JOHN LAWS: It is time for me now to say welcome to the Prime Minister of Australia Malcolm Turnbull. Prime Minister welcome.
PRIME MINISTER: John it’s great to be with you.
JOHN LAWS: It’s good to see you in our studio, do you admire my desk?
PRIME MINISTER: It’s very handsome. It’s one of the biggest desks I’ve ever seen.
JOHN LAWS: It’s a very large desk. They call it the aircraft carrier.
PRIME MINISTER: That’s right you could land, you could certainly land a few drones on it.
JOHN LAWS: You could. What about those drones, they’re going to change the future aren’t they?
PRIME MINISTER: They are, it’s very exciting.
JOHN LAWS:Yeah. Are you concerned that the polls are suggesting that you’ve squandered an election-winning lead? Or don’t you think you have?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, John I’m focussed on delivering continued job growth, economic growth for Australians. That is the focus of my Government everything we’re doing is designed to ensure that we continue our successful - so far - transition from an economy that had been fired up by a very big mining construction boom to one where growth is more diverse. So everything we’re doing is promoting stronger growth. Whether it’s innovation, whether it is investment, whether it is freeing up competition so that small businesses are better able to compete with the big guys, the changes to Section 46. Whether it’s opening up the big markets in Asia, especially China where I was last week. So right across the board, everything we’re doing – and you’ll see this in the budget – is designed to deliver strong jobs growth and we are succeeding. We had very strong jobs growth last year, over 300,000 new jobs, 26,000 last month and you saw what we did for the owner–drivers in the trucking industry.
JOHN LAWS: Which was terrific. Has adjusting to the job maybe been a little harder than you thought it would be?
PRIME MINISTER: I’m enjoying this job enormously. I love it. It’s a great honour, it’s very, it’s a great responsibility but you know the opportunity to ensure that our children and grandchildren have the best chance to get great jobs in the future is what we’re all about and everything we’re doing, every single policy we have undertaken is designed and calculated to deliver that and so far, the runs are on the board. We have got strong job growth and strong economic activity, notwithstanding we’ve had a big slowdown in mining construction. As you were always going to do of course. You know you get a big boom in construction. The mines are built or most of them are built.
JOHN LAWS: Yeah.
PRIME MINISTER: And then the construction boom declines.
JOHN LAWS: Yeah, I watched the other night when you were being interviewed by the delightful Leigh Sales and you really bridled when she used the expression “stabbed in the back” in relation to Tony Abbott. You really didn’t like it.
PRIME MINISTER: Well let me say it’s – we use these metaphors a lot in politics and we use them in life a lot and I wouldn’t say I was bridling but I think we should think about whether it’s appropriate to use metaphors of violence when we’re talking about political life. I mean we spend a lot of time trying to stamp out violence in the community, violence you know on the streets, in homes, you know domestic violence or taking on domestic violence and demonstrating that we have no tolerance for it is a key priority of my Government.
JOHN LAWS: Yeah.
PRIME MINISTER: So I think one way we can provide some leadership in that is not using violent metaphors like that. But look I don’t, it was a point that I made in that interview really it relates more to the way in which we talk about violence. I don’t think we want to normalise it given that we – it’s a big challenge in our society.
JOHN LAWS: Yeah but you certainly didn’t like it – associating you and Tony Abbott. Did you give Tony Abbott any warning that it might be on the cards?
PRIME MINISTER: Well again, you know I – my concern here is to focus on the economy and jobs and I’d like to talk about the 50,000 owner-drivers that are working because of what we did and were put out of work by Bill Shorten and that tribunal he set up when he was in government.
JOHN LAWS: Ok we can do, we can do.. Prime Minister with respect you’ve come here to be interviewed by me.
PRIME MINISTER: Sure. I expect that.
JOHN LAWS: I’m not here to be interviewed by you.
PRIME MINISTER: Exactly, no it’s your show John.
JOHN LAWS: It is you’re quite right. So back to the Tony Abbott question.
PRIME MINISTER: Well Tony as you know, there was a spill moved in February of last year.
JOHN LAWS: Yeah.
PRIME MINISTER: So there is no doubt that he had very ample warning that there were concerns in the party room. He had very ample warning. I think everyone recognised that.
JOHN LAWS: You don’t feel bad about it?
PRIME MINISTER: No – my job is to get on with leading the Government, leading the country and delivering the strong economic growth and the strong jobs growth that we need for our future.
