LEON BYNER:
Prime Minister, good morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Leon, how are you?
LEON BYNER:
I’m good thank you.
The Productivity Commission has put out its draft report on infrastructure funding this morning, among the more controversial recommendations is motorists could pay for every kilometre they drive. How do you feel about that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I think it’s not one that is ever likely to be accepted by any government.
LEON BYNER:
So, are we saying the Productivity Commission wasted their time?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well no, because there’s a lot of good stuff in this report, but that particular recommendation I suspect is unlikely to be accepted by any government.
LEON BYNER:
The idea is to provide an incentive to the private sector to build roads and save the Federal Budget money, but you’re saying, “No, won’t happen”?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well obviously tolls are a fact of life and we pay for road through tolls, we pay for roads through our taxes, we pay for roads through registration that we pay for our vehicles, so there’s already a significant form of user charging and I’m sure those forms of user charging will continue, but this new form of user charging I suspect is unlikely to be adopted by any government.
LEON BYNER:
Prime Minister, obviously you and your Ministerial team are planning the Budget. Will an extra $5 billion be allocated to road funding?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Leon, I certainly want to see a lot more roads built in Australia. I think we’ve got a serious infrastructure deficit, in part, because state Labor governments have padded the public sector payroll – they haven’t got out and built the roads that we need.
In Adelaide, I want to see the North-South Road Corridor fully upgraded within a decade. We’ve committed a half a billion dollars to the Darlington upgrade, we want to work with the South Australian government to get the Torrens to Torrens upgrade done. So these are projects that are vital and they will go ahead, certainly as far as I’m concerned and I know Steven Marshall wants them to happen, but unfortunately the current state Labor government has been basically very hesitant about getting cracking with these things because they always worry too much about the Greens and not about the ordinary people of South Australia who need better roads to drive on.
LEON BYNER:
The other issue people are worried about when it comes to the Budget is welfare. Are you looking at an overhaul of the system?
PRIME MINISTER:
What I said pre-election was that the best form of welfare was work and I think that working-age people – fit working-age people – should be working, preferably for a wage, but if not for the dole and I don’t want to see people parked on the Disability Support Pension – people with conditions that might be temporary or not particularly incapacitating, if they could be encouraged back into the workforce.
That’s what we’re looking at, Leon; we’re looking at how we can revitalise Work for the Dole and what we can do to give people additional incentives and help if their conditions are not necessarily permanent, not totally incapacitating to get back into the workforce and off the disability pension.
LEON BYNER:
The former Treasury head, Ken Henry, has said the Government needs to look at an overhaul of the tax system, welfare, and may not be able to pay for the paid parental leave scheme. I know that’s a pet of yours in terms of policy – no change on that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, obviously it’s got to go through the Parliament and sometimes things have to be negotiated through the Parliament, but as far as I’m concerned, the scheme that we took to the election is the scheme that we should take into the Parliament and try our hardest to get it passed. I regard this as an economic reform, not as just a welfare benefit.
LEON BYNER:
Can we afford it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh look, it’s fully funded Leon. It is fully funded by a modest levy on the 3,000 or so largest companies in our country, so it’s not something that will be paid for directly by taxpayers; it will be directly paid for by this modest levy on large companies.
Leon, why shouldn’t we get paid when we go on parental leave at our real wage, given that when we go on sick leave, when we go on holiday leave, when we go on long service leave we get paid at our real wage? Why should parental leave be any different?
LEON BYNER:
Well you see it’s the fact that even if it’s a big company and one might argue that they can afford it, ultimately any cost of doing business will be passed onto a consumer or a user.
PRIME MINISTER:
I accept that, but when you look at what this Government has got in mind, we are going to abolish the carbon tax, we are going to abolish the mining tax, we are going to get company tax down to make headroom for this - so the overall tax bill is going down dramatically under this Government…
LEON BYNER:
On the carbon tax…
PRIME MINISTER:
… if only the Labor Party wasn’t standing in our way in the Senate.
