ALAN JONES:
The Prime Minister’s on the line. Prime Minister, good morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good Morning, Alan, and good morning to your listeners.
ALAN JONES:
You’re copping a bit of flack – you must be a dreadful person and the Government has obviously failed. Has it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well look, Alan, we’ve had a rough trot, there’s no doubt about that, and I’ll leave others to offer the characters assessments, but we’ve also got a lot right. The carbon tax is gone, the mining tax is gone, the boats have stopped, there are three free trade agreements which will help to set us up for the future. So, a lot’s gone right, but I’m not focussed on the past, I’m focussed on the future. We do have to get this budget under control – we just do…
ALAN JONES:
Just on one issue of criticism, this is a hell of a record. I mean, you made this point on Monday in the speech: the jobs growth in 2014, triple the rate of 2013 – 4,000 new jobs a week – new housing approvals at record levels, the registration of new companies the highest on record. As well as the boats and the carbon tax and the mining tax, I mean, you know, without being self-indulgent, it’s not a bad effort.
PRIME MINISTER:
And look, if you look at the other factors, there are a lot of grounds for optimism, Alan. Interest rates are low and stable, petrol prices are at 15 year lows, the stock market is going through one of its strong periods, power prices dropped in the September quarter very considerably with the removal of the carbon tax. So, a lot is going right but, obviously, what we need in Canberra is to be focussed on the people, to end the navel gazing, to just get on with things and…
ALAN JONES:
I mean, the unpopular thing is telling people, isn’t it, and it’s hard and no Prime Minister has had to do this, I guess, since Paul Keating that we can’t go on the way we’re going on where the cost of serving the Labor debt and running the country is $110 million a day borrowed money.
PRIME MINISTER:
That’s right, Alan, and the point I make to all other parties and individuals in the Parliament is if you don’t like what this Government is proposing, tell us what you propose and, at the moment, all we’ve got from the Labor Party is this chorus of complaint. Now, we’re seeing in Victoria – where I am at the moment – what happens when you elect an inexperienced, unprepared Labor government. They’re just about to cancel the contract to build the East West Link even though it’s going to cost them more than $1 billion not to build a road. Now, this is surely the midsummer of madness…
ALAN JONES:
Unbelievable, isn’t it?
PRIME MINISTER:
… to spend $1 billion plus not to build a road when to build it in the first place, the Victorian Government’s contribution was only going to be one point something billion. So, this is the madness and folly that we have had all too often from Labor governments.
ALAN JONES:
But yesterday, while you were being belted up from one end of the country to the other, Bill Shorten was on television getting hairs on his chest saying that Labor had a fantastic record when it came to national security. Isn’t the first instrument of national security economic growth and if you undermine a nation’s economic strength, you undermine its currency, your undermining national security?
PRIME MINISTER:
In the end, Alan, it does all depend upon a strong economy and that’s why I’ve been saying until I was blue in the face that our determination as a Government is to build a strong and prosperous economy because that is the foundation of a safe and secure Australia and that’s what I’m getting on with.
Today, I’ll be at a timber business in outer-metropolitan Melbourne to talk about the benefits that the carbon tax repeal have provided, to talk about the benefits in terms of exports that the free trade agreements will give. We’re on about jobs…
ALAN JONES:
Well haven’t you approved $1 trillion of new projects, so if you’re a timber factory, they’re going to get a bit of a slice of that, aren’t they?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that’s right, Alan. This is excellent work from Greg Hunt, the Environment Minister. Since the election in September 2013, more than $1 trillion worth – one thousand billion dollars’ worth – of new projects have been given environmental approval, because as I’ve said again and again, this is a Government that wants to be open for business, because in the end, it’s not government that creates jobs it’s business which creates jobs. We want more jobs because more jobs means more prosperity, ultimately, it means higher wages and that’s what we’ve got to be on about.
