LATIKA BOURKE:                 You are obviously feeling better because you have accepted the Shadow

                                                 Finance role, can you run me through how you have come to feel this well?

 

ANDREW ROBB:                    Well I have now been experimenting I think for over 6 months with the different types of chemical treatments for this early morning depressive condition that I have had all my life really and it’s a trial and error thing so I’ve been through many different combinations of chemicals and different levels but since about Christmas you know I have found the magical one and I have improved strongly ever since and the last few weeks in the mornings I have mornings better than I’ve ever had in my life.

 

LATIKA BOURKE:                  That must be a huge relief for you to have finally discovered a solution.

 

ANDREW ROBB:                    It’s fantastic really, and I can only say to others if you are carrying around some sort of depressive condition, please go and see somebody because there are solutions and you know your life can take a turn for the better.

 

LATIKA BOURKE:                   Look across the board in Parliament and in the wider community you were praised for coming out and admitting you had an illness and you wanted some time off the front bench, since that have you had that support conveyed to you personally about whether other people have now had the guts to come forward with an illness that they have been hiding all their lives?

 

ANDREW ROBB:                     It’s been remarkable, the level of support, literally hundreds of emails or whatever, lots of people asking for advice, telling me they have got a problem and you know, what’s the starting point.  Looking to tackle it, do something about it.  Others have told me independently that they have gone and done something about it.  It’s a great thing I think that people can feel now feel less of a stigma and you know people like Jeff Kennett and others are owed a great deal, by myself included for the example they have shown over the last few years.

 

LATIKA BOURKE:                   I bet there is a part of you Andrew that wishes you have gone and sort help a lot early now an found a solution for it.

 

ANDREW ROBB:                    Well indeed, it’s a problem I have had all my life and got worse in my 50’s I suppose and yes I do feel regretful that I haven’t tackled this thing earlier, but you know it’s a male thing I suppose and you don’t like to admit that you’ve got some depressive condition and there has been a stigma associated with it but honestly in the end your health’s more important and it’s a great relief to me to now feel normal all day and not have a problem for the first two hours.

 

LATIKA BOURKE:                   When abouts did you begin to think that you were ready to return to the frontbench and indeed take on a role as serious and what will be as demanding as the finance role?

 

ANDREW ROBB:                     Well I have been feeling since Christmas, and progressively got better and now have gone for many weeks where I haven’t experienced the problem I have had all my life, so I have gained a lot of confidence over the last two months in particular and I do feel certainly that I am well enough, I am fit and I was working all the way through but I just was not ready to go back and shoulder the responsibility but now I feel a keenness that I haven’t felt for some time and a freshness and a clarity of mind and I’m really looking forward to getting into it.

LATIKA BOURKE:                   So how did it all happen, did you approach the leader Tony Abbott and express your interest in the finance role or any front bench role once Nick Minchin has announced his retirement, is that how it went?

 

ANDREW ROBB:                     I was back on the frontbench after Tony Abbott took over, he asked me would I go on into a Cabinet position, and I said I would but didn’t think I would be ready for a portfolio and I certainly wasn’t at that stage, but I did suggest the Policy Coordination role would suit me well, if I was having bad days or side effects from the medication, I had some control over my program and that suited me well so I have been on the frontbench since December and when this came up I had been saying to Tony that things are looking a lot better for me over the last couple of months and he asked me how well was I, was I ready to take a responsibility and I jumped at it.  But I didn’t seek it, I thought I’d let him make the approach.

 

 

LATIKA BOURKE:                   Nick Minchin’s resignation or retirement from politics and Parliament will obviously be hugely felt and I am sure by you in particular.  You were both quite instrumental at stopping the Emissions Trading legislation getting through Parliament last year.  Do you think that with Nick Minchin’s departure that legislation in the Senate now faces a better future and might pass?

 

ANDREW ROBB:                     No I don’t think so I think, you know first and foremost, we wanted it not to be dealt with until after Copenhagen and for very good and sensible reasons and I think the Copenhagen experiences demonstrated that Australia has moved on any way on this front to introduce you know a complicated scheme we would be so far ahead of the world and we would be so uncompetitive.  It would do a lot of damage to the county and the realisation of that is well established and I don’t think the Government has any prospect of getting a scheme through and in any event, Nick has resigned certainly from the Leadership and Cabinet but he will be a member of the team until July next year so I would expect him to continue to play a very senior role in the party and to provide a lot of advise and counsel and influence over the coming months including through the campaign.

LATIKA BOURKE:                  On to the finance role Lindsay Tanner, your Government opponent is sometimes remarked upon as one of the better, or perhaps the best Government performers, are you ready to take him on?

 

ANDREW ROBB:                    I am very happy to take on Lindsay or any of them for that matter.  Interestingly one of the key responsibilities I think of the finance minister is to ensure that taxpayers money is spent wisely and is not wasted.  I look at Lindsay Tanner over the last twelve months and honestly he has been asleep at the wheel.  There has been this procession of appallingly managed schemes by the Federal Government, you know from the pink bats, to the school programs, to $1.8 billion dollar blow out in pharmaceutical cost, tens of billions of dollars of infrastructure without disclosing any benefit cost analysis, on a whole lot of fronts, worth billions and billions of dollars, the finance minister has not been involved, has taken no responsibility, appears to have not been aware of what was going on.  It is his responsibility as finance minister to make sure that taxpayers money is spent wisely and not wasted and I think he has been asleep at the wheel and I am looking forward to you know keeping him accountable in this Government, a Government which has demonstrability been unable to implement policies in any effective manner.

LATIKA BOURKE:                   Barnaby Joyce was of course dumped from the shadow finance role in favour of you; do you feel sorry for Barnaby?

ANDREW ROBB:                     I’ve got a lot of time for Barnaby.  Actually we get on very well and I have worked closely with him and have a huge respect for him.  I do think that Barnaby will grab this other portfolio, very important one, by the throat and move on and make a real fist of it.  He is a great asset to the Coalition, not just the National Party but the Liberal Party as well and I think already he’s moved on.

LATIKA BOURKE:                   And just one final question, it was widely reported last year that Malcolm Turnbull in some sense betrayed you by commissioning his own secret research into alternative ETS modelling and you stood up in the party room and then opposed the scheme which lead to what we now know as the huge Leadership saga and ETS defeat last year.  Do you think Malcolm Turnbull’s bid to return to the frontbench in the role you’re in now, do you think that was wildly premature or arrogant or delusional?

 

 

ANDREW ROBB:                    Well firstly it wasn’t, my actions in the party room were motivated solely by what I thought was a policy proposal which was to a great disadvantage to the country.  I thought the Government had not made any changes of any consequence which corrected the deep flaws that we had all talked about all year and I thought I had to express my views about the inadequacies of that policy and the damage it would do to the country so it was not a question of betrayals or studies or any of those sorts of thing.  As for Malcolm, I think he is perfectly entitled to convey a desire to take on positions if he wishes.  It is his prerogative and certainly not for me to make any judgement on it.

LATIKA BOURKE:                   But do you think Tony Abbott made the right call in saying it was a bit too early given everything that had happened last year?

 

ANDREW ROBB                     Well it’s a decision of the Leader on all of these things, and you know, it’s not for me to be commenting on any of the decisions that he has taken really other than to say for my part I got offered finance, we have a debt that’s going to be a millstone for decades around our neck.  I’ve got to, with my colleagues do our absolute best, one to expose the Governments failures and two to come up with the right solutions.

 

LATIKA BOURKE:                  Andrew Robb, thank you for your time.

 

ANDREW ROBB:                   Good on you, thanks Latika.