the government is to ensure that we have a strong and competitive aviation sector so that Australians have access to the kind of aviation services at the right price that they have come to expect and hopefully better services in the years ahead. Now, I know Alan Joyce is unhappy with what he sees as an un-level playing field. To the best of my knowledge he hasn’t settled on a specific proposal to put to the government and I would suggest that we need a community debate on this. We need Qantas to, I guess, settle on what it wants. Maybe it wants to see the restrictions on ownership lifted. I am not sure that they really want to see a new government shareholding and the trouble with providing a government loan guarantee is where does that stop? Once you start giving it to one business, why shouldn’t you give it to other businesses? These are complex issues…
GREG CARY:
Would you rule out incidentally any sense of government ownership – five per cent, ten per cent?
PRIME MINISTER:
I am just not going to get into these details because I don’t think Qantas knows yet what it wants and these are very early days for this. All of us were under the impression that Qantas was doing pretty well, certainly that is the public impression and I think we are going to take some time to digest all of this before rushing into a decision.
GREG CARY:
Just philosophically, though, why do we still limit ownership of Qantas to 49 per cent of overseas interest when their major domestic competition is owned by state-controlled airlines in large measures?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, that is a fair question to put. These limits were set by legislation quite a long time ago. It is so far back I can’t remember whether it was set in the time of the Keating Government or in the time of the Howard Government, but it was a long, long time ago and it was done by the Parliament at that time. Now, I don’t think anyone says that because something was done once, it is set in concrete forever but if legislation were to change, obviously there would need to be a community debate and I think that debate has just begun.
GREG CARY:
Philosophically, though, do you have a position?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, philosophically, my instinct is to have less regulation rather than more but, in the end, you have got to temper that with the national interest as we did with the GrainCorp decision. We are in favour of foreign investment. Foreign investment is very important to our economy. Our economy would be a stunted, impoverished thing without foreign investment in the mining industry, in manufacturing, in agriculture. Everywhere you look, there is foreign investment and there is literally millions of jobs that are in some way dependent upon foreign investment but it has got to be the right foreign investment not the wrong foreign investment and having a very, very large overseas company take a virtual monopoly position in our grain industry – particularly an overseas company that is so subject to agri-politics in the United States – Joe Hockey decided, and I certainly agree, was not at this time in our best national interest.
GREG CARY:
We have only got a couple of minutes, so let me bounce a couple of other things off you. We have been talking a bit about education locally today but obviously Christopher Pyne and Gonski and the relationship with the states much in the news. There seems to be a couple of issues. One, the policy itself, but two, the perception, but more than the perception to be fair to reality that what you said before the election is not according with what is happening now.
PRIME MINISTER:
I dispute very much, Greg, that there is a difference between our post and pre-election statements but I do want to make this point. First, that we will keep our commitments. That is something that I am absolutely determined to do, to keep our commitments, to keep faith with the Australian people. We don’t want to be like the former government. The second point I’d make is that we need a system which is national and fair and the problem with what the former government did was that it took $1.2 billion out of school funding in haste, in virtual secrecy before the last election. We are putting at least $230 million of that back so that next year students in Queensland will get what the former government offered but then ripped off just before the election. Now, Christopher Pyne said last week that there was $230 million immediately – that was there for next year. He was hopeful that down the track we would be able to offer more because what we want is the best possible education for our kids. It’s not all about money, it’s much more about standards and good teaching and principal autonomy and parental involvement, but certainly money is important and we’ve got to be fair to all of the school students right around our country.
GREG CARY:
Just a question out of left field before I just ask you a final question about Parliament sitting for the final time this year – two tragic fatal shark attacks in recent weeks, a horrible one at Coffs Harbour on the weekend; terrific young man by the sound of it. The debate going on about the culling of sharks; you’re a long-time surf lifesaver, spent a lot of time in the ocean. Culling of sharks? Or that’s their domain and we know the risk when we go in?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, I probably should leave that to the state governments. It is a vexed question and I guess there’s always the issue of getting the guilty ones, so to speak. Look, it’s a hard one – it’s a very hard one. I guess all of us know there are some risks when we go into the water, but thank God over the years, we’ve managed to take measures to reduce the risks with meshing of many beaches, with a tremendous surf lifesaving movement and of course, if you suspect that it’s the wrong time of the year, or the wrong time of the day or the wrong place, well, you don’t go into the water.
GREG CARY:
Ok. It’s the last sitting of Parliament for the year – the carbon tax, amongst other things, looms large.
PRIME MINISTER:
Absolutely right, Greg. It does loom large. This is Bill Shorten’s chance to give Australian families and households the best possible Christmas present. If he allows the carbon tax repeal legislation to go through, that’s $550 a year that households and families will be better off. Now, the interesting thing is, in the last Parliament, I fought to ensure that the Government kept its commitments. In this Parliament, Bill Shorten is now fighting to make us break our commitments. Now, this is a pretty bizarre position for the Leader of the Opposition to be in. He can never attack us for not keeping commitments when he is standing in the way of us keeping the most fundamental commitment of all, which was to repeal the carbon tax.
GREG CARY:
Appreciate your time this morning – always have – and I wish you all the best for Christmas, too.
PRIME MINISTER:
Greg, I can’t let you go without wishing you all the best.
GREG CARY:
Thank you.
PRIME MINISTER:
I appreciate that you haven’t got too much more time on air in this particular stint and look, it’s been lovely to talk to you over the last few years and I wish you well for the future and I hope we talk on air again soon, in one capacity or another.
GREG CARY:
I hope so too, Prime Minister. Thank you very much, Tony.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you, Greg.
GREG CARY:
I much appreciate that. Our Prime Minister, Tony Abbott.
[ends]