ALAN JONES:
Is the Medicare thing in many ways a metaphor of the problems we face? I mean, you’ve said over and over again we’ve got to set a price signal. The co-payment which you’re talking about was policy under Bob Hawke. Medicare $8.5 billion 10 years ago; this year $20 billion; in a decade $34 billion. Even Peter Costello said the other day, you can’t go to an accountant for nothing or a lawyer for nothing or a dentist for nothing, why do you go to a doctor? That’s a metaphor of the problem, isn’t it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, Alan, we’ve long had price signals for the PBS. If you or I go and get something from the pharmacist…
ALAN JONES:
36 bucks.
PRIME MINISTER:
… it’s almost $40...
ALAN JONES:
Yeah.
PRIME MINISTER:
… for pensioners, it’s almost $6. So, we’ve long faced price signals in the system and what we were proposing was a modest price signal for GP visits. Now, Sussan Ley, the new Health Minister, is talking to the medical profession about how we can do this in a way which protects the vulnerable, is fair to those who can afford it and which makes the health system work better in the medium and long-term. That’s what we’re on about, because, you know, I’ve been a Health Minister, Alan. I was a Health Minister for four years. I said then that I wanted to be the best friend that Medicare has ever had. It’s got to be protected and the only way to protect it is to make it sustainable for the long-term.
ALAN JONES:
Now, I know this is most probably panders to some people’s vanity, but there are people who are ringing here saying after Monday they want to hear you as Prime Minister talk to the nation more. They want to hear these updates, how are we going, how’s the nation going. Is this something, as you’re getting advice from everybody, that you would consider? I mean, the public really want to be informed as to where we are.
PRIME MINISTER:
It’s interesting you should mention that, Alan, because most weeks I do put out a Sunday podcast which I will record on a Friday or a Saturday and it gets released normally on a Sunday and it’s my small way of talking personally and, as far as I can, intimately with people and it’s available on my various websites for people to look at and I understand that sometimes it can get several hundred thousand views; other times it doesn’t do so well.
ALAN JONES:
There you are! You can never know your luck, can you.
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, getting down to the guts of things, just listen to George here, an open line caller. This really is a festering issue with hundreds of thousands of people. This is George earlier this week…
CALLER:
Is our land being given to overseas countries or companies to mine and pillage and push the farmers off the land? If Tony wants my vote I want him to come on the air and tell me when do the Chinese stop buying us out – buying all our farms, all our milk – because, I tell you what, we might have no money left in the country, but we will still need food to eat.
ALAN JONES:
It’s a good point. I mean, do you have a specific answer to this? Foreign ownership of dairy farms and God knows what else, water and the whole lot. We’re in favour of investment. Surely, though, there’s a backlash against this ownership issue?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, I understand the distinction between investment and ownership, between a shareholding and control. So, I absolutely understand this, Alan. We said before the election that we wanted to see much closer scrutiny of foreign ownership of agricultural land and agribusiness. We did have some agreements to negotiate and we felt that those negotiations would go better with a certain phasing of that particular policy, but in the next couple of weeks you’ll see us putting the policy that we took to the election into action.
The other thing that you’ll see in the next few weeks, Alan, is Kelly O’Dwyer, who’s now the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer, as the chairman of a parliamentary committee was looking at the fact that the former Labor government never enforced – not once enforced in the courts – the prohibitions on foreign purchasers of existing residential properties. Now, what sort of a government has rules and never actually enforces them?
ALAN JONES:
Yep, yep.
PRIME MINISTER:
So, these rules will be enforced because, obviously, the last thing we want to be doing is pricing young homebuyers out of the market.
ALAN JONES:
Right. Well on that basis, interest rates. Now, in all the kafuffle this week – and I’ve had a lot of calls here – there’s talk about the mortgage rate is going to come down and so on. Open line callers are saying two things: one, interest rate reductions are only good for those who have debt, and only one in three Australians have a mortgage. For self-funded retirees it’s diabolical. If self-funded retirees can’t get a proper return on their investment, they then join the welfare queue. Isn’t it time to review the deeming rate, which I think is 3.5 per cent now – the rate at which you’re deemed to be earning money on your investment – and sometimes if you’re not earning that therefore you’ve got to borrow capital to pay? The other thing is the draw down rate for self-funded retirees. If the draw down rate – say it’s four per cent – is higher than what they’re getting on interest, they equally are compulsorily being asked to take money out of their capital. Would you give consideration to reviewing the deeming rate and the draw down rate for self-funded retirees? We want them; they are good people.
