13-May-2011
Portfolio Media Releases
FRAN KELLY: Andrew Robb is the Shadow Finance Minister. He joins us from Melbourne this morning. Andrew Robb welcome back to Breakfast.
ANDREW ROBB: Thank you Fran.
FRAN KELLY: Andrew Robb, Tony Abbott didn't detail any spending cuts last night. Instead he called for a new election. Is the Opposition so short of ideas that all you can use a budget reply for is to call for an election?
ANDREW ROBB: Well that's a gross misrepresentation, I think Fran, of last night's effort. I thought Tony Abbott was lethal last night. He wasn't there to detail an alternative budget. He was there to detail an alternative vision. And I thought he very clearly spelt that out. In doing that, of course, I think he announced 27 policy positions we've put on the table since the election. Of course the election was only seven months ago, and we're in a new term...
FRAN KELLY: Since the election, I thought most of them were the ones we heard of prior to the election, in the election campaign.
ANDREW ROBB: They're all commitments that we have made since the election and some of them we did take to the last election, and there will be others things that we took to the last election which are still highly relevant. But the principle focus, of course, was to take pressure off cost of living and that was really the direction. And he made a very clear and substantial contribution last night in laying out how we would govern differently.
This government is dysfunctional. It is relevant to talk about the illegitimacy of this government. They're introducing, you know, a carbon tax that will affect every person in Australia. It is something that they said they wouldn't do. It's unconscionable that this government would introduce it without going to an election with that proposition.
These are issues that are front and square with the population and I thought he hit every touchstone last night. And the focus on families was highly relevant because the government, despite all its rhetoric, is ignoring and putting further and further pressure - and in fact the tax take in the next three years, just take the mining tax and the carbon tax, you're talking about $42 billion worth of extra taxes on Australians that we wouldn't introduce. Now...
FRAN KELLY: But just on that point, if you're not going to introduce those new taxes, and you're going to take the pressure off families, I mean is it fair for the Opposition to accuse the government high debt and deficits if it's not willing to show how the Coalition is going to push the budget back into the black?
ANDREW ROBB: Again, this is just the government line, Fran. I mean the...
FRAN KELLY: Well, where are the details of how you're going to save the money?
ANDREW ROBB: We took $50 billions worth of savings to the last election, just seven months ago. $50 billion.
FRAN KELLY: And Treasury found since the election that $11 billion of those were illegitimate.
ANDREW ROBB: Well, the government has picked up some of the ones that the Treasury said were illegitimate. That was a political exercise. I can tell you, as a political exercise...
FRAN KELLY: By Treasury?
ANDREW ROBB: Absolutely. Of the 305 policies, they chose nine they said were, they had a disagreement with , there were 296 that they approved of the policies that we had fully costed and of the other nine, we disagreed and, in fact, one of those amounted which amounted to a quarter of the so-called black hole, the government picked up. So, you know, the hypocrisy is massive. They've picked up about thirteen other measure.
FRAN KELLY: But without the detail, Andrew Robb, it's all words. Joe Hockey said last week, the Coalition government could delivery a surplus before 2012, 2013. Where's the plan for that?
ANDREW ROBB: We spelt out $50 billion. We showed how you could make savings. Fran, we have, we said again last night that we would not go ahead with the grotesque misuse of public monies with the NBN. The fact that they've got no benefit cost analysis, that we're the only country in the world that I know that's renationalising its communications sector. Now, the government in the budget spelt out $18 billion over the next four years of public monies that they would be borrowing. They'll be borrowing that money to help to build the NBN. There's $18 million. That's part of plan, that's $18 billion we would not be borrowing, which we would be paying off the debt which they've said on Tuesday is going to grow, a debt that's going to grow from what was $95 up to $107. Everything, on every front...
FRAN KELLY: With respect though, Andrew Robb, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but with respect, in the election, the NB was there. The voters voted for an election. So on what basis does Tony Abbott demand an early election and do you say that this government is illegitimate?
