Prime Minister
Tom Elliott: Scott Morrison, the Prime Minister, joins us right now. Prime Minister, good morning.
Prime Minister: Good morning, Tom.
Elliott: Well, I know that the election is unofficially on, because we're all out campaigning. Or at least you are. When are you going to call it?
Prime Minister: Oh, it won't be very long from now. You know, it's coming up to three years in the middle of May. Since the last election. And I've always said that, you know, that’s the time for the election. Others have speculated, I've always been pretty clear in my mind and upfront with the Australian people about it. So that's coming up soon. That's when it was expected to be done, that's when it will be held. And the election gives people the opportunity to take a good look at the choice, and this election is a choice, not a referendum. It's a choice between the Liberal Party and the Nationals and Labor supported by the Greens. Our future plans and our track record of the economy and national security, and plans we don't know anything about from Labor and the Greens. They're an unknown. It's a choice between what you know and what you don't know.
Elliott: The polls say that you're not doing too well. Do you reckon you'll win?
Prime Minister: Yeah, look, I'm confident in the Australian people that as we get to this election, as people focus on the choice that's before them, that they will make a choice that will ensure that Australia continues to be strong in very uncertain times. There are incredible pressures on our economy. There are incredible pressures on our national security. And now is not the time to be changing course. Australians have worked incredibly hard, over what has been an extraordinarily tough three years and we need to keep going in the way that we have, which has made Australia one of the strongest economies coming out of this pandemic in the advanced world.
Elliott: In about half an hour, I'm going to speak to the CEO of the National Australia Bank, Ross McEwan, and there's a story in the The Age this morning saying that the big banks are going to lift interest rates four or five times in the next six months. Do you think that's going to exacerbate cost of living pressures on Australian families?
Prime Minister: Well, there are lots of pressures on the Australian economy and there are those pressures. There's no doubt about that. That's going all around the world. I mean, inflation is running double in the United States what it is here in Australia and significantly higher in the United Kingdom and in many other developed economies around the world. And that's why strong financial management in the years ahead is going to mean more than anything, and we've had a steady hand on those issues. We have retained our AAA credit rating in one of the worst economic crisis the country’s ever seen. When we talk about the global financial crisis, you know, back when Labor was in power, what we've been through in the last three years, 30 times worse than that and our employment outcomes have been 50 per cent better. We've actually got unemployment down in the middle of an economic crisis. Under Labor it went up.
Elliott: Do you think cost of living will always be lower under a Liberal Government than a Labor one?
Prime Minister: I think the pressures on keeping cost of living down we will always be able to manage better than the Labor Party because we know how to manage money. We know how to retain a AAA credit rating. We know how to grow the economy. And that's been proven in one of the most difficult times that Australia has faced over the last three years. But pressures come from everywhere, and the issue is how you deal with them. And we've had to deal with the toughest set of circumstances we've seen since the Great Depression in our economy and on national security - the hardest we've seen since the Second World War and on both of those, Australia is stronger and that's what we promised to do.
Elliott: You've pushed the price of petrol down, or at least Josh Frydenberg has, by halving the excise from 44 cents to 22, but it's only a temporary cut in the excise. Now it's going to apparently go back up in September. Will you commit to raising it again in September or will you just revisit the idea then?
Prime Minister: Well, this is a temporary and targeted measure to provide immediate relief to cost of living that's responsible. It's affordable, and the reason it's affordable is we've turned the budget around by over $100 billion in the last 12 months as the economy has recovered strongly from the policies we put in place to see the economy through the pandemic and to ensure we were building and recovering strongly on the other side. So it is responsible and it is providing immediate relief. Treasury estimates that the fuel price, the oil barrel price, will be coming back to more regular levels over that period of six months. New Zealand did it for three months. We believed it would take longer than that. And so we've done it for six months.
Elliott: Now, Katie Allen, who represents the seat of Higgins. She's one of your colleagues in the Parliament. She conceded today that your unpopularity as Prime Minister is likely to weigh against her in the upcoming poll, the upcoming election in Higgins. Why do you think that you are unpopular, at least in Melbourne?
Prime Minister: Well, I don't know if that's the case right across Victoria, right across Melbourne at all. But you know, look, when you're a Prime Minister, you've got to be strong. You've got to be resilient. You've got to make decisions that take the country forward. And I accept that not every decision that I've taken over the last three years has met with everybody's agreement. It's been the most extraordinary last three years that anyone could have imagined, particularly going into it. And so of course, we don't claim to be perfect, but what we do claim is that the results on our economy, the results on our national security and the plans for the future that draw on that success. They're real. You know who we are. People know who I am. No one knows who Anthony Albanese is, they don't know what he's going to do. He's had three years to tell the Australian people what he's going to do. He hasn't. Why won't he tell us? What we did find out the other day, though, is he's going to lift the cap on taxes in this country. I put that cap in place to ensure that taxes would not rise to a level in this country that would slow down the economy and cost jobs. Now, his Shadow Treasurer confirmed they're getting rid of the limit on taxes. Why would you do that unless you had plans to raise taxes?
Elliott: Well, sure, and I saw Jim Chalmers talking about that. But the limit on taxes is a bit weird. It's 23.9 per cent, but spending is at least 3 or 4 per cent higher than that. I mean, is there much point to having a limit on taxes if you don't have a commensurate limit on government spending?
