ROSS STEVENSON: Acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Good morning, Julia.
JULIA GILLARD: Good morning.
ROSS STEVENSON: When's Kevin back from overseas and if its not ‘til after Saturday, does that mean that you get a ticket to come and watch the Grand Final?
JULIA GILLARD: [Laughs] No, Kevin will be there at the Grand Final. So you can expect him to be doing all of the formal things that prime ministers do on Grand Final day. I will also be there watching, studying and barracking.
ROSS STEVENSON: Who's going to win?
JULIA GILLARD: I've tipped the Hawks. I've gone for the underdog, it's the only dog left in the competition after my Dogs went out last weekend. [Laughs] So in a desperate search for a remaining dog, I've decided to go for the underdog.
ROSS STEVENSON: Reported this morning and the biggest policy setback for your Government since the election 10 months ago - a billion dollars worth of budget changes to the Medicare levy surcharge threshold were defeated by the single vote of Senator Steve Fielding. What do you do now?
JULIA GILLARD: Well, I think we've got to remember that Steve Fielding's vote is only crucial if the Liberal Party oppose our measures and the Liberal Party have opposed a measure that would've meant a tax cut for some very hardworking Australians. It's a pretty simple proposition here. Originally, this levy was about high-income earners. The cut-in rate for it wasn't indexed, time goes on. It's now catching lots of Australians in the net and we want to put it back where it should be so it is catching people with higher incomes. That is what this debate has been all about. So the Government remains determined to make sure that we give some tax relief for those Australians who have got caught up in this system.
ROSS STEVENSON: Tell us what the ... you know, sort of the argy bargy of politics, presumably you could've got the vote of Senator Steve Fielding in the Senate. What would you have had to have done?
JULIA GILLARD: We had worked through with Senators generally and talking to Senator Xenophon and others, a new arrangement. We had originally said that we would put these threshold at $100 000 for singles and $150 000 for families. We were prepared to move to $75 000 for singles but that proposition didn't even get debated in the Senate because of the way that the Liberal Party and Senator Fielding voted.
We think that that proposition should be debated. It's obviously a proposition of merit. This is about getting balance into the system, making sure that hardworking Australians get a tax cut and also about making sure that our health insurance arrangements are right for the future.
And at the end of the day, this is one of our Budget bills and our Budget altogether, is about delivering a big surplus because in these uncertain financial times you need a big surplus, you need a buffer against the uncertainty. And the last thing, really, the Liberal Party should be engaging in is creating budget uncertainty at home when there's so much financial uncertainty abroad.
JOHN BURNS: Do you disagree with the proposition that's been put that if your bill got through it, it'd put more stress on already stressed hospitals?
JULIA GILLARD: Well, I find it a little bit odd that that argument's being put by the Liberal Party that chopped $1 billion out of public hospitals. The truth is this Government is already strongly reinvesting in the public health system. And I also think that that view gets informed by a bit of a simplistic perspective that's not right. Just because people have private health insurance doesn't mean that they never use public hospitals. We've all got a shared investment in the public hospital system. If you had a critical health emergency now and I'm certainly not wishing one on you, but in reality, if you did ...
ROSS STEVENSON: If you saw what he's about to eat, then there's a chance of a minor health crisis coming up. Julia, we must away and I share your sentiments. I will be going for the same underdog and thanks for your time.
JULIA GILLARD: No, problem. Thanks Ross.
ROSS STEVENSON: Julia Gillard, Acting Prime Minister I think became during the week became the first female to be Prime Minister during Parliamentary Question Time