ANDREW ROBB: Because the carbon tax, this Government, this Prime Minister, would she be Prime Minister today, Julia Gillard, if six days before the election she had said, we are going to bring in a carbon tax, and not what she did say, which, no government that I lead will bring in a carbon tax. Literally three weeks later, she had reversed that position. It's a total betrayal of the faith people put in the Prime Minister. She would not be Prime Minister today. This is an illegitimate government. They have betrayed people. And if they're going to bring in something of so draconian effect, when people are suffering such massive cost of living pressures, they should put it, like we did with the GST, it must go to an election.
FRAN KELLY: Couldn't the same have been said for John Howard introducing work choices without going to the election with it in 2004?
ANDREW ROBB: He suffered accordingly.
FRAN KELLY: Three years later when the government ran its full term.
ANDREW ROBB: He suffered accordingly. The thing is that the Prime Minister has no mandate for that. When the biggest issue confronting Australians at the moment is their ability to meet the fundamental costs, the essential costs of everyday living - electricity's gone up 51% since this government came into power, water's gone up 46%, rates have gone up nearly 20% - it just goes on and on and on. People are finding it extraordinarily difficult. And in the middle of all that, they're going to bring in a carbon tax ahead of the rest of the world. No one else is doing this. No one's bringing in a carbon tax in the comprehensive way that we are doing or proposing to do in Australia. That was a point, that presentation last night...
FRAN KELLY: Yes, but we have three terms in this country. We have three terms. The voters go to the poll every three years and they get to chuck out the government if they don't like it. Why should it be any different this time?
ANDREW ROBB: Well, look, they have to call the election. We can't bring it about. What we're saying is, this is a dysfunctional government. Look, on every front, on every front - you look at that boat people, this is just going from, you know, bad to worse to the ridiculous. You look at the body language, last night, even on Tuesday when they presented this budget, this is a government which is directionless, it has totally lost any confidence in itself, it is weak. The Prime Minister has no authority.
There's no relevance between their rhetoric and the reality. People, the thing that people say to me and all my colleagues, they're all reporting it, you cannot go anywhere in Australia, you can't walk down a street without people stopping you and saying, can't you bring on an election? Well, we can't. No, we can't. But, but this is, people are so anxious in the community, why have savings gone from -1 to +10% in the community over the last nine months? People are anxious about the way in which this country is not being led. There is no sense of where, of certainty and people are, people are, as a consequence, deeply concerned and finding it very difficult to make ends meet.
FRAN KELLY: And, just very briefly, you don't like the freeze on family benefits, we're talking about a freeze on families where the primary earner salary tops $150,000. Less than 5% of the population earn above $150,000. Are we saying that in this country, you have to be rich before you no longer get a handout?
ANDREW ROBB: Well, the thing is, Fran, that they've frozen both Family Tax A and B. Family Tax A, the supplement, they've frozen the indexation. That affects every family, by the way, all the way down the line.
FRAN KELLY: We're talking about benefits where...
ANDREW ROBB: Family Tax B, they've frozen the indexation, which means that every year people who move into a salary, a family salary of $150, 000 - and, you know, many cases a nurse and a teacher married could get that amount of money, or a policeman and a teacher, you name it.
FRAN KELLY: So we leave it uncapped for every more, do we?
ANDREW ROBB: No, no. They have frozen the indexation, which means in real terms every year people who previously received the benefit will not get it, even if their circumstances in real terms have not changed. So this is, this is reducing the value of income at which you achieve that benefit. So, and it is directly an attempt in this budget to redistribute income. And it's true of carbon tax as well. This government is blinded by ideology and is not looking at governing for all the people.
FRAN KELLY: Andrew Robb, thank you very much for joining us.
ANDREW ROBB: Thanks very much, Fran.
FRAN KELLY: Andrew Robb is the Shadow Finance Minister.