CURTIS: Prime Minister good morning.
PM: Morning Lyndall.
CURTIS: In response to the leak, you warned the public service yesterday that the work load will only increase. But public servants are saying they are not afraid of hard work, what they are frustrated with is that they are being called in at all hours to give advice which is then ignored and that your office is chaotic. Is there a case to work smarter, not harder?
PM: Well the first thing I would say about the public service is that we have been exceptionally well serviced in the six months that we have been in government through the advice that we have been receiving across a whole range of policy areas.
That is the right way to go. We believe in policy contestability, which means having a debate. That's the right way to do it. Secondly in terms of the pace of activity, it follows as night follows day, that if a government is elected with a mandate to govern with a new program, it is going to be very intense, very intense once that Government takes office. And it has been.
In terms of the specific criticism that you have just made, they have not been made to me. And so I would simply say that our processes of working directly with public service agencies has been good. Whether it is on climate change, whether it is on health and hospitals, whether it is on the future of the education system or the overall task of responsible economic management through the budget process.
In fact, what public servants have said to us is that the preparation of the Budget for example has been much more deliberative, consolidated, and inclusive of agencies and the relevant senior ministers than what they have experience in recent years, under our predecessors.
CURTIS: In a speech you gave to the Sydney Institute last July you talked about the importance of work life balance. Doesn't your message to the public service though, that the work load will only increase, conflict with that message of how important work life balance is?
PM: Well as I have said before, public servants are very much an important part of the overall fabric of public administration, but we are in a uniquely privileged position. We are elected to govern as a government and the public service are there to support the Government.
There are literally millions of Australians out there, working families, working Australians and those doing it tough, who are depending on the Government to work hard, work very hard to implement the program.
If we are going to have a government committed to responsible economic management, a government which honours it's pre-election commitments, in terms of tax, childcare reform and the rest, as well as a Government committed to investing in the long term future, through our funds for infrastructure, education and health and hospitals, then frankly the pace is going to be very tough.
I understand that. It's is tough, it's is hard. But I believe that the Australian community at large expect all of us to work really hard. And the public service, I have got to say, have been responding very well to that.
CURTIS: On FuelWatch, you have said giving a guarantee petrol prices wouldn't rise as a result of FuelWatch would be irresponsible, but after the advice you received from the ACCC, can you say with confidence or reasonable confidence that FuelWatch wont lead to higher prices?
PM: What I am very conscious of is the fact that my predecessor, Mr Howard went out there and made irresponsible promises to the Australian community when he said that interest rates would be kept at record lows. When you are looking at the future of petrol prices, let's just recognise one fact: this is a global phenomenon.
Every government around the world including most politicians from around the world that I have spoken to in recent times, is going through the same set of challenges that we are.
Therefore, what they are embracing is we are seeking to embrace here, is a series of long term responses which deal with supply factors, demand factors, alternative fuels, fuel efficient cars, public transport, and also specific ways to help the family budget.
None of these represents a single solution in itself, but that is the way in which we intend to proceed and competition power for motorists, is just one part, one part, of this overall equation.
CURTIS: But surely you are confident that the scheme will provide a net benefit to motorists?
PM: Well we are very mindful of the advice which was contained in the ACCC report. The ACCC report, including most significant, the further part of the econometric modelling which was produced by the competition watchdog yesterday, says and I quote, “the purpose of this econometric analysis has been to satisfy the ACCC that the introduction of FuelWatch scheme nationally would not, based on the experience of WA, lead to consumers paying higher prices for petrol. From the econometric analysis on a conservative basis, the ACCC can say that there is no evidence that FuelWatch led to any increase in prices and it appears to have resulted in a small price decrease overall.”
That's what the competition watchdog has said. It has been the agency charged with the previous treasurer, Peter Costello, to do this work. It has spent many, six months doing it, at great expense. It did economic modelling to produce that conclusion. That was the advice upon which the Government acted. But as of itself, this competition policy measure doesn't add up to the, you know, the total response to the challenges of fuel.
