GRANT GOLDMAN:
Tony Abbott, morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Morning, Grant. This is a Labor rip-off, in fact it is a Bill Shorten rip-off that this Government has reversed. Bill Shorten was the Minister for Financial Services at the time that the former Labor Government decided it was going to mount a smash and grab raid on people’s savings and, as you say Grant, about 156,000 accounts worth $550 million a year were being effectively confiscated by the government and then of course the government was making people go through months and months of paper work to get its own money back. So, typical of the Labor Party – it takes your money and then it subjects you to mountains and mountains of paperwork in order to claim back what is already yours.
GRANT GOLDMAN:
Prime Minister, we have had this saying in our household in Australia for a long time – always save for a rainy day. That’s what an account that might look inactive to you is actually for, for that rainy day. So, that $550 million – will that be returned?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, people who have lost their money in this Labor smash and grab raid have to claim it back but what is happening is that we’ve stopped the raids because as of this year it won’t happen anymore.
GRANT GOLDMAN:
You know the thing is children’s bank accounts were raided as well and you have got a child’s bank account maybe started at school and then six or seven years after school it is sitting there gathering a bit of interest and suddenly there might be a couple of thousand dollars there but it hasn’t been touched – for a good reason – because the kid is probably thinking, “well, leave that there for a car when I am turning 17 years of age” and all of a sudden that money disappears. That has got to be against the law.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, it won’t happen under this Government. It did happen under the former government because Bill Shorten thought this was a good way to fix his budgetary problems but it won’t be happening under this Government. We are going back to the system that was in place under the Howard Government and frankly that is a much better system – much, much better system – and yet another Labor mess is being fixed up by this Government Grant.
GRANT GOLDMAN:
Look, spending cuts back on the federal Government’s agenda. You have warned your colleagues to expect tough decisions to achieve your goal of balancing the Budget within five years. Geez, it has been a hard ask for you dealing with a hostile Senate. You get the impression though that you have not been able to get anything through but nothing could be further from the truth. You have had some success but when it comes to spending cuts that is the hardest ask.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, Grant, we’ve made a lot more progress than people think. If you look at the Intergenerational Report it showed that on the measures that this Parliament has already passed, on the measures that we have already managed to get through the Senate we get back to broad budget balance within about five years and beyond that Labor’s debt and deficit is halved under the measures that this Government has already put in place. So, while there is still a job ahead of us, it is now a manageable job. The Budget repair task, which was completely unmanageable under Labor, is now manageable under this Government. The point I made at the National Press Club in January, I repeat again, Grant: yes, there is a Budget repair task still ahead of us but we, the Coalition Government, are not going to repair our Budget this year at the expense of your family budget.
GRANT GOLDMAN:
As far as tightening the belt and all of that, I don’t want to compare Australia with Greece but we go back to 1987, Greece was warned by the International Monetary Fund that they have serious problems ahead and they did nothing about it. The level of debt that we have now is the same as what Greece was in 1987 when they received the warning. Australia is in a much better sound economic position but the warning bells must still be there in many ways?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, yes, under the former Labor government we were heading to a Greek-style economic future. But that is off the agenda now because…
GRANT GOLDMAN:
Oh you mean you are not going to shovel money out the door to people all over the place?
PRIME MINISTER:
See, that is the point, Grant. Things were bad and getting worse under the former Labor government but things are better and getting better all the time under this Government. It is a bit like when you have got a fire you have got an emergency, but as soon as the fire brigade turns up the emergency starts to ease.
GRANT GOLDMAN:
Yeah, ok, now the other thing is big problems in Vanuatu after that terrible cyclone Pam. That has been devastating. Good to see Australia and New Zealand together with much help that has arrived in pretty much 24 hours after the cyclone hit.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, on Sunday we had three Royal Australian Air Force planes land with emergency relief and equipment on that first day we sent in a medical assessment team, a search and rescue team, we landed basic supplies; food, water sanitation and shelter for some 5,000 people and there have been a significant number of Royal Australian Air Force relief flights since then. We’ve also been flying surveillance flights over the outer islands to try to work out the scale of the damage. So, as a good neighbour, as a regional mate, we will be doing everything we reasonably can to help because that’s what Australia does.
GRANT GOLDMAN:
That is true. That is true. Look, as far as that is concerned, do we have recommendations from people who appealed and would talk to governments in cyclone ravaged areas and where they’re prone to cyclones to change their way of building?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yeah, this is something that we do, but obviously, to rebuild a house is an expensive business…
GRANT GOLDMAN:
Sure.
PRIME MINISTER:
… we’re talking about relatively poor countries. So over time, Grant, yes, this will happen, but it’s not something that you can wave a magic wand over and do in a day or even a year.
GRANT GOLDMAN:
A bit like the magic wand you need at the moment or have needed over the last couple of months. You’ve had a pretty tough time, haven’t you? Have things settled down?
PRIME MINISTER:
Grant, look, there obviously was a bit of a tremor run through our Party in the wake of the Queensland election result, but yes, things have settled down and every day just about since then we’ve been making very positive announcements for the future of the people of Australia, whether it be lowering the screening threshold on foreign purchases of agricultural land, cracking down on illegal foreign purchases of residential land, the country of origin labelling so that people know what’s in their food and today’s ending of Bill Shorten’s cash grab. So, every day we’re getting on with the job of doing the right thing by Australia and that’s what we were elected to do and that’s what we will continue to do.
GRANT GOLDMAN:
One job that’s a big ask at the moment, we’ve gone back again to push ahead with plans to deregulate university fees. That’s been voted down in the Senate for a second time. Do we go again there and how do we get around putting it back up again and maybe getting the same result?
PRIME MINISTER:
Grant, look, we will have another go at this because just about all the Vice-Chancellors say that if our universities are to flourish in the years ahead, they need to lose the dead hand of Canberra. So, we will have another go here. One of the interesting points to make about our proposed changes is that students won’t need to pay a dollar up front and 50 per cent of the cost of their education will continue to be borne by the taxpayer, but as a result of these changes, there were going to be about 50,000 scholarships for disadvantaged youngsters and that’s why Labor’s complaints about this were just completely misplaced – absolutely, completely misplaced.
GRANT GOLDMAN:
You’ve got votes to deal with, of course Jacqui Lambie, Glenn Lazarus who’s now gone his own way from the Palmer United Party, Dio Wang, Ricky Muir and Nick Xenophon. They’ve all voted against the Bill. What really is going to make them change their mind?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we’ll keep talking to them. We will keep talking to them and as the university Vice-Chancellors say again and again and again, if we want to have the world’s best universities, we’ve got to give them more freedom than they have now and, interestingly, an absolute cavalcade of Labor luminaries were on our side. You had Peter Beattie on our side, you had John Dawkins who was the architect of the modern university system on our side, you had people like the Nobel laureate, Professor Brian Schmidt, coming out and supporting the changes that we were proposing. So, the sensible people think these were good changes, it’s just the people basically ran the universities into the ground who are in denial about the problem.
GRANT GOLDMAN:
Yeah, true. Well, with all the people you deal with – I don’t know how you do it by the way – it must make fresh onions palatable, hey? You know that’s been right around the world, you eating an onion in Tasmania?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I thought it was very important that I should show my support for the great products that the Tasmanian agricultural industry produces and, you know, I enjoy onions. I normally have them cooked on the barbeque, but I enjoy onions!
GRANT GOLDMAN:
Alright, well I’ll have to leave you there because I know you’ve got a few things to do, that’s for sure. We’ll see you at Brookvale Oval one of these days.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thanks so much, Grant.
[ends]