LEON BYNER:
Let’s talk to the Prime Minister of Australia, Tony Abbott. Good morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning, Leon and good morning to your listeners.
LEON BYNER:
What is your reaction today to the state government hiking the levy, blaming the fire at Sampson Flat? I need to ask you; did the Federal Government give South Australia any financial assistance for this fire?
PRIME MINISTER:
I am trying to remember Leon whether we did. I can’t off the top of my head say for certain that we did although it is highly likely that at some stage the National Disaster Relief and Recovery arrangements would have been invoked. Can I just say that Commonwealth funding to South Australia from all sources will go up by 30 per cent over the next five years and South Australia’s GST funding will go up by 36 per cent over the next five years. Hospital and schools funding goes up by close to 20 per cent over the next five years. Look, the South Australian Government doesn’t have a shortage of federal money. What it does to raise its own revenue is ultimately its own business. I am always disappointed to see increases in taxes and charges. I know sometimes it is unavoidable but frankly the only way that we can, in the end, avoid increases in taxes and charges is by keeping spending under control. That is why the Commonwealth is so pleased that in this Budget we have got steady progress towards the surplus; every year the deficit comes down by about half a per cent of GDP.
LEON BYNER:
Prime Minister, the reason that the emergency services levy was hiked a year ago by this Government you were blamed because there were cuts in health and education. Now, your Opposition counterpart Steve Marshall says that we are getting $271 million more apropos your Budget than what Treasury would have expected. Now, the Treasurer’s response to that is, “well, look these figures, even the Budget comments themselves say these are unreliable.” What do you say?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don’t want to particularly get caught up in a fight between the state Government and the state Opposition. I am in Adelaide to be constructive, to get things done rather than to pick a fight. Nevertheless, I do think that the state Government has rather raised to an art form blaming its problem on the Commonwealth. I think that is, in the end, a little bit petty, I hope that we can move passed all of that stuff. Certainly, I have been very keen to invest a lot of Commonwealth money in upgrading the North South Road Corridor, we have committed to get this upgrade to expressway standard within a decade, there is a billion dollars currently going into the Darlington Upgrade and the Torrens to Torrens Upgrade. The Torrens Upgrade is already underway. The Darlington Upgrade should start in the next couple of months and I am looking forward to doing more of this.
LEON BYNER:
Have you got a good working relationship with the Weatherill Government right now?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, I know there has been some spats between Weatherill Government ministers and some of my colleagues over the last few days. This is understandable because you play your politics tough down here in South Australia. I would like to try to move beyond that. I am hoping to catch up with Premier Weatherill today and certainly he and I have had our disagreements but we have kept it civil and I think we have managed to be constructive and I look forward to that continuing.
LEON BYNER:
Are you able to offer the Premier anything for South Australia given our parlous financial state at the moment?
PRIME MINISTER:
Just a continued enthusiasm on the part of the Commonwealth for big, new infrastructure projects particularly associated with the North-South Road Corridor here and I guess the good news is that the Federal Budget will give enormous opportunities to 135,000 small businesses in South Australia. If each of them were to invest $20,000 in their business to get the instant asset write-off that would be a two-and-a-half billion dollar plus shot in the arm for the South Australian economy.
LEON BYNER:
Prime Minister, you would be aware that just about every South Australian is chaffing at the bit to hopefully get news that we will be building submarines in this state as promised before the last election. Are you aware how important every South Australian regards this?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look I am. I want to reassure South Australians that for at least the next 15 years there will be plenty of work for the Australian Submarine Corporation on sustaining the existing Collins subs. We are going to have more subs in our submarine fleet in the years to come and under all circumstances that means more submarine jobs for South Australia in the future.
LEON BYNER:
Well, there are 2,000 there at the moment and in order to keep that critical mass there needs to be a fair bit of work – a fair bit of work to keep that.
PRIME MINISTER:
And the 2,000 there at the moment, Leon, are not there building subs – they are there sustaining subs. As the Collins Class ages the sustainment, the maintenance will be become more exacting and more complex so that work will go on for 15 years. Now, what we are doing as you know is we want to get cracking on the next generation of subs. The former government did absolutely nothing in six years – it just sat on its hands. We have got an evaluation process underway. We do need a foreign partner to help us and we have got Japanese, French and German partners that we are talking to. We want this process to be concluded by the end of the year. We certainly want to maximise South Australian involvement in the process but in the end we absolutely need is a sub that is capable of taking on any potential enemy sub and giving a good account of itself.
