MICHAEL BRISSENDEN:
Prime Minister, you’ve been in the Torres Strait for a week now. Will you come away wanting to change anything?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I’ll come away very encouraged by a lot of good things that are happening, particularly in schools. Now, I visited all three schools in the NPA – the Northern Peninsula Area – and these are classrooms which are energised, focused and disciplined in a way that I have never seen before in remote Indigenous schools. This is very good news for the individual youngsters that are studying and for their communities because it gives them a life. As we all know, a good education is necessary if we are to make the most of our lives and I am confident that that’s what people are now getting in these schools.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN:
One of those schools you visited this week, the Bamaga School, has challenged your claim that it’s the new attendance officers that have brought more kids to school; they say it’s more to do with the way the school’s being run. Are you doing enough to address the attendance problem?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I’m the first to say that under Yolanda Coutts, the Bamaga Primary School is doing extremely well. There was a great spirit in that school. But I certainly think that lots of things have helped – explicit instruction has helped, I think the school attendance officers have helped. Attendance at Bamaga School was averaging 70 per cent last year, it’s averaging 80 per cent this year. I think the school attendance officers have made a difference, I think that better teaching methods have made a difference, the enthusiasm of the staff has made a difference, the commitment of the parents has made a difference. All these things help, but the bottom line is these are much better schools than they were and I think any of us who saw these schools would be pleased and proud to send our kids there.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN:
One of the other issues that we heard about this week consistently was the high cost of fresh food particularly. What can be practically done to address this problem?
PRIME MINISTER:
I would very much counsel people in remote areas against expecting the government to subsidise fresh food. Yes, it’s more expensive than in Sydney or Melbourne but it’s not outrageously more expensive and, to be honest, the supermarkets – IBIS and others – do a very good job in getting high quality food to very, very remote places. What I’d like to see happen is I’d like to see a return to community gardening. We had community gardens in the past, there’s no reason why we can’t have them again. There’s a lovely garden that’s in operation at the Bamaga School and I think that’s a good model for community gardens elsewhere. Certainly, with the new Community Development Programme, which is effectively a revived CDEP, there’s every opportunity for places that are troubled by a lack of fresh fruit and vegetables to get community gardens going on a commercial scale but not at commercial rates.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN:
Ok. Can we turn to another couple of issues, the Free Trade Agreement with China in particular? The former Prime Minister Bob Hawke is today urging Labor to support the FTA saying questions over labour standards can be solved just by making it clear to the Chinese that the rules will be enforced. Well why can’t those rules be in writing?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the rules are in writing and I think that the Labor Party should listen to Bob Hawke on the Free Trade Agreement, it should listen to Martin Ferguson on the Royal Commission. The Labor Party should start listening to decent Labor people, not the CFMEU, which on both of those subjects they’re listening to.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN:
Sorry, but why not just change the wording in the agreement to satisfy everyone?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well everyone is satisfied. Bob Hawke is satisfied, Bob Carr is satisfied. The Free Trade Agreement as negotiated includes exactly the same kind of labour market protections the Labor Party had when it was in government and that the Labor Party included in the one or two small free trade agreements that it did when it was in office.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN:
But the Labor Party and the trade unions are not satisfied and you need the Labor Party to get this FTA up.
PRIME MINISTER:
The Labor Party should listen to Bob Hawke. The Labor Party should listen to Bob Carr. The Labor Party should stop listening to the CFMEU which is trying to sabotage this agreement. The Labor Party should stop listening to the ACTU which is trying to sabotage this agreement. It should listen to people who have Australia’s best interests at heart. We cannot change this agreement, Michael. We cannot reopen the negotiations. We have a very, very good deal with the Chinese – a really good deal with the Chinese. It must be allowed to stand and if the Labor Party gets in the way to this because they are enthralled to the CFMEU in particular, they will be sabotaging Australia’s economic future.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN:
Well will the deal include labour market testing? Will these be checks on whether Australian workers can do the job before Chinese workers are brought in?
PRIME MINISTER:
There always are, there always have been. Standard arrangements apply. You cannot bring people in without labour market testing; you cannot bring people in without paying them Australian wages and working them under Australian conditions.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN:
So you can guarantee Australian workers that their jobs are not at risk?
