PAUL MURRAY:
We’re joined on the line now by Prime Minister Tony Abbott. Good afternoon Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER:
Afternoon, Paul.
PAUL MURRAY:
Nice to talk to you. I just wanted to remind you of something that you said two weeks out from the September election. This was in a speech you made at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre. You said, “we will be a no surprises, no excuses government because you are sick of nasty surprises and lame excuses from people that you have trusted with your future". I just wonder if that makes your surprise decision on knights and dames a broken promise?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, Paul, no one who has followed my career over the years would think that I am someone who is a disrespecter of the Crown and our institutions and what I have done is simply added a little bit of extra recognition to the outgoing and the incoming Governor-General and that’s exactly the kind of thing that I think that people would expect from someone who has been a staunch supporter of the Crown and our constitution for as long as I have been in public life.
PAUL MURRAY:
I sort of drew the distinction in the column on Saturday between being a constitutional Monarchist – which we all know you are – and reinstituting this level of British awards into our system of national awards which John Howard never sought to do in 11 years.
PRIME MINISTER:
Paul, this isn’t a British award. This is a title in the Order of Australia and in fact it was a title that was put in the Order of Australia by Malcolm Fraser. So, it is not anything foreign. It is something which is perfectly, it’s been perfectly well done in the past and I think provided that people who have these honours are people of great distinction like Dame Quentin Bryce and Sir Peter Cosgrove, I think people will be perfectly happy with it.
PAUL MURRAY:
Well, they are not Prime Minister. I mean Channel 7 tonight is running a ReachTEL poll which is the first poll done on this. It shows only 26 per cent support for Knights and Dames.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, look Paul, that’s as it may be but I thought that it was an appropriate level of recognition for an outstanding Governor-General Dame Quentin Bryce and I think it is a perfectly suitable level of recognition for an outstanding incoming Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove. So, look, people will, I think, get used to it and I think it will be a grace note in our national life.
PAUL MURRAY:
I know you have said that but you also told us in August that we are sick of nasty surprises – I think you were right – and you have given us one.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I would say that it is a good surprise, if it is a surprise at all. I don’t think there is anything nasty about honouring Dame Quentin Bryce or honouring Sir Peter Cosgrove. I mean you would be the first person to say, Paul, that both of them have done an outstanding job and this is an honour I was happy to offer and they were happy to accept. This is something that is going to be very sparingly given to people who have given an extraordinary and pre-eminent level of service to our country. Look, we can talk about this till the cows come home but I think it is a good thing and I think that people will get used to it.
PAUL MURRAY:
Well, let’s not do that, let’s move on. Let’s move on to the National Disability Insurance Scheme. You signed on with WA today for a trial here in Western Australia as had been promised. What we found out on the weekend is that the trials that have already been run have in some cases been running as much as 30 per cent ahead of what was expected from the costs. On that basis can we afford the NDIS as Labor originally designed it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, these are trials. They are not launches, they are trials and we will learn the lessons of these trials and we will fine tune the scheme accordingly. The important thing is that we do have a National Disability Insurance Scheme. We do need to give better services to people with disabilities. It’s important that it be sustainable and affordable and I think you are much more likely to get an affordable, sustainable scheme under a Coalition Government than under the Labor Party which as we know basically was much, much better at spending money than getting good value for it.
PAUL MURRAY:
Yeah, which is why I asked you whether it can, eventually, be in the form that Labor designed it or whether you are going to have to redesign it. I know that Joe Hockey, the Treasurer, was very much alarmed by that blow-out.
PRIME MINISTER:
And what we are doing is carefully studying the results of the trials that we have got underway and the final design of the NDIS five or six years down the track will reflect the lessons of these trials and we want to be contestable, we want it to be affordable, we want the services to be individually tailored, we want them to be delivered by a very wide-range of organisations and I think that we can do this successfully. If you look at things like the Traffic Accident Commission in Victoria which has been probably the closest model for the NDIS. The costs are under reasonable control and certainly the services that are offered are much, much better than services offered to people who don’t get that level of support.
PAUL MURRAY:
On this issue of the pressure on the Budget, Prime Minister, Labor is saying that the Commission of Audit’s final report was given to the Treasurer Joe Hockey today and they are saying this is 900 pages of cuts. Is that true?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, it’s 900 pages of recommendations and argument and analysis about how we get the fiscal situation under better control and I am very pleased that we have got it. I think it is good that the Government commissioned it. Again, this was something that we promised to do before the election because sensible governments ask themselves the question, 'how can we get the best possible value for taxpayers’ dollars?' Some of the recommendations we will accept and we will implement in the Budget, other’s we will further consider through things like the tax and federation white papers, others we’ll probably just not proceed with it because whatever intellectual merits they might have they’re not things that we want to do at this time or in the foreseeable future. So, there will be a range of things in it but I am confident that given the people who are on the Commission of Audit and the quality of the public service advice that they had that this will be seen as a very important document.
PAUL MURRAY:
Prime Minister, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has handed down its latest report. What we see from it is sort of fairly alarming predictions about the health of human beings as a result of climate change and they are saying that areas of the world are likely to become uninhabitable. Will you take any notice of this new IPCC report at all?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, obviously I will take notice of the new IPCC report but these are projections and projections are sometimes correct, often they are not, and I think that we should take strong action to reduce emissions that’s what our Direct Action Policy does – it takes strong action to reduce emissions. What we are not going to do is clobber the economy to reduce emissions the way the Labor Party did. This brings me on to the carbon tax, Paul, and I know a lot of people in Western Australia think that the carbon tax has been repealed – it hasn’t been repealed because Labor and the Greens whatever they might be saying in Perth are voting to keep the carbon tax in Canberra. Now, we want to get rid of the carbon tax and replace it with a policy that really will reduce emissions without costing Western Australian families $550 a year or slugging the local economy with a $626 million hit.
PAUL MURRAY:
Would a Palmer Party Senator in Western Australia help you get rid of the carbon tax?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, it wouldn’t, Paul. It absolutely wouldn’t because Clive Palmer abstained when the carbon tax repeal legislation was before the House of Representatives. He abstained, I think, when the mining tax legislation was put before the House of Representatives. So, again, whatever is being said here in Perth in this by-election campaign you can’t trust anyone except the Coalition to actually get rid of these bad taxes.
PAUL MURRAY:
The Liberal Party has gone very negative on Clive Palmer, to the extent today there is a fact sheet out, available on the internet, where you are raising issues that he hasn’t paid a $5,000 bill to some Queensland club where they ran a calamari fundraiser. Is that getting down into the gutter just because you are worried about how successful he is likely to be here?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, look, he’s certainly spending money like a drunken sailor – there is no doubt about that. I mean, I saw, reported in the West Australian today an extraordinary preponderance of advertising from Mr Palmer. If you can buy a seat in Parliament through advertising that’s obviously what he is trying to do for his candidates, but all of the stuff on the website – which I have not personally seen – all of the stuff on the website, as I understand it, is material on the public record. I think I remember reading an article just the other day about the alleged unpaid bills that, I think from memory, was a club in NSW not one in Queensland.
PAUL MURRAY:
Well, Prime Minister, I know you have a busy schedule today I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you. Thanks a lot.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good on you Paul and thank you so much. Lovely to talk to you and your listeners.
[ends]