03-June-2011
Portfolio Media Releases
Topics: Labor’s plan to increase Commonwealth debt limit to $250 billion without proper parliamentary scrutiny.
E&OE
MICHAEL SMITH:
Andrew Robb g’day.
ANDREW ROBB:
G’day Mike how are you?
MICHAEL SMITH:
I’m very well, far too long since we’ve had a chat.
ANDREW ROBB:
It certainly is, yes.
MICHAEL SMITH:
Could you just let the people in Sydney now about your job in the Opposition, what you do?
ANDREW ROBB:
I’m currently the Shadow Minister for Finance, Deregulation and Debt Reduction, which is a mouthful, but a lot of the financial area. I’ve also got responsibility to coordinate all of our policy development across all my colleagues so that we go to the next election with a real agenda. So if we win government we’ve got something to do immediately.
MICHAEL SMITH:
I’m speaking with Andrew Robb AO, who is with the Opposition and he is the federal member for a seat in Melbourne Goldstein. Andrew, can you also let us know about your business background, what you did for a quid before you got into the parliament?
ANDREW ROBB:
It’s been many and varied, but I started as an animal health officer and then I was an agricultural economist working on lots of wool marketing plans and issues to do worth the wheat industry and cattle and all sorts of agriculture. I ran the National Farmers Federation, ran the Liberal Party and was the campaign director for John Howard’s ’96 campaign.
Then I went and worked with the Packers, Kerry and James and did a lot of work in Asia with lots of business deals. I also set up a national company an IT company with data and for marketing purposes, a bit complicated. I then got involved with the universities and a lot of the resource companies. I was on the investment team for the big Gorgon gas project off the north-west shelf.
MICHAEL SMITH:
When you say an investment team, you looked at the financial metrics and the business case all that sort of thing?
ANDREW ROBB:
Yes, to see what they made best use of that gas for and whether the whole project was viable, was the best use of their money.
MICHAEL SMITH:
Andrew I asked you that question because I wanted our listeners to understand the sort of business background and the acumen you bring into the job that you have as finance spokesman for the Opposition.
Today you have written a letter to the leader of House in Canberra, Anthony Albanese, about what the government is trying to do. Tell us what the government is trying to do.
ANDREW ROBB:
We discovered in the budget legislation, that none of this was in the budget papers I might add, that night, after the budget the Assistant Treasurer Bill Shorten crept into the House if you like, to introduce the bills which give authority to supply the money, so the parliament approves the money that sits behind all the proposals in the budget.
But buried in those bills was the proposal to increase the amount of debt that the government could assume, the amount of debt that they could run up, the amount of money they can borrow from $200 billion, which is the current ceiling, to $250 billion.
MICHAEL SMITH:
Is it usual Andrew for a piece of legislation that would allow the government to borrow $250 billion to be just shoved away inside other bills, is that usual?
ANDREW ROBB:
Well not at all, this is the first time in fact that it has happened. There have been increases before, but in a standalone bill, to be debated and you could move amendments.
The trickiness that has gone on here and the deception is that the Appropriation Bills which are these bills to authorise supply of the money, those bills can’t really be amended, you can debate it and express your concerns and all the rest, but you either accept supply as they call it, or reject it.
MICHAEL SMITH:
And you’ve written to Anthony Albanese today and said we would like to see you take out of this other legislation this approval that the government is seeking to borrow up to $250 billion and have it as a separate bill so that it can be debated?
ANDREW ROBB:
Exactly, because if you are going to increase the amount of borrowing from $200 billion to $250 billion, I would have thought that the parliament, it should be put before the parliament; the government should be put in a situation to justify why they need to massively increase debt.
MICHAEL SMITH:
Can I ask you a question about that? When they first sought an increase in the debt limit from $75 billion they said this was in the quote “special circumstances” of the global financial crisis. The special circumstances clause is quite important. The government is now looking to remove that and say that they should be able to borrow up to $250 billion just in the ordinary course of events.
ANDREW ROBB:
Exactly, they said the GFC meant that they had to have special circumstances, that’s gone now, we’re now back to in to a situation where the Chinese money is pouring in ….
MICHAEL SMITH:
And they want to increase their debt, in these circumstances up to $250 billion.
ANDREW ROBB:
Well we just heard the night the budget was brought down that it was a tough budget. It was going to set Australia up to get back in to the back and yet the next night they tell us that they had to increase the debt.
Now you’ve got families all over the country who I think for 12 months have been desperately trying to live within their means, we’ve seen the savings rate go up massively for Australia, yet the government is now increasing its debt ….
MICHAEL SMITH:
And sticking the approval away in a bill at a time when we were told in this new parliament we were going to have much more scrutiny, much more transparency in this so-called new paradigm.
ANDREW ROBB:
Exactly, they’ve made a big thing about transparency and being accountable and yet this is a highly deceptive move and also I think that debt is a word that the government never wants to talk about because it just keeps going up and the interest on the debt alone is about $26 billion over the next four years.
MICHAEL SMITH:
It’s just such an unimaginable, huge amount of money 250-thousand-milion-dollars, $250 billion they want to borrow up to. Will you let us know how you get on with your letter to Anthony Albanese?
ANDREW ROBB:
I most certainly will.