DAVID KOCH:
Prime Minister Tony Abbott joins us now. Good morning, Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER:
Kochie, good morning.
DAVID KOCH:
On a morning like today, after the Budget, are you a bit embarrassed that you had to break so many election promises?
PRIME MINISTER:
Kochie, this is a fundamentally honest Budget. We were upfront with the Australian people about the difficult choices that had to be made. We didn't cook the books. We didn't fiddle the figures. What we have done though is get the Budget back to within cooey of surplus over the forward estimates, and along the way, we've got the world's biggest medical research fund and the Commonwealth's biggest ever infrastructure spend.
DAVID KOCH:
But it wasn't that long ago you were on the hustings trying to get our votes, saying there would be no cuts to health, there'd be no cuts to education, there'd be no increase in taxes and all three of them appeared in the Budget.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I'm not sure that that's true.
DAVID KOCH:
Well it is.
PRIME MINISTER:
We are investing money – all the savings from health go into health research and as for education, over the then forward estimates, our spending on schools is maintained.
DAVID KOCH:
But you're slashing all the funding to the states in those areas and saying, ‘guys, you've got to pick up the slack.’
PRIME MINISTER:
There is no doubt that over time we do expect the states to take more responsibility for their public hospitals. We do expect the states to take more responsibility for their public schools. We want the states to be grown-up adult governments, just as we want to be a grown-up adult Government here in Canberra, which is straight and honest with the Australian people about the problems they face and how to deal with them.
DAVID KOCH:
So do you think you have been honest?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, the most fundamental commitment I made was to get the Budget back under control. One thing everyone understands, Kochie – you cannot pay the mortgage on the credit card and that's what the former government was doing.
DAVID KOCH:
But was it naive of you to say in the election campaign, ‘we're going to get it back into surplus. Everyone wants it. We're going to do it without increasing taxes, without slashing education and hospital funding’. It was a bit stupid because that doesn't really compute, does it?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think the Australian public knew that we were going to get the Budget back under control because if I said it once, I said it several dozen times.
DAVID KOCH:
Oh, yeah!
PRIME MINISTER:
I said, time and time again, ‘we are going to get the budget back under control.’ That's why we were elected.
DAVID KOCH:
Without slashing those things or increasing taxes.
PRIME MINISTER:
Kochie, we weren't elected to take easy decisions, we were elected to take tough decisions and that's what we've done.
DAVID KOCH:
Alright, what do you say to a family out there that's going to have to pay more to go to the doctor, it's going to have Family Tax Benefit B slashed and going to have to pay more in excise? You know, times are pretty tough for them at the low end. Are you being a bit mean?
PRIME MINISTER:
I accept that millions and millions of Australians are doing it tough right now and I want to lighten their load, not make it worse. That's why I want the carbon tax off immediately because that would save Australian households $550 a year straightaway and if Bill Shorten is fair dinkum about helping households, let's get the carbon tax off now.
DAVID KOCH:
Ok. So that will help, that will offset.
PRIME MINISTER:
Absolutely and overall, as a result of the decisions that this Government has taken, the tax burden goes down by $5.7 billion.
DAVID KOCH:
Alright. I must admit, I thought it was a bit too mean but what I did love about it was a bit of vision – a few goals – the infrastructure, the medical research fund. We seem to have had a lack of vision from our politicians over the last five or 10 years, at least there is a bit there.
PRIME MINISTER:
I think that's a very fair point, Kochie. The infrastructure spend here is the equivalent of 10 Snowy Mountains schemes and I reckon we are more than capable of getting the treatments and cures of the future, winning more Nobel Prizes. We are a bright and brilliant country and this plays to our strengths.
DAVID KOCH:
Ok. In terms of the economic forecast, they’re really conservative. More conservative than anybody else is saying. You’re saying economic growth 2.5 per cent, everyone else is saying three per cent, more. You're saying unemployment will rise to 6.25 per cent, most of the experts are saying it has peaked at 5.8 per cent and will start to come down and get better.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well obviously, we hope that all those things are true. But you can't plan constantly on best-case scenarios, you've got to plan on much more conservative scenarios.
DAVID KOCH:
So you are planning on worst case for the economy?
PRIME MINISTER:
We are not going to cook the books. We are not going to make a series of rosy assumptions the way the Labor government did because that's one of the reasons why they got into so much trouble.
DAVID KOCH:
Fair enough. I can understand that. Let's take a look at what Sunrise viewers are saying at the moment. We've been running a poll on their thoughts on the Budget: 10 per cent have rated it excellent, 11 per cent good, eight per cent fair, 71 per cent poor. I've got to say, most people are just getting their head around it at the moment, so it's probably a bit early. But on those figures, you've got a big sell to do.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, sure, Kochie, but this Budget is not about making the Government popular. This Budget is about doing the right thing by our country and that, in the end, is what the voters want. They want a Government which is more interested in the voters and their long-term welfare than it is in us and our long-term welfare. This is a Budget for the country; it's not a Budget for the politicians.
DAVID KOCH:
So if in the next year, if you've been too conservative and too cautious and things improve better than expected, is there a chance that you will cut the Budget repair levy earlier if things improve better than expected?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, obviously we always want to do the right thing by the Australian people and over time, what we want to do is get taxes down and down and down. That's what we want to do. I mean we are a Government of lower, simpler, fairer taxes. Lower taxes, smaller government, greater freedom. That's in the DNA of the Coalition I lead, of the Liberal Party. So sure, we want to do all those things, but we are not going to put at risk our fiscal future by taking soft, easy decisions too soon. We're just not going to do that. That was what the Labor Party did, and that's why, right now, we are still paying the mortgage on the credit card, and that's why this Government had to make a lot of tough decisions, as well as a lot of visionary ones last night.
DAVID KOCH:
Ok. Tony Abbott, it's always a big day, the day of the Budget. Really appreciate your time for dropping by.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good on you, Kochie.
Thank you.
[ends]