PRIME MINISTER:
Absolutely. This myth that’s being peddled by the CFMEU that somehow Chinese people are going to take Australian jobs is a racist lie and good on Bob Hawke, good on Bob Carr for calling out the Labor Party on this and I say: Bill Shorten should stop listening to the CFMEU and he should start listening to Bob Hawke and Bob Carr.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN:
Ok. Can we turn to the Trade Union Royal Commission and to the questions over Dyson Heydon? He’s again deferred his decision to rule on whether he should remain on the Royal Commission. You’re adamant it must go on. Are you ready to replace him if that’s what’s needed?
PRIME MINISTER:
I am confident that Dyson Heydon will act with the integrity that he has shown throughout his life as a lawyer and as a judge. I am absolutely confident that he will act with the utmost integrity. I don’t believe that there’s any reason for him to stand down. Let’s face it, serving High Court and Court of Appeal judges have actually addressed Labor Party gatherings and no one thought that this was a cause to have them stand down or a source of apprehended bias. As soon as Dyson Heydon was reminded that this was actually a Liberal event, he withdrew.
So look, again, the Labor Party and the unions should listen to a decent Labor person like Martin Ferguson who says that this Royal Commission is actually going to help the union movement and help the Labor Party to reform.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN:
So you will replace him if he decides to recuse himself?
PRIME MINISTER:
The Royal Commission will go on. The Royal Commission must go on because what we have seen is an abundance of evidence, not just of corruption, but even of serious criminal influence into some unions and we just can’t accept that. No decent unionist, no decent worker should be comfortable with the evidence of corruption and criminal influence that we have already seen as a result of this Royal Commission.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN:
Ok. The other issue that’s dominated the news this week is tax when the Treasurer again indicated that he wanted to roll back bracket-creep, but he didn’t give any detail. When are we going to see the Government’s plan to address this?
PRIME MINISTER:
You will see it in the run up to the election because one of the big differences between the Liberal National Coalition and the Labor Party is that we have lower, simpler and fairer taxes in our DNA and Labor can’t help itself.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN:
Are you really going to go to the next election offering a new round of tax cuts?
PRIME MINISTER:
We will take a new round of tax cuts to the election because lower, simpler, fairer taxes are in the DNA of this Liberal National Coalition. By contrast, vote Labor, the carbon tax comes back – the carbon tax comes back on steroids – and the mining tax comes back and there will be no tax cuts.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN:
But what happened to the budget crisis that we were all talking about only 18 months ago? It hasn’t really been resolved. Both of your budgets haven’t really addressed it to the full extent. How are you going to pay for this?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, Michael, as you know, our first Budget was a budget for savings. It was scandalously treated by the Labor Party which was in denial about the debt and deficit disaster that it left us. It was scandalously treated by the Labor Party in the Senate. Nevertheless, despite those difficulties, in last year’s Budget and in this year’s Budget we’ve managed to get some $50 billion worth of savings over the forward estimates through the Senate. Because we’ve been able to get those savings through, this year we had a Budget for confidence which cut taxes for small business and in the run up to the election you’ll see more policies from us that are about lower, simpler, fairer taxes.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN:
Ok. We still have deficits tough, don’t we, stretching out over the next 10 years.
PRIME MINISTER:
That’s not true, Michael. This is an assertion, it’s not a fact. We are getting the deficit down by about a half a percentage point of GDP every year and we are confident that within a decade we can be back to a position of strong surplus which is the position we took to the last election.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN:
Ok. Well we’ve heard what you won’t do – one of the things is address the superannuation tax breaks. We heard from former Treasury secretary, Martin Parkinson, this week saying super concessions are skewed to the top end and are holding back the economy. Why not address this?
PRIME MINISTER:
Let’s not forget that super is our money. It’s your money, Michael – it’s everyone’s money – it’s not the government’s money and it’s a very weak and lazy government which treats the superannuation of its citizens as a piggy-bank to be raided at will whenever the government is in trouble. So, let’s not forget that while, arguably, superannuation was very generous in 2007, the former Labor government I think made 13 separate changes to super, all of which involved more taxes, clamping down on so-called rich superannuants. There’s been a lot of change under the former government and there should be a period of stability now.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN:
Ok. Prime Minister, we’ll leave it there. Thanks very much for joining us.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you, Michael.
[ends]