PRIME MINISTER:
Matt and Dave it’s good to be with you.
PRESENTER:
You’re making a very military fly in to Adelaide appropriately on a Wedgetail surveillance aircraft. Very high-tech aircraft to Edinburgh and by all reports I think the ground’s been well fertilised. You bring good news?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I do. I’m obviously flying in on one of the Royal Australian Air Force’s Wedgetail AEW&C’s. That’s a very important part of our military capability, but what I will be doing is confirming that as part of the future purchase of the Triton unmanned surveillance aircraft there will be $100 million worth of work to RAAF Edinburgh. I’m also confirming that there’ll be $78 million worth of work for British Aerospace BAE in Adelaide as part of the ongoing contract with Boeing to sustain the Wedgetail aircraft. So it is good news for Adelaide, but most of all it’s good news for Australia’s defences because we do need to have a strong defence; national security is as important as economic security when it comes to the good government of our country.
PRESENTER:
That’s a lot of money – how many jobs will South Australia see for that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well look, I don’t want to say precisely how many, but it’s obviously a good outcome for about 300 industry staff who are employed in the Wedgetail project around the country, including in Adelaide, but look, obviously this is money that will be spent in and around Adelaide and that’s good news for employment in a city which has had some bad news on employment lately.
PRESENTER:
Certainly has and some people would say you didn’t help much in terms of losing Holden, so we need something back.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well look, I made it clear during the election campaign that we were prepared to continue the Coalition’s existing level of support for the motor industry, but what I wasn’t going to do was run down the road waving an open cheque, a blank cheque, at companies and it’s very disappointing that Holden are going, but the economics of making cars in Australia are difficult and this has increasingly been the case over the last few years. As we know, after 2007, exports dropped, production dropped and employment dropped in the motor sector.
PRESENTER:
These drones what component of the announcement today is, you know, basing these drones which we’re seeing a trend I think in western countries for these to be used as part of not just surveillance, but also defence.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, the drones are an important part of our surveillance. We’ve started to use them in Afghanistan; we used an aircraft called the Heron quite extensively from 2009 onwards in Afghanistan. These Tritons are an unarmed, unmanned aerial vehicle, but they’re excellent for maritime surveillance because they can stay in the air for about 24 hours and their range is something like 15,000 kilometres. So they’re an extraordinarily capable aircraft and given that Australia has responsibility for something like 11 per cent of the world’s oceans it’s very important that we’ve got a very effective maritime surveillance capability.
PRESENTER:
You bring this announcement in the context of a state election. Will you be standing next to Steven Marshall or Jay Weatherill or both today?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there’s really two things happening today. I’m flying into Edinburgh, I will be making the announcement and I think when I’m making the announcement I’ll be standing next to the Chief of the Air Force, as appropriate, and then there will be subsequently a press conference on other issues and when I deal with other issues I’ll be standing next to Steven Marshall as you’d expect during an election campaign.
PRESENTER:
Yeah, well Jay Weatherill says South Australia will need somebody who can take the fight up to Tony Abbott. You are a great advocate of the adversarial nature of politics in this country – it serves a purpose, it keeps people on their toes. There is some merit, is there not, in having at least one Labor government to challenge all of the others?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don’t think people want to elect the premier to fight with Canberra. I think people want to elect the premier to work with Canberra and this is why I find Mr Weatherill’s campaign odd. I mean why after 12 years of indifferent at best Labor government in Adelaide would you re-elect a government for 16 years on the basis that this guy’s going to fight with Canberra? I mean aren’t people sick of the fights? Don’t they want something constructive? Look, that’s what he’s campaigning on and good luck to him. In a democracy you’re allowed to run for office on any basis you like, but I think it’s a pretty odd basis to be asking for another four years in government.
PRESENTER:
Prime Minister is it pretty odd and also partisan not to have the Premier of the state – he’s still the Premier – at this announcement today at all?
PRIME MINISTER:
As I said I won’t be making any announcement as such with the Opposition Leader beside me, although I will after the announcement be doing a doorstop press conference that will involve the Leader of the Opposition because let’s face it, we are in the last week of an election campaign and I’m happy to campaign with Steven Marshall who is a terrific bloke, who will make a great premier. Why would I stand beside a Premier today who is basing his whole bid to be re-elected on wanting to fight with me?
PRESENTER:
One of the issues that’s emerged in this campaign has been industrial relations and in particular penalty rates. They featured here in South Australia. To create the next generation of jobs is it fair to say we are going to have to do things differently in this country?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think we need a new spirit of partnership in the workplace and I – when I was workplace relations minister – was always trying to stress the things that management and staff have got in common, that the workforce whether they’re in senior management or right down on the shop floor have got in common. I mean if the business does well, everyone does well.
PRESENTER:
Yeah, but does that mean somebody’s got to give something up as well as give something and for workers, they’re going to have to come to a point where, at least in some sectors in the economy, things like penalty rates need to be discussed.
PRIME MINISTER:
And look people are discussing these things all the time and there’s nothing to stop businesses approaching the Fair Work Commission and seeking to change the existing award. There’s no reason why that can’t be done if that’s what people would like.
PRESENTER:
But the point of the question Prime Minister is are you urging business and unions and workers to accept the fact that penalty rates at least in some portions of the economy will have to go?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I’m urging people to work together for the success of business because in the end a strong economy depends upon strong and profitable private businesses and we can’t have a strong society without a strong economy to sustain it. Now what I’ve always said is that in any business the workforce and the management should sit down regularly together, individually and collectively, to talk about where the business is going and what needs to be done to make it more successful.