JOHN LAWS: You, according to some, I don’t know about this but according to some you’ve been a bit of a disappointment for those who thought you’d immediately transform the country when it comes to things like gay marriage and the republic and other things. With the Queen marking her – the wonderful, wonderful Queen – marking her 90th birthday and the rise of William and Kate and they certainly are prominent now, has the push for a republic been just shoved to the backburner for a while?
PRIME MINISTER: Well let me first say that we send the Queen – all of us – very happy birthday.
JOHN LAWS: Oh, yes.
PRIME MINISTER: Greetings. What an extraordinary job she’s done and we have, the Government has as a birthday gift to Her Majesty, we are making a donation to the Royal Children’s Hospital Foundation in Melbourne.
JOHN LAWS: Good.
PRIME MINISTER: Which is one of the many charities in Australia of which Her Majesty is the patron and so we’re honouring her in that way but we do wish her a very, very happy birthday, as everybody does. There are very few Australians that are not Elizabethans, even if they’re not monarchists, they’re still Elizabethans.
JOHN LAWS: Yeah well I agree with that I think she’s an absolutely wonderful woman and I think he beside her has been absolutely perfect, I think they’ve been the perfect couple.
PRIME MINISTER: Yep, they’re a great example.
JOHN LAWS: Like you and Lucy.
PRIME MINISTER: Well thank you very much, we’ll see how we’re going when I’m 90.
JOHN LAWS: Ninety.
PRIME MINISTER: But can I say you asked about the republic.
JOHN LAWS: Yeah.
PRIME MINISTER: The issue with the republic, I’m a republican as you know.
JOHN LAWS: I know.
PRIME MINISTER: I believe Australia’s head of state should be an Australian chosen by Australians. To achieve that you need to change the constitution that is no mean feat. It’s very difficult to change the constitution and so you need to ensure the referendum, at the next referendum and I’m sure there will be another one, is presented at a time when people feel this is the right time to deal with a change. You’ve got to make sure that it is something that comes from the public, that it’s got that strong grassroots movement. My view – and I may be happy to be corrected – but my view is that you won’t see that popular momentum until after the Queen’s reign. I think there was an opportunity in the late nineties leading into the Centenary of Federation and as you know I led the Republican campaign then. But I felt that the next time this issue would come back onto the front burner in terms of the public’s interest in it, would be after the end of the Queen’s reign. All I could say to you is that I know this from experience, it’s easy to call for a referendum, it’s a lot harder to win one.
JOHN LAWS: Oh yes and also they don’t come cheap, referendums do they?
PRIME MINISTER: No that’s right. You’d need to ensure that there was really overwhelming support. To win a referendum you need, you really do need overwhelming support. The last even remotely controversial referendum that was successful was in 1946. All the others that have been passed – and there haven’t been many – have been ones where there was absolute, virtually no opposition.
JOHN LAWS: What’s one characteristic you admire in Bill Shorten.
PRIME MINISTER: Well I haven’t turned my mind to that. I don’t want to say there’s nothing I admire in him but I’ve always got on well with him. But I haven’t focussed on his personal qualities or deficiencies, I’m more concerned with the policies that he’s proposing and you know I have to say to you John, you know I’ve said that all of our policies are calculated to deliver strong jobs growth and they are and they’re doing that. If we look at what Shorten is proposing, for example, do we think we need in 2016, more investment in Australia? Of course we do. Of course we want people to invest more.
JOHN LAWS: You bet. You bet.
PRIME MINISTER: Yes. Well what’s Shorten proposing? He’s going to put up the tax on investments, capital gains tax by 50%. Now if you want people to do less of something, what do you do? You jack up the tax on it. If you want them to do more of something, you give them a tax break. He is increasing the tax on capital gains by 50% which will have the certain consequence of less investment. He’s going to introduce a housing tax, this ban on negative gearing, which will drive down the value of every property in Australia and drive up rents. Now what’s that going to do for jobs? What’s that going to do for economic growth? He’s got 51 billion dollars of spending promises for which he has not yet identified any source. So that is presumably going to come from increased taxes that he’s yet to tell us about. Now the real test in this election is very clear; who do you trust to deliver the government and the policies that will drive strong economic growth and jobs. Who is best able to ensure that your kids and your grandkids will have good jobs in the future? All of our policies are designed to do that. You know I talked about China and the big Chinese market and all of the growth that you’re seeing, particularly from agriculture and services, tourism from that China market. Labor opposed entering into the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement. You may remember the unions..
JOHN LAWS: I do, I do remember.
