JONES:
Yes well it's 20 and a half minutes past seven, the prime ministerial critics today are out in force and the news is dominated by parliamentary superannuation and the decision the Prime Minister made yesterday to do something about it. The Prime Minister is on the line, Prime Minister good morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning Alan.
JONES:
Well you've opened the door to your critics, can I just quote from one of them this morning, "this week the Prime Minister lost his assured control over the national political agenda, he's been wrong footed."
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I knew I'd get that criticism, I don't accept it but there's no point in arguing with it. This was an issue that was a diversion from the main debates that are important to Australia's future, the Free Trade Agreement, economic management, border security, national security, they're the issues that are important to Australia's future, this was a diversion, I took the view that it was important to deal with it and to get it out of the way, of course I knew I would get that kind of criticism from some people, that was a calculation I made, I accept that, and move on to the things that are really important.
JONES:
Well I'll just come to that in a moment and I just wanted to get your response to some of this, "his judgement has been blurred by the complacency of incumbency".
PRIME MINISTER:
Well once again I'm not going to argue with particular criticism, I don't accept it, but you get criticism in this job, you've got to wear that, anybody who is Prime Minister for almost eight years who thinks that he's immune from criticism is kidding himself and I've never kidded myself. There's no doubt that whatever the intrinsic merits of politicians remuneration and there is a strong argument that in overall terms they're not as over generously paid as most people think. It was never going to be possible to win that argument in relation to the superannuation alone, the Labor Party knew that, that's why they moved as they did and I took the view both in terms of meeting community expectations and also getting the political debate back on the things that really matter and the things that are important to Australia's future the issue should be dealt with and if the price of that is that I wear some criticism, wear some bad headlines well I have to put up with that because I'm the bloke who's leading the Government.
JONES:
It does seem to me that the argument has got two sides to it, on the one hand the public are genuinely outraged, here in New South Wales you look at what Upper House members are paid and what they do and the impact they have on the wellbeing of people's lives, in your field you could have a backbencher and you think plenty of them they very, very rarely make a speech, don't do much, they survive for eight years and under their superannuation as it exists now they get about 50 per cent of their annual salary until death. Now do you think that that needs to be though discovered, deliberated more thoroughly than just an off the top of the head comment like Mark Latham's made and the response that you've made when on the other hand forget John Howard but the Treasurer of Australia Peter Costello is a 46 year old man with a family in Melbourne, lives in Canberra, he's overseeing a business of $180 billion a year, he's on $193,000 when the Treasury head is on $420,000 or the Governor General's on $365,000 or the Governor of the Reserve Bank Ian Macfarlane's on $510,000. Mightn't it be better, what I'm saying to you is this to redraft parliamentary salaries so that parliamentarians at the higher level can save for themselves and take the normal superannuation benefits that everybody else has.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Alan, I think all of that is very logical, but that sort of debate has been around for a long time and once one side of politics has decided to abandon any possibility of looking at that in a sort of a bipartisan way it becomes impossible for the other side to do so because all one side has to do is to focus on the bit that causes the community discontent. And I wasn't willing to spend six or seven months debating this issue, defending that entirely logical position - important though it is - and divert attention from other matters. Look I am prepared to defend to the end something that I'm absolutely passionate about and I believe in and I'll wear every lousy opinion poll there is, I did that on Iraq, I did that on tax reform, I did it on industrial relations reform, I'll do it on other issues in the future. But on the sort of scale of 10 this issue is a two or a three, it's not an eight or a nine and quite frankly I want the Australian people to hear from me and hear from my opposite number on the things that are really important to them. Now they have a fixed view about parliamentary superannuation and all the debating in the world over the next nine months is not going to shift that and therefore I felt the issue should be taken out. Of course the Treasurer in relative terms is underpaid but I think what all of has got to understand, myself included, is that for a bloke on $45,000 a year, the salary I get, the salary most people in Parliament gets seems a lot...
JONES:
The bloke on, I think you underestimate the public a little bit, not that you ever underestimate them, but the bloke on $45,000 a year isn't managing an business of $180 billion where if he makes a mistake, if he makes a mistake every bloke out there a mortgage is going to suffer, every bloke in a job could suffer, businesses could go under, we're relying on this bloke to make sure that the wellbeing of the nation is secured.
PRIME MINISTER:
Alan, all of that is absolutely correct, I couldn't agree with you more. But I think the point I'm making is that I don't think the Australian public wants this to be an issue that is at the forefront of debate over the months ahead, I think the Australian public is interested in hearing from me on the Free Trade Agreement, on interest rates that affect them, taxation that affects them, border security that affects them, they're the thing that really count.
JONES:
What's going to be done about judges, I mean they make no contribution...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well...
JONES:
And how do you get people, how will you get people to...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Alan one of the reasons why you have a generous pension scheme for judges is that it's a way of attracting higher earners from the bar to go on the bench and I actually disagree with the approach that was put up in relation to judges and that is why I've not adopted it. What I'm intending to do in relation to judges is to propose a joint Commonwealth/State examination of their position. I think the idea of slashing pensions for judges is a crazy idea, because you will not get the best people from the bar.
JONES:
But equally I'm just saying to you if people whinge, as they do every day and I get callers here and they think the quality of our politicians is not high, in other words if you take the cricket analogy which you're familiar with we don't often in political parties bat beyond number six, you know the top six in any political party are pretty red hot, the others struggle a little bit and the further you go down they're not so good. Now if you're going to give that bloke, when he gets knocked out of parliament and voted out after seven years, $74,000 that's it, that's all he's going to get now because them's the rules, nine per cent, how is some bloke out there of quality going to be attracted to that job and all its responsibilities and suffer the prospect of being sacked by the electorate six or seven years later.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that is a dilemma that you have and I accept that and that's one of the consequences but this issue can only ever be debated and considered in a calm, non-political fashion. But once it becomes a political issue and a political football then it is impossible for either side to sustain the sort of position you're putting because frankly of the capacity on everybody in politics to run some kind of envy argument. Now I think people are attracted to politics for a whole combination of reasons, so I think many people go into politics knowing that they won't make as much money if they stayed in their profession or their business but they have a sense of public service and whilst I think it is important to attract quality people, have proper remuneration, there are some people who will go into politics out of a sense of public service and public duty and public obligation irrespective of what the pay is. It is a dilemma but once it has become a partisan political issue it becomes quite impossible to have the sort of logical discussion that you and I are having.
JONES:
Okay, thank you for your time.
PRIME MINISTER:
Okay, bye bye.
[ends]