But I have got to say, our position is clear. We as a government will side with consumers and motorists and consumer power. The Liberals are siding with a cosy relationship with big oil.
And it is not irrelevant that all the big oil companies or most of the major oil companies are lined up in support to the Liberal party's opposition to this.
CURTIS: There has been a lot of argument and a lot of work on a scheme that will save people between 50 cents and $3 on a tank of petrol. These savings will be obliterated if petrol is included in an emissions trading scheme wont they and prices rise by up to 17 cents a litre?
PM: Well the first point to make about that is the Liberal Party, through Mr Turnbull, committed themselves to including this transport sector into their emissions trading scheme last year, in his statement in the middle of last year.
The second is, we are currently working our way through what will be included and excluded from our own emissions trading regime and we will have something further to say on that later in the year once the Garnaut report, in it's various stages is released.
But you know, overall, let's just be realistic about it. If you are looking at the global price of oil, this has gone up some 400 per cent, I am advised, since the Iraq war. Then you look at the huge push factors which are coming out of demand from China and India.
You are looking at the big challenges of alternative fuels and fuel efficient cars and public transport. We have to achieve advances in each of these areas as well as helping families and individuals under financial pressure right now, through for example, the tax changes and other family budget changes which have been introduced as part of the Budget a couple of weeks ago.
CURTIS: You have talked there about the global pressures on oil and also about easing pressure on the family budget. Have you overplayed expectations, did you do that through the election campaign, offering relief for people in areas like groceries and fuel which you largely cant deliver because the factors are outside your control?
PM: Well let me very clear about this. We were challenged, myself and the Treasurer last year, prior to the election explicitly. In fact I think on this program, about whether we could guarantee any reduction in the price of petrol. And we said quite explicitly, no.
Chris Uhlmann on your program last year, August last year, said this to me, “could you guarantee that will lower the cost of any grocery item or any supermarket shelf anywhere by $1?”
And my response to that was: “I couldn't guarantee that for the reason being, that what I have said is that we need to have a robust competition policy watchdog on the beat. We have said that both in case of petrol and groceries, these two huge drivers of difficulty within the household budget.”
Then I went on to say: “I believe in promising what is deliverable.”
Mr Swan was asked by Laurie Oakes, ‘can you guarantee if you win government, petrol prices will fall'?
Mr Swan said; “No I can't guarantee that”. Then Mr Costello attacked us last year for failing to make any such undertaking. Sc the Liberal Party are now seeking to say that we made promises we didn't make. What we have always said is that what we are trying to do through FuelWatch, establishing a petrol price commissioner and other enhancements to the competition watchdog, that we would try and put more power into the hands of consumers.
And I could just say this, that when it comes to consumers. We will always side with motorists and consumers against a cosy relationship with big oil companies. And I make the point again. Why is it the major oil companies are all siding with the Liberal party in their opposition to FuelWatch?
CURTIS: Prime Minister are you surprised at how quickly the wheels came off for the Government this week and is your honeymoon at an end?
PM: You know something in politics you are always going to take a whacking in one week or another. And frankly in the period that I have been leader of the Labor Party which goes back some 18 months now, you have times when you are going to get whacked. And they will come and they will go.
The key thing is simply to continue to prosecute the agenda which we were elected to do. And what's that? That is making sure that we deliver responsible economic management, $22 billion surplus at a time when we don't want to put further pressure on inflation and put further pressure on interest rates. Make sure that we honour our pre-election commitments to bring in tax cuts, childcare tax rebate increases and an education tax refund and invest in the future - infrastructure, health and hospitals and education.
That's what we were elected to do, we will get on to do that, but obviously in any given week, in the political cycle, we are going to take a huge whacking, and guess what, it will happen again as well.
CURTIS: Prime Minister thank you very much for your time.
PM: Thanks for having me on the program.