PRIME MINISTER: ..ran all those scary ads. Bill Shorten was right behind them until finally he realised that it was untenable and they rolled over and we managed to get the legislation through the Parliament.
So Labor has a track record of opposing reforms that will drive economic growth and jobs, because they’re beholden to the unions. Look at the so-called RSRT. I mean that was designed to put independent owner-drivers out of business, for the benefit of the Transport Workers Union. There’s no question about that and it was succeeding, had we not been able, earlier this week, to get the House and the Senate to agree to abolish it, with the Labor Party opposing us at every step of the way, all of those owner–drivers would now still be out of work and be going broke. Now that’s, you know, Bill Shorten is promising, or at least his party is promising to bring that policy back. We had Ian Smith from the Transport Workers Union..
JOHN LAWS: Anyway it’s not about to happen..
PRIME MINISTER: ..saying they’re going to bring that RSRT back.
JOHN LAWS: Yeah if.
PRIME MINISTER: Well if they win the election, well that’s their promise. That’s their..
JOHN LAWS: Bloody big if.
PRIME MINISTER: Well all elections are very close John. You talked about the polls earlier and they’re always close in Australia.
JOHN LAWS: Yes they are, that’s true but do you take – every politician I’ve spoken to ever come up with the glib answer there’s only one poll that counts John. Is that your attitude?
PRIME MINISTER: Well there’s only one poll that determines who forms government, that is the one on polling day. But every politician pays a lot of attention to opinion polls. They are very, they are very influential in people’s thinking but I do believe it’s important to remember that all federal elections are close. I mean 53% is a landslide.
JOHN LAWS: Oh absolute.
PRIME MINISTER: You know so 52% is a great win. There are many elections that are won with margins just over 50%. So Shorten is definitely the alternative Prime Minister. Labor could win the election and if they did, enough people vote for Labor, those independent truck drivers, those owner-drivers will be out of work again.
The Transport Workers Union, as they have promised, will get from Labor the return of that tribunal and those owner-drivers will be put out of business again.
JOHN LAWS: Given that you’ve already nominated July 2nd as the election, why was there a bit of wavering about the date earlier this week and there was.
PRIME MINISTER: Well not from me. My position has been very clear. If the Senate did not pass the Australian Building and Construction Commission bill – they rejected it – I’ve said for some time I would after the, you know, at an appropriate time after the budget, advise the Governor-General to dissolve both Houses of Parliament and call an election on the 2nd of July and that’s always been very clear. Now the, you know, the Governor-General may, it’s up to him, he has a discretion whether to agree to a double dissolution under the Constitution and he may of course make some, impose some conditions on that. So what I’ve said is absolutely strictly accurate. Do I expect there to be an election on the 2nd of July? Yes I do and that will be the advice I give to his Excellency.
JOHN LAWS: I got the impression that Christopher Pyne and Julie Bishop kind of wanted to leave their options open. Did you get that impression?
PRIME MINISTER: Well I think they were just respecting the fact that the matters of this kind are for the Prime Minister not for other Ministers.
JOHN LAWS: I see.
PRIME MINISTER: Well it’s true, that is one of the responsibilities of the job. The termination, or when to advise the Governor General to dissolve Parliament, call an election, is for the Prime Minister.
JOHN LAWS: Ok. Will we get a submarine announcement next week do you think?
PRIME MINISTER: An announcement will be made shortly.
JOHN LAWS: Ok. Are we going to be happy with that announcement? Or are we going to be unhappy with it?
PRIME MINISTER: Well let me say that Australians will know this; firstly that we are taking our national security seriously. We are taking the defence of Australia very seriously. You know the six years Labor was in power, they not only cut our spending on defence, but they did not commission one naval vessel from one Australian yard. Not one in six year. Now we have underway an enormous naval ship building program. Surface vessels have already been announced.
JOHN LAWS: Where is this taking place?