PRIME MINISTER:
We certainly do and I am full of admiration for people who make a big effort to look after themselves – I really, really admire people like that. Now, Alan, the deeming rates are reviewed from time to time. There is, in fact, a regular six monthly review. It does produce change. For instance, in November 2013 when Kevin Andrews was the Minister for Social Services, the deeming rate was reviewed and lowered.
So, there will be a review coming up because I absolutely take your point, Alan. If the income that people are earning is reduced, obviously, the income that they are deemed to have earned should also be appropriately adjusted.
ALAN JONES:
Correct. And then the draw down rates as well?
PRIME MINISTER:
The regular process to look at all of these things will operate, because I absolutely accept, Alan, that when interest rates fall and returns for self-funded retirees drop, there should be an adjustment to accommodate that.
ALAN JONES:
Good on you.
The media seem to have a preoccupation with you – they’ve had this since you became Opposition Leader. It does seem as though it wouldn’t matter what you did, you get a bit of grudging praise. Everyone’s talking about Tuesday. Does a spill worry you? They need 52 votes to get a spill.
PRIME MINISTER:
I’m not expecting it; I’m expecting business as usual because this is a Government with a very full agenda. I mean, our immediate agenda is a much better families’ package focussed on childcare, it’s a tax cut for small business because small business is the engine room of our economy and it’s the source of so much of our creativity.
So, I’m expecting just to get on with business and I’m confident that I have the full support of the Cabinet. We’ve just had two days of very constructive discussions about where we’re going this year. Yes, we have a continuing budget challenge. Our challenge is to keep the rate of increase of spending as low as we humanly can, but we’re up for it, Alan, because we take it seriously.
ALAN JONES:
Yeah, I mean, you’re always up for a fight. Have you spoken to these dissidents?
PRIME MINISTER:
I talk to my colleagues all the time, that’s what you’d expect a leader to do, I’m constantly talking to my colleagues. I don’t know who these so-called dissidents are, Alan; I just know that if people have got a criticism, I encourage them to call me up and we’d talk about it.
ALAN JONES:
And you’ve got a Party Room to do that anyway, haven’t you?
PRIME MINISTER:
Exactly right, exactly right.
ALAN JONES:
Just before we go, in all this relative stuff we’re talking about and you in headlines and whatever, there are two Australians – albeit drug runners and we’re all opposed to that and we hate drugs, all of us hate drugs – but the two drug runners are Australians and we’re told they’re going to be murdered, and soon. Do you have any final diplomatic influence over that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Alan, the important thing is to try to be as effective as you can in your representations, and the Australian Government has been making the most strenuous representations at every level, because we do think that the death penalty is something that should not apply. We’re against it at home, we’re against it abroad, so we have been moving heaven and earth. We’ve been trying to do it behind the scenes because I think that’s the most effective way to help. I’m not especially optimistic, but even now, we are doing what we can because they’ve done the wrong thing those two, no doubt about it, but we don’t think people should be executed.
ALAN JONES:
I agree. And before you go, I’ve known you for a thousand years, you’re hopeless at talking about yourself, and it’s clear that a lot of people don’t really know their Prime Minister. Just say something – we’re going to 77 stations – to tell them: who is Tony Abbott? Tell them something about Tony Abbott. He’s in the headlines every day – who’s the real Tony Abbott?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I’ve always been a bit reluctant to blow my own trumpet, Alan, and I like to think that the facts speak for themselves. I’m the father of three daughters, I’m the brother of three sisters, I love my community which I try to serve as a volunteer firefighter and as a surf lifesaver. Obviously, I like sport and try to get plenty of physical exercise because I think that’s good for your mental health as well as everything else. But most of all, I am the Prime Minister of our country and I am spending every ounce of energy, I am dedicating every fibre of my being to try to ensure that this country flourishes.
ALAN JONES:
Good on you and good luck.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thanks, mate.
[ends]