23-July-2010
Portfolio Media Releases, The Economy, Education and Training
Topics: Coalition’s expansion of the education rebate, Labor’s reckless spending.
E&OE
FRAN KELLY:
Andrew Robb is the Shadow Finance Minister therefore he’s the man in charge of the Coalition’s books. He joins us now from his campaign HQ in his electorate of Goldstein, Andrew, good morning.
ANDREW ROBB:
Yes, good morning Fran, how are you?
FRAN KELLY:
I’m very well, thank you. Do you have the numbers wrong?
ANDREW ROBB:
No we don’t. No we do not at all. Look, this is Hawker Britton 101. Labor’s default position seems to be to question our costings, drop it late in the day to muddy the water, then, you know, sneak away from scrutiny.
Simon Crean last night after making a big man of himself in front of the cameras late in the afternoon, he committed to going on radio last night to defend their criticisms but then went into hiding. No one could find him.
FRAN KELLY:
Well I don’t know about that, that’s certainly been, there’s been a few statements from Labor floating there and about, but I mean to be fair both sides are accusing the other of getting their numbers wrong, the question from Labor is, is your $760 million program, predicated on the same take up rate as the current take up of the school rebate ...
ANDREW ROBB:
It absolutely is. The Government needs to explain how eight days ago, the Prime Minister Julia Gillard, used 2.7 million students as eligible for the education tax rebate when costing their policy, yet yesterday in trying to discredit our costings they said there were 2.1 million eligible students.
Now there’s only 600,000 difference in the space of eight days, we used the Prime Minister’s number which she had also used back in January.
FRAN KELLY:
2.7 million?
ANDREW ROBB:
That’s right 2.7. Now either Mr Swan is incompetent or deceitful or both.
FRAN KELLY:
What about the argument Andrew Robb that even if you are predicating it on the same numbers as the Government, the likelihood is that given your promise is more extensive for instance school fees can be claimed then more people are going to take up this rebate because that’s a fantastic offer. There are more people going to use it.
FRAN KELLY:
Very good point, very good point Fran, so as a consequence we increased the percentage of uptake from the Government’s current percentage of 65 per cent to 80 per cent. So we made full allowance, in fact, more than full allowance in my view for that.
FRAN KELLY:
So 15 per cent more on top of that 2.7million?
ANDREW ROBB:
In terms of the maximum claim that could be made and we actually increased the number of people that would take up any claim by 15 per cent because our policy is more attractive. And I think…
FRAN KELLY:
Okay, so that’s the numbers. You’ve added more students, potential student claims to the number, not just 2.7, you’ve increased that?
ANDREW ROBB:
We’ve added tens of tens of thousands more to it and we’ve increased by 15 per cent the likely claim by any one family for their child.
FRAN KELLY:
Okay.
ANDREW ROBB:
So, on both counts we’ve made very very generous assumptions of increases. We’ve used the numbers that were used by the Prime Minister eight days ago to explain hers. They’ve come out without any real justification.
They’ve used different numbers that have not been in the public arena. And we see today Tim Colebatch from The Age, who is an expert in this area, has gone into great detail about comparing the two schemes and said the Coalition’s plan is clearly better, clearly better.
FRAN KELLY:
Alright, well I guess that’s for the voters to judge. But the point is you will submit this policy I presume to the Treasurer for the charter of budget honesty. When will you put those figures in?
ANDREW ROBB:
We have said this, Fran we have said this endlessly, that we will submit. We will be submitting the first batch later next week, after our own independent accounting firm has considered them and checked them.
The first tranche of costings will go in later next week…
FRAN KELLY:
Including this one?
ANDREW ROBB:
… And we have, we have said, we have said that we will consistently submit every one of our costings and not like the Labor Party. The Labor Party are out there trailing their coat on this issue.
You must recall that last time they submitted all of their policies for costing at 12.35 on the Friday before the election. Now they’ve got the gall to start to suggest that we’re not going to follow proper procedure.
On every count they’ve challenged our numbers. They’re talking about black holes. They’ve got a $40 billion deficit predicted for this year. That’s a black hole, that’s going to cause the Australian population more taxes, more borrowing.
FRAN KELLY:
Sure, sure, sure, sure, I want to bring you back though, because time is tight.
ANDREW ROBB:
This is relevant Fran. They’re accusing us of black holes…
FRAN KELLY:
That’s a black hole caused by the global financial crisis.
ANDREW ROBB:
No it’s not. It’s caused by the reckless spending of this Labor party, unnecessary and reckless spending and the waste and mismanagement. That’s what it’s caused by.
FRAN KELLY:
Okay, well talking of black holes, okay there’s been Government attacks too on what you’ve claimed as savings. You say $46 billion in savings is what the Coalition has found. Now there are question marks over some of that because you count in cancelling the broadband network and also the sale of Medibank Private savings. There are questions marks over all of that. But the point is…
ANDREW ROBB:
Sorry Fran, can I just, on that, it’s a very important point, from day one when we came out with $46 billion worth of savings people were dismissing the $18 billion because it’s a capital saving. Because if we don’t go ahead with a version of the broadband network and borrowing $43 billion or $18 billion in the next three years they’re saying well that’s not a saving.
Well I’ll put it to you, if you’ve got a 25 per cent discount on a $40,000 new kitchen, a capital expenditure, you would save $10,000. Now that happens to be real money.
FRAN KELLY:
Yeah but it’s not an $18 billion saving. Look we must move on.
ANDREW ROBB:
Sorry Fran, the next three years, the Labor party have committed to borrowing $18 billion to do the first part of their broadband network. If we don’t borrow that $18 billion that is a direct saving to the debt that this country will incur.
FRAN KELLY:
Alright well, what I’m interested in is the money that you do have at your disposal to spend. There are various estimates of it, around the $6 billion mark, will that money be used, be spent on election promises, how much of it to be used to retire debt?
ANDREW ROBB:
Well, what we have said is that these savings we will in some cases use the savings, by scrapping certain Government programs, to replace them with better programs.
FRAN KELLY:
Yes, but will you spend all that money?
ANDREW ROBB:
No we won’t. No, we’ve said we’ll do both, we’ve said how this Government could and should reduce the debt either with recurrent savings which means you borrow less or with capital savings which means you pay off debt. In both cases, you’re reducing the debt burden that is hanging now around the neck of Australians and is putting enormous pressure on interest rates.
Six interest rate rises in a row, much of it due to the reckless spending which is added to the debt at the rate of $700 million a week. That’s a new hospital a week we’re borrowing as a country. This is going to go on for two years, every week for two years, $700 million a week.
FRAN KELLY:
Andrew Robb, thank you very much for joining us, I’m sure we’ll be talking again about the figures during this campaign. Thank you.
ANDREW ROBB:
Thanks very much Fran.
Further information: Cameron Hill on 0408 239 521