PRIME MINISTER: This will take place in Australia, let me go through them. There are going to be 19 up to 21 Pacific Patrol Boats which are going to be built in Western Australia and we’ve announced the builder, Austal Ships and the contracts are being finalised now. There will be 12 offshore patrol vessels which are larger vessels, sort of a medium sized naval vessel. They will be built in Australia. They’ll start being built in 2018 in Adelaide and then when the Future Frigates programs, and that is, there nine of those, begin production in 2020 the Offshore Patrol Vessels, the OPVs, will move to Perth. Now they’ve all been, that’s all been announced. That is enormous work. That is thousands of jobs in Australia. It is my passionate, committed belief, that we must spend more of our Defence dollar in Australia. Now that is John, because building up our Defence industries, building up our ability to construct ships is critical to our security. I mean sure we have to have the submarines and the frigates, and the Offshore Patrol Vessels and of course all of the vehicles for our Army, and Air Force and aeroplanes. We have to have all of that. But what we need is a strong, Australian, indigenous Defence industry so that you have continuous construction. So that you don’t have one project which is the old way of approaching it. Where you have a project to build submarines or build ships and then everyone would, you have to start from scratch, you’d build them and then the project team would be dissipated. This is what was happening under Labor. So what we’re doing is putting in place the commitments and infrastructure to ensure that there will be the shipbuilding capacity not just to build these vessels but to build the vessels in 30, 40, 50 years’ time. You know designs that are yet to be contemplated so that we have that ability for continuous build.
JOHN LAWS: What about, on another subject, what about this idea of ASIC being brought in to examine the alleged payment from Channel 9 to free their crew in Beirut? Have you got an opinion, you must have an opinion, you have an opinion on everything.
PRIME MINISTER: [Laughter] Haha yes. But some of them I should be circumspect about. Look I’ve seen those reports. It will be, I’ve got no doubt it will be of interest to various regulatory agencies. I’d rather say no more about it other than to make this observation John, as I said yesterday; it doesn’t matter who you are, or who you work for, when you are overseas if you’re an Australian you must obey the laws of the country in which, where you are visiting. You know you can’t, nobody is above the law. If you break the law in other parts of the world you may well be breaking Australian law. Again I don’t want to comment on that. But there are, we have laws, against corruption, laws against fighting overseas in terrorist organisations or going off to fight in foreign wars. We have, there are a lot of Australian laws that you can break overseas, but first and foremost, you have to recognise that when you are in a foreign country you are subject to the laws of that country. And if you break them, and you get arrested, we’ll provide all of the consular support and so forth, but you are subject to the jurisdiction of another country, just as foreigners are subject to the jurisdiction of Australia when they come here.
JOHN LAWS: Do you think they were foolish?
PRIME MINISTER: From what I have read about it, it appears to have been most unwise. But I will go no further than that at this stage.
JOHN LAWS: As usual it has been good to talk to you. Is there anything we haven’t talked about we should have talked about?
PRIME MINISTER: No John. It’s great to see you again and it’s good to be here at 2SM. It’s fantastic. My former employer.
JOHN LAWS: [Laughter] I know. We’re still your employer.
PRIME MINISTER: Yeah yeah.
JOHN LAWS: Tax wise.
PRIME MINISTER: That’s right I’m employed by 24 million Australians and all of those tax payers.
JOHN LAWS: Including me Malcolm.
PRIME MINISTER: That’s right. I’m looking forward to my triannual review and hope that my employers will be satisfied with the performance.
JOHN LAWS: Is Australia still the greatest country in the world?
PRIME MINISTER: Oh yes. We are the most remarkable country. Let me say a little bit about that. We are the most successful multicultural society in the world. You can look at all of the animosities and disharmony around the world. Here we are sitting here in a studio in Sydney about a third of the people here in this city were not born in Australia. We have a very high percentage of people right across the country that weren’t born in Australia. They come from every part of the world. We’ve got a higher proportion of our society from, you know who are immigrants, than any other comparable country. Yet we have managed to build and get on remarkably well. I think the success of our society is a great credit to all of us. It literally is a credit to all of us. It is not any one person. I think we have got the right balance as Australians between the competition of a free market and fairness. I think we have the right balance between if you like, free enterprise and a responsible safety net. This is a country, a society, which has, we are people that have a very strong sense of a fair go.
JOHN LAWS: True.
PRIME MINISTER: This is what you will see in the budget frankly. You will see a budget that is prudent, that demonstrates that we are going to live within our means because that is what every sensible, practical, person seeks to do.
JOHN LAWS: We still have a hell of a deficit though.
PRIME MINISTER: We do, we do. But we will be, you will see, our plan, our economic plan to reduce that. So it will be a prudent budget, living within our means. It will be fair. People will look at that budget and they’ll say this is a fair budget. But it will also be one that encourages enterprise and people to have a go and to invest. Now what Labor is doing of course, is very different. They have a huge plan for spending. They therefore must have a plan for jacking up taxes. We’ve already seen some cases of that. And what we have seen from their tax plan so far is absolutely certain to reduce investment and therefore reduce jobs. You can’t, you know, you jack up the taxes on cigarettes, fewer people will smoke. That is proven. You jack up the taxes on investment, fewer people will invest.