LEON BYNER:
Ok. Are you confident that you can get the carbon tax repealed and those other taxes in the new Senate?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes I am, because, Leon, the last thing the new Senate would want is to come in, refuse to give the Government its mandate and then see their career in the Senate cut short. I am confident that after a period of consideration and negotiation that, yes, we will get these things through the Senate. Let’s face it; this is what the people voted for last year…
LEON BYNER:
Are you..?
PRIME MINISTER:
... The only people who want the carbon tax and the mining tax are the Labor Party and The Greens and I say, why is the Labor Party’s siding with The Greens and against the people?
LEON BYNER:
Ok, so are you implying that if you don’t get this through after a period of time you’ll go to a double dissolution?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I’ve always said, Leon, that we will use all the avenues available to a government to get done what we said we would do.
LEON BYNER:
Yeah.
PRIME MINISTER:
This is a Government which will say what it means and it will do what it says and that’s what I want to be – a Government that says very clearly what it intends to do and then gets on and does it.
LEON BYNER:
So, you will go to a DD if you can’t get your way?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I don’t think it will come to that – I really don’t think it will come to that and I don’t think people particularly want to have election after election after election.
They want the Parliament to get cracking and do what it was elected to do and this Parliament was elected to get rid of the carbon tax, get rid of the mining tax, to get red-tape and green-tape down and to stop the boats and we’ve made a very good start to a lot of these things, but the Labor Party has not changed, it hasn’t learnt its lesson. I saw Bill Shorten yesterday in Perth looking very, very weak and sneaky, not quite saying whether he was for or against the mining tax. Well really and truly, this is a guy who is stopping taking these bad taxes off the people of South Australia and off the people of Western Australia.
LEON BYNER:
South Australia, Prime Minister, is highly dependent on commonwealth payments. What are your ideas on diversifying the South Australian economy?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the best thing we can do is get the fundamentals right. Now true, South Australia has some big important economic players, one of them – Holden – will be gone in 2017 and that obviously is a real pity, but I often come to South Australia, I see people like Sealy the air conditioners, I see people like San Remo who are exporting spaghetti to Italy, I’m wearing my marvellous R.M. Williams boots that are made in South Australia, I drink Coopers beer, I’ve drunk a lot of terrific wines from South Australia over the years.
Let’s not run South Australia down, Leon, let’s not underestimate what South Australia…
LEON BYNER:
Oh no, no, no, it’s not about running the state down; it is a reality that there are a lot of people now who will not be working in the jobs they’ve currently got and I don’t know that those wonderful companies that you’ve mentioned are going to have the ability to absorb the majority of those people.
PRIME MINISTER:
And there are dozens, if not hundreds, of other business…
LEON BYNER:
Sure.
PRIME MINISTER:
… that will be there to help take up the slack and you know, in any one year, something like a million people change their jobs, in any one year – that’s around Australia – something like 300,000 people lose their jobs because they are sacked or they are made redundant and in any one year, about a million people change their jobs – about 700,000 of them change their jobs voluntarily.
So look, it’s a tragedy – it’s an absolute tragedy – when a company like Holden closes down and something like 3,000 jobs are lost. But you know, Coles have just announced a $1 billion expansion – they’re opening 70 new stores around the country; that will be 8,000 permanent jobs in retail and 8,000 temporary jobs in construction.
So, the whole point of living in a market economy, Leon, is some things close, other things start and what we want to make sure is that there are more things stating than closing.
LEON BYNER:
Ok. Now you are in South Australia partly for a reason of a Defence announcement. Is South Australia going to be as relevant as it is, maybe more so, in its ability to produce and construct defence weaponry and other infrastructure?
PRIME MINISTER:
The short answer is yes, Leon. Today I’m announcing that as part of the acquisition of the Triton unmanned surveillance aircraft, there’ll be $100 million worth of work in South Australia, principally at RAAF Edinburgh.
