28-July-2011
Portfolio Media Releases
INTERVIEW WITH MARTIN KING MTR
Topics: Rising inflation, debt, Labor’s mismanagement.
E&OE................................................
MARTIN KING:
Shadow Minister for Finance and the member for Goldstein here in Melbourne, Andrew Robb is with me, good afternoon Andrew.
ANDREW ROBB:
Good to speak to you Martin.
MARTIN KING:
Now inflation higher than expected Andrew what’s your take?
ANDREW ROBB:
I suspect it has been coming. Everyone from my contact with households and other people around the country is that they are finding it very difficult to make ends meet, with electricity prices and water prices and you name it all going up. So I don’t think it’s a big surprise, but what it does say to you is now is certainly not the time to bring in another tax to add to every item that we purchase.
MARTIN KING:
Yes and the Aussie dollar is basically out of control. It’s a worry.
ANDREW ROBB:
You’ve got with the U.S. in dire straits, it’s pushing our dollar higher and higher which is adding to inflationary pressures in the country and I do think the uncertainty that is coming from around the world with Greece and Portugal and the United States, who knows where it is going to head and we’ve got no control over any of that. It just means that more and more attention should be given at home to make sure we are not in a vulnerable position.
And what I have observed and what you can see in the statistics, households around the country, we’ve got seven million households people are saving a lot more than they normally would. They are paying off the mortgage and paying down the plastic and putting some money in the bank where they can because I think people are feeling a sort of a crisis of confidence or a great uncertainty about what’s going on out there.
And I think the next thing is for the government to live within its means to match what households are doing, but certainly to bring in a carbon tax at this stage which is going to do absolutely nothing for the environment and to be ahead of the world and to add to the price of everything that we touch is madness in my view.
MARTIN KING:
It’s a bit hard for people to get a handle on this isn’t it Andrew, the government is painting a very rosy picture of our economy, what’s your take on that?
ANDREW ROBB:
Well the fact is we are blessed with what is happening in China and India if we weren’t getting our resources developed and sold as we are we’d be in the same situation as Greece or Portugal that’s the fact of the matter.
Our debt, which is now heading towards a quarter of a trillion dollars, that’s just the federal government and there will be a similar amount almost amongst the states, it’s all got to be paid off, there we are talking about something heading towards half a trillion dollars in public debt that’s being built at a time when we are making all this money from China.
Unfortunately a lot of that Chinese money it’s going into the taxation they’re making huge corporate contributions through corporate tax, but the average person is not seeing it because a lot of the industries, it’s not trickling down to them and with a high dollar there’s a lot of pressure out there, so many people finding it very difficult to make ends meet.
We’ve got to pull our horns in here, we shouldn’t be spending a lot of money on all sorts of government projects and programs we’ve got to live within our means.
We should be sort of gathering the acorns in case something does happen in the U.S. or Europe, so that we can again, like we did last time with a strong economy, get through any sort of upheaval world-wide over which we’ve got no control.
It’s pretty much common sense I think people are doing the common sense thing around the country, they are trying to save what they can pay off the mortgage, the only trouble is, my sense is that this government is still spending well beyond its means building a debt to a quarter of a trillion dollars and putting us in a very vulnerable position which will threaten jobs and threaten prosperity.
MARTIN KING:
Andrew you know what Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan are going to say to that? They are going to say you are scaring people unnecessarily.
ANDREW ROBB:
Well you asked me what I am reading and I’ve given you, I’m spending all my time on the road, the last two days in northern Tasmania just talking to people who are trying to make a quid, they’ve just closed up down there another half a million hectares of forestry so that there are now more mills closing down.
You go to a place like Scottsdale the price of houses has dropped from nearly $300,000 down to $100,000 because mills are closing.
This is happening all over the country, the welter of regulation and government programs and all of the rest, it’s just killing prosperity, killing jobs, killing people’s incentives and I really fear that what I’m saying, all I’m doing is reflecting what I’m hearing and what I’m seeing.
It would really suit Julia to get out there, she talks about wearing out the shoe leather, what has she done in the last three weeks to go around and really see what’s really going on with people?
It’s all orchestrated situations, the country really is vulnerable, people are anxious they are finding it difficult and the government just has