JOHN LAWS: That’s simple.
PRIME MINISTER: That’s very, very simple. So what Labor wants, Bill Shorten wants Australians to invest less.
JOHN LAWS: I don’t understand that.
PRIME MINISTER: How does that make sense? At a time when we have had this huge adrenalin rush of the big mining construction boom, got up to eight per cent of GDP, it’s come back to about half that and its coming off, but we’ve been through most of that transition. We are seeing enormous enterprise, entrepreneurship, investment, a lot of it is being driven by the big free trade agreements that we opened up which Labor opposed, and Shorten wants to put the brakes on that. Why on earth would you do that?
JOHN LAWS: Have you asked him?
PRIME MINISTER: Well we have certainly have asked him in Parliament but he responds with slogans so I don’t, I haven’t had a, I’m genuinely puzzled. I mean you look at our Innovation programme John. We want people to invest in start-ups because it is hard for people to get started so we provided some tax incentives to do that, we provided some breaks on capital gains tax to do that. A bit of encouragement. So we’re encouraging people to invest. Shorten is discouraging people to invest and it is, you know when you talk to people about it they are puzzled too.
JOHN LAWS: Yeah.
PRIME MINISTER: Why would Labor want to do that? He talks about – his politics now is all about the politics of envy, the politics of anyone who is trying to get ahead, he wants to stop.
JOHN LAWS: Tell me this, do you and he ever sit down without anybody else there and have a yarn?
PRIME MINISTER: We have had a few chats about things and there are some issues that we discuss. I’ve always got on well with him, I don’t have a scratchy relationship with him at all. But I am genuinely surprised by the policies he is setting up because they are absolutely calculated to stop investment and stop growth. Let me give you – talk a little bit about the negative gearing policy for example. Now you know as well as I do that most people start off in life with their human capital. That’s all they’ve got.
JOHN LAWS: That’s all you’ve got.
PRIME MINISTER: So they get a job, or they get some employment of one kind or another and they generate some income. Then they will borrow some money and they might buy a truck like one of these owner drivers. Or they might buy some real estate or they might invest in a new business and borrow some money and put some money into the shares in the new business with a friend to start something.
That is, that’s the classic road of entrepreneurship and enterprise. It’s certainly the road that I followed. Now most people have done that. What Shorten is proposing is that the only circumstances in which you can offset you can offset your investment losses against your personal income is if you are investing in a new residential property. So you can’t invest in existing residential property, commercial property, you can’t invest in assets or shares or equipment. This is bizarre. Why would you do that?
JOHN LAWS: I don’t know. But doesn’t he – I agree with what you’re saying – but doesn’t he see that? I mean doesn’t he understand? To me, what you’ve said, irrespective of what political leanings anybody’s got, you’ve got to say well hang on, that’s a bit strange. Doesn’t he see it as being bizarre as you said?
PRIME MINISTER: Well I – I cannot explain why Labor would set out a number of policies the certain consequence of which is fewer jobs and less investment.
JOHN LAWS: Yeah.
PRIME MINISTER: Now having said that, we know from the RSRT, they set up a tribunal as part of a deal with Transport Workers Union the purpose of which was to disadvantage owner drivers and when it brought down its ruling recently, it didn’t just disadvantage them, it put them out of business.
JOHN LAWS: It did.
PRIME MINISTER: There was no ifs or buts about that, there were thousands of owner-drivers.
JOHN LAWS: I know who went to the wall.
PRIME MINISTER: Grown men, with their wives and children, in tears. They saw their whole world crumbling around them and this was done, by Bill Shorten, that was his policy, at the behest of the Transport Workers Union. So we’re not talking about a theory and it’s not something that is a possibility. Shorten has a track-record of doing things in government which destroy the jobs of enterprising Australians running their own businesses, for the advantage of the unions. So that’s a fact and if he’s – the TWU were saying quite openly – Labor has promised that if they win the election, they’ll bring it back.
JOHN LAWS: Yeah a frightening thought. Ok thank you very much Prime Minister for coming to see me, it’s nice to see you again, we don’t see each other too often, you’ve got plenty on.
PRIME MINISTER: Well we will do it again.
JOHN LAWS: Yeah well anytime. Anytime because it’s good to talk to you and I know that people like to hear what you have to say in a relaxed environment and I trust I have given you a relaxed environment.
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks very much John.