LEON BYNER:
Yes.
PRIME MINISTER:
I’m also announcing that as part of the Wedgetail Eagle AEW&C aircraft programme there’ll be $78 million worth of work at British Aerospace – BAE – much of that in South Australia.
So, these are significant boosts to the South Australian economy. The Triton aircraft based at RAAF Edinburgh, which will be good for South Australia, the Poseidon aircraft which will replace the Orion which I announced a few weeks ago, they also will be based at RAAF Edinburgh, so there is ongoing defence basing, there’s ongoing defence work in South Australia and that’s going to be good for jobs and prosperity.
LEON BYNER:
Prime Minister, on this defence issue, do we have the necessary skills within the community to actually get those people working in the sector, or are we going to need to import them?
Now, I ask you this question because recently there was a decision made to lift the cap on the number of people that can come over on a 457 visa and a lot of people are questioning the wisdom on that given that our unemployment rate in Australia is still, I mean from a global perspective you might argue it’s low, but from our own comparisons it is high and set to go higher. So can you explain the logic as to why we would do that rather than not do things to help those people who are unemployed to actually get into these high edge sectors?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Leon, to come to our country on a 457 visa, the employer has got to have made strenuous efforts to employ an Australian and found there is no suitable Australian for the job and the people who’ve come in have got to be paid market wages and to bring someone in and pay them market wages is significantly more expensive than employing a local.
So, I don’t think people should be anxious about 457 workers; they’re not there to steal Australian jobs, they’re coming in to build the Australian economy and that’s good for everyone.
LEON BYNER:
But if they’re doing that, doesn’t that tell us that the people we’ve got available in the workforce to work haven’t got the skill?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, but if we need the job filled, it’s better to fill the job temporarily from overseas than it is to not have the job at all and that’s why these 457 people are really serving a very useful purpose for everyone and look, many of them make terrific Australians down the track. I mean, many of the people who are coming in to do a job, to work and pay taxes from day one will make fantastic Australians.
The whole story of our county, Leon, is that people coming here from the four corners of the earth – originally from the British Isles but then from the four corners of the earth – to build a better life for themselves and their kids and this is an extraordinarily fragrant story; a story which resonates around the world and long may we be a beacon of hope and optimism.
LEON BYNER:
Ok. Before I let you go and I thank you for your time this morning to talk to the state and that is that we’ve got an election on Saturday and whoever gets government is going to have a real Budget challenge because we need fiscal help like there’s no tomorrow. Have you got anything in your kitty to help the state get back to a position where it ought to be?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the first thing we’ll do is we’ll work with the state government and I think Steven Marshall does want to work with Canberra – doesn’t want to fight with Canberra – I mean, the current Premier is bidding to be re-elected on the basis that he wants to have a fight with Canberra. Well I think that the public of South Australia wants their Premier to work with Canberra, not just fight with Canberra.
So, I want to work with the South Australian government and Premier to get the North-South Road built, to get red-tape and green-tape down and to get those taxes off and that’s the best thing in the short term.
Now, obviously there are quite a few defence projects coming up; at least some of them are going to be very important to South Australia and obviously in the end, defence projects have to be run on a defence basis, not on a, as it were, jobs support basis, but nevertheless South Australia has enormous capability when it comes to defence manufacturing and defence support…
LEON BYNER:
Is there any thought though, Prime Minister, that we might bring these jobs forward?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, we will fund these projects as soon as they are necessary because the last thing we are going to do is jeopardise our defence capability…
LEON BYNER:
Sure.
PRIME MINISTER:
… and the former government had a very sort of rollercoaster approach to this stuff and we want to have a steady and consistent supply of work from the Commonwealth for our defence forces with defence suppliers here in this country.
LEON BYNER:
Prime Minister, thanks for your time and good luck with your announcement this morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you so much. Thank you, Leon.
[ends]