Prime Minister: Well, the taxes is what is levied on income taxes, company taxes. There are also other revenue streams into the government that are on top of those, and that's what balances the Budget. So, you know, so but the thing that really ...
Elliott: But the Budget, the Budget's not balanced?
Prime Minister: No, it's not balanced yet, but it was balanced then we hit the pandemic. That's, that's very important. We spent all of our time, we put the limit on taxes, we said we're not going to balance the Budget by raising taxes. We're going to put a limit on taxes and we're going to grow the economy and we're going to keep being careful about our expenditure. And that's what we achieved before the pandemic hit. And having a limit on taxes actually puts a limit on ensuring that you have constraints on your spending. That's how you do budgets. I've, I've done eight of them. The leader of the opposition has done none. I did one as a member of the Expenditure Review Committee, three as Treasurer and four as Prime Minister. That's how you do budgets. You've got to control your taxes so you don't slow the economy down, and they want to take the brakes off taxes and you've got to keep control of your expenditure and make sure your expenditure is wise and growing the economy and are guaranteeing essential services.
Elliott: Three years ago, you had a good run against Bill Shorten because Bill Shorten had all these unpopular policies. You know, he wanted to get rid of negative gearing. He wanted to tax franking credits. He wanted to, you know, he told coal workers he was on their side and he told the greenies he was on their side. This time around, though, Anthony Albanese isn't saying much at all. Does that make him difficult to campaign against?
Prime Minister: Well, I think it's the same crew, but different problems. I mean, now they won't tell you who they are. I mean, at least Bill Shorten was upfront with people about what he was going to do. I mean, no one knows what Anthony Albanese will do because he hasn't told anyone. And he sort of wants to skate off to an election without any scrutiny. There's been a pandemic. There's been many issues that have, quite understandably, the Australian people have been very focussed on, and that's why this election campaign is really important. He wants a quick little election campaign to run off to the polls and hope nobody notices that they don't know who he is. We don't know who he is. I know who he is. I've known him for a long period of time, and he's pretending to be someone very different as we go into this election. And what I know is when things really get tough, you always rely on the principles and things you've believed in for a long time. And, and with Anthony Albanese, we haven't seen a more left-wing Labor leader, I think, since at least Gough Whitlam and probably before that.
Elliott: Now Tuesday night, you had your now infamous run in with angry pensioner Ray Drury up at Lake Macquarie. Are you going to now avoid interacting with the public like that, or will you keep campaigning the same way?
Prime Minister: We'll keep going to say way. And look, Ray, I listened to respectfully and carefully. And we've been following up with Ray since that night, and he was upset about some rather difficult circumstances in his own life. And, you know, as a member of Parliament, as a Prime Minister, you listen, and you listen carefully and people have been through a tough time over the last three years. And I understand that and I think for many of them that's leaving them very angry. They're sick of the lockdowns that were put in place.
Elliott: But Ray was specifically angry about his disability pension and various other things. Have those issues for him been sorted out?
Prime Minister: Well, they're very complex, is my point. I mean, it was a combination of things. It was in New South Wales iCare compensation scheme. So it was a overlay between that and the pension scheme and how income is determined, it was very complicated and there were some rather complex integration issues as well. So I listened carefully to Ray. I understood where he was coming from. He'd been... These are problems that he's been dealing with for 11 years, going right back to when Labor was in power, so I can understand his frustration.
Elliott: Now, a couple of nights ago, one of your Liberal Senators, South Australian Alex Antic, asked the Federal Health Secretary Brendan Murphy, to define a woman and Brendan Murphy could not do it. He sidestepped the question. Just to avoid any confusion could you define for us what a woman is?
Prime Minister: A member of the female sex.
Elliott: Member of the female? Why couldn't Brendan Murphy say that?
Prime Minister: You'd have to ask him.
Elliott: Yeah, but he's one of your senior health, he’s the senior health bureaucrat. Why is it so difficult, do you think?
Prime Minister: Well, I don't think it is.
Elliott: That's good, he seems to disagree.
Prime Minister: I'm not- Look, public servants are independent. And I've relied heavily on many things that Brendan and, you know the Secretary of the Treasury, and Prime Minister and Cabinet, but we're the government, they work for us. We set out the policies and they implement them. And a woman is a member of the female sex. I think that's pretty straightforward.
Elliott: Well, you might need a sternly worded letter from your Prime Minister's Office to tell him that. Hey, now look, finally, before I let you go, three and a half years ago at the MCG, I gave you a Carlton jumper and you laughed at it. You laughed at it and said, didn't they finish last? I don't know if you've noticed, but this year they're three and zero and they're third on the ladder. Has Josh Frydenberg convinced you to start wearing it around the place?
Prime Minister: No look, I will always be who I am, as everyone knows in Melbourne, I'm a mad NRL fan. I love going to the AFL and I appreciate the jersey. I've still got it. I've been given jerseys, I think, by almost every club over the last three years, but I think it's a magnificent sport. The people know I'm an NRL fan, and I don't pretend to be anything. I'm not. People know who I am. I know they might not agree with everything I've done. But with me, you know what you're going to get. And you know, the track record of performance we've had in government and getting us through the pandemic and the plans for the future. So it's a choice between what people know and what they don't know. And in uncertain times, you want to go with what you know.
Elliott: Scott Morrison, thank you for your time.
Prime Minister: Thanks very much.