21-January-2011
Portfolio Media Releases
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW
Topics: Labor’s flood tax, funding the recovery, temporary levies
E&OE……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
LEON BYRNER:
Andrew Robb do you agree with Bill’s sentiments? [that foreign aid should be cut to support flood recovery]
ANDREW ROBB:
Well I agree with Bill that there are areas of the budget that we can use now. The foreign aid one in many cases, we’ve made long term commitments and countries are relying heavily on that aid and that promise of aid.
And in many cases, despite the catastrophe we’ve had here, we’ve got to remember that we are blessed as a nation in many respects and we do see some responsibility for helping out other countries.
But having said that, in our view there is lots of fat left in this budget. We’ve had so many organisations and people, the Treasury itself, the Department of Finance, the Reserve Bank, lots of business people for more than 12 months now have been saying to the government, you’ve just got to stop the indulgent spending.
And if they stopped the indulgent spending, they could put that money into the rehabilitation and reconstruction that will need to go on.
LEON BYNER:
Andrew, what’s the way this is going to work? The government will say, let’s say Ms Gillard delivers on what she is suggesting she will do and wants to put a levy up. That has to go through the parliament and through the Senate does it not?
ANDREW ROBB:
It does.
LEON BYNER:
Ok, what is likely to be the scenario if the Gillard government want to do this and you’ve got a situation where you haven’t got the Greens in with the balance of power until after July, so it’s January now, although she might decide to wait and try and get it through and depending on what the Greens do, it might come up and be approved by the Senate. So what is the process here, is it likely to get up in the short term?
ANDREW ROBB:
Well that will depend on the cross benches. We will not support a new flood tax. We think as I said earlier, that this government has been spending like drunken sailors on so many things that are not critical. Also there is quite important other infrastructure expenditure that could be delayed and deferred.
It’s much better to fix up existing infrastructure you don’t continue the extension on your house when the house has washed away. But in practical terms, if the government puts up a tax and I’m sure it will because they’ve been softening people up over the last few days on this one, it will go to the parliament.
At the moment, we obviously don’t have the numbers in the lower house because of the cross benchers, but it depends on their attitude whether it will get out of the house into the Senate, if they support the government it will go to the Senate and that will again depend upon Nick Xenophon and Steve Fielding who are the two independent Senators …
LEON BYNER:
I can’t pre-empt either Steve or Nick, I doubt whether they’d support a flood tax.
ANDREW ROBB:
I’d doubt it too, when there are alternatives. There’s been a temporary levy put on by John Howard some years ago in regard to the buyback of the guns, but the thing is that followed probably the toughest budget that the country had seen for many decades, that I recall in ’96.
So the fat had been taken right out of the system because we had huge debt that we had inherited now this is a totally different situation. There is a lot of fat still in the budget.
There is still somewhere of the order of $10-15 billion, they won’t tell us what it is, but $10-15 billion of stimulus money not spent.
We’ve got 5 per cent unemployment, we’ve got a catastrophe on our door step, why would you keep spending that stimulus money that will just draw vital trades men and women away from fixing up the rural areas that have been so badly damaged?
Media Contact: Cameron Hill on 0408 239 521