PRESENTER:
But collectively, do states like South Australia, if we want to break out of what is effectively large scale corporate welfare and that’s effectively what military handouts like the one we’re seeing today is – we’re relying on Federal Government largess to keep an industry going that’s entirely dependent on Federal Government cash – if we want to have our own industries than we need to embrace a low wage, low cost structure in South Australia? Otherwise why would anyone build anything here?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no we need to embrace a high productivity culture. That’s the secret. The secret is not low wages, the secret is high productivity. The great thing about what happened under the former Coalition government, under the Howard government, in which, amongst other things, I was the workplace relations minister, is that we did have increasing productivity and high productivity is what can sustain higher wages and greater competitiveness.
PRESENTER:
And the main weapon for that was workchoices.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I’m not so sure that it was just that, but certainly if you’ve got the workforce sitting down talking to the management, if everyone is trying to work out how the business can be more successful, what they need to do to be more innovative and creative you can have a lot of success. I used to years ago manage a concrete batching plant…
PRESENTER:
But you have to have legislative, sorry…
PRIME MINISTER:
Years and years ago I used to manage a concrete batching plant and when I started laying down the law it was amazing how many mistakes were made and when I sat down with the workforce and said look how can we do this better it was amazing how much more productive the plant was.
PRESENTER:
Prime Minister, later today the Productivity Commission will release its reform blueprint for infrastructure – how we fund it, what we should be spending money on. You’ve got your Minister, South Australian Jamie Briggs on AM this morning talking about the fuel excise, flagging that maybe that would be the way to raise revenue. The Productivity Commission is going to look at drivers paying for every kilometre they drive and there’ll be little satellite navigation devices telling people just how far they have been driving. We’re going to have to get used to this brave new world too.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I haven’t actually seen the report which will be released later today and I’d want to carefully consider it before I respond to it. I’m in the business of lower taxes, not higher taxes. I’m in the business of trying to reduce people’s costs, not increase people’s costs and that’s why I’m so determined to get rid of the carbon tax and get rid of the mining tax and I’m so disappointed that Premier Weatherill’s got so little to say except that he’s looking forward to the carbon tax which is a fact of life he says. So I’m into getting taxes down, not putting taxes up and I’d be very cautious about the issues that you’ve just raised with me. I accept that the Productivity Commission is entitled to make recommendations, but in the end it’s how the Government responds that counts.
PRESENTER:
You wouldn’t be a big fan by the sounds of it of having a little GPS tracking device in the car so that you can track the kilometres of every citizen and charge them accordingly?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well look, I think the short answer is I’d take a lot of persuading, but in any event these are essentially state matters, as I understand it, if we were to have…
PRESENTER:
It would be a big vote winner wouldn’t it.
PRIME MINISTER:
…user-charge it would be a state issue not a Commonwealth one.
PRESENTER:
If Steven Marshall said ‘I’m going to put a GPS in every car if I’m elected premier, vote for me’, I think we’d know what the outcome would be come Saturday.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well he wants to abolish the car park tax, as I understand it, and I think that’s a very good thing. I think that’s the best contribution that he can make to motorists in South Australia right now.
PRESENTER:
And you wouldn’t be eager to campaign at the next federal election as the Prime Minister who put sat nav devices in every car.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well as I said, I haven’t seen this report and no, I’m in favour of lower taxes and charges and that’s what I want to bring about – starting with the carbon tax and the mining tax which really ought to be abolished and would already be abolished but for the fact that the Labor Party in the Senate is ganging up with the Greens to frustrate the mandate of the Government.
PRESENTER:
You’re listening to Prime Minister Tony Abbott. He’s arriving in Adelaide later this morning, here on 891 ABC Adelaide talking to us.
Prime Minister, just one more issue. We’re getting signals now that your Government is serious about media reform and effectively allowing, for instance, monopoly players in individual cities. Now, Malcolm Turnbull has said the internet has fixed this; there’s a lot more diversity. Do you concede though that once again in smaller cities, in smaller states, where you don’t have media diversity, certainly in print, like South Australia that this will be an issue? We’re already seeing informally here these alliances between the Murdoch owned Advertiser, Murdoch owned metropolitan radio station and Channel Ten working together irrespective of cross media laws. It doesn’t take much to see what will happen when Murdoch eventually buys Channel Ten, snaps it up and you have sort of this total dominance in a town, in a small town.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well isn’t it fantastic that we’ve got our ABC to provide a counterpoint to the commercial operations. Whether there are lots of them or few of them, the ABC is always a counterpoint and that’s a good thing. I wouldn’t get too excited about any…
PRESENTER:
Well you noticed we didn’t interrupt that bit.
PRIME MINISTER:
I wouldn’t get too excited about anything at this point in time because all Malcolm has really done is pointed out the obvious which is that the media world is radically different today than a couple of decade ago. A couple of decades ago, yes, you had these obvious distinctions between television, radio and print, but these days the ABC virtually publishes a newspaper online, newspapers are constantly broadcasting online. So look, this is a different world. It’s a very different world and we need to ask the question, is the regulation that was appropriate a decade or so back still appropriate today? The point I make is that we will change regulation when there is a consensus for change, not before.
PRESENTER:
Prime Minister Tony Abbott thanks for your time.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you so much.
[ends]