LEON BYNER:
The Collins does twice the distance of the Soryus that the Japanese make – you are aware of this of course, Prime Minister?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I don’t claim to be a submarine specification expert. I do know that the best and largest conventional sub currently in production is the Japanese one. That doesn’t mean that Japan is our only potential partner but certainly it is one of our potential partners as are the Germans and the French.
LEON BYNER:
What advice would you give the state Liberals of South Australia to get elected next time and what would you recommend they be doing right now?
PRIME MINISTER:
I am not much in the business of giving gratuitous advice to my colleagues.
LEON BYNER:
But you were a very effective Opposition Leader, Mr Abbott.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, thank you.
LEON BYNER:
That’s all history – we know this.
PRIME MINISTER:
And now I am attempting to be a very effective Prime Minister. Look, I caught up with Steven Marshall last night. He is a terrific bloke. Frankly, he was dead unlucky not to be Premier because we got 53 per cent of the two-party preferred vote and in any other jurisdiction that would have been a very solid win for the Liberal Party. I accept that in South Australia the electoral distribution means the Libs have got to win 54, 55 per cent of the vote to win and I think that they are doing the right thing; they are formulating policies, they are holding the Government to account and this has been a very long lived South Australian Labor Government and no government goes on forever and if I was a Lib I would be pretty optimistic.
LEON BYNER:
Are we going to have an inquiry into ore in Australia or have we decided not to?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, what we don’t want, Leon, is an inquiry that becomes a political witch hunt. I am all in favour of getting to the facts which are contested but I am not sure that a political witch hunt is going to shed more light as opposed to just generate heat. So, look, I don’t want to see the industry regulated. I think Australia has done well out of the unregulated iron ore market. I am continuing to weigh these things and no final decision has been made.
LEON BYNER:
Alright, now our national news centre wants to know the answer to this and that is; do you believe that Cardinal George Pell should come home to Australia to answer questions that he tried to bribe a sex abuse victim to keep quiet?
PRIME MINISTER:
Leon, I understand and I only understand this from media reports, that he has made a statement which has covered all of those issues including his readiness, if called, to answer questions.
LEON BYNER:
With regards to those people who go and fight with ISIS and then change their minds – is it a fait accompli that if they try to come back to Australia they will be immediately arrested?
PRIME MINISTER:
Absolutely it is. I mean they have committed a very serious crime and it is great that they’re repentant, they have discovered just how evil this death cult is but if you have committed a serious crime you have got to face the music. Even if you now regret it, the fact is that you have committed a serious crime and the last thing we would want, Leon, is people who have been radicalised and brutalised loose on our streets – we don’t. We want to ensure that anyone who is a potential menace to our community and who has committed a serious crime is locked up.
LEON BYNER:
Now, Prime Minister, you say that you are going to see the Premier today – what do you hope to come away with from that meeting?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, this is a meeting that the Premier has been requesting for some time and now that I am in Adelaide it seems like a good idea to catch-up. There is a range of things that we will no doubt discuss...
LEON BYNER:
Are you going to try to talk him out of spending more money? Damning the feds?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I certainly hope that there will be no more tax payer money wasted on anti-federal government advertising and I have got to say the last thing I want to see is taxpayer money wasted in tit-for-tat advertising but I tell you what if the South Australian Government advertises falsely against the Commonwealth – we will advertise back with the truth.
LEON BYNER:
Yes, but the rules to do that are not the same as what ours are. In South Australia the truth in advertising rules are far more broad than what they are federally.
PRIME MINISTER:
And this is why the last thing we want is taxpayer funded advertisements that are just making political points for either side of the argument. There was a case as I understand it here in South Australia of the Government advertising that pensioner concessions had been withdrawn because of Commonwealth cuts. The truth is the Commonwealth was providing about ten per cent of pensioner concessions and, yes, we dropped that particular payment because we thought that it was fair and reasonable in the context of last year’s quite tough Budget but for the South Australian Government to stop spending its 90 per cent and then blame the Commonwealth because we had taken ten per cent out – every other state government continued with pensioner concessions notwithstanding the Commonwealth Act – so, it was completely over the top.
LEON BYNER:
Just for the record Prime Minister you stand by the fact that SA will get an extra $271 million since the federal Budget that they weren’t anticipating?
PRIME MINISTER:
Again Leon I would rather use my own figures and my own figures are that South Australia over the next five years will get a 30 per cent increase in funding from the Commonwealth, from all sources, there will be a 36 per cent increase, as I understand it, in GST revenue over the period and there will be double digit increases in hospital and schools funding over the next five years.
LEON BYNER:
Prime Minister, thanks for joining us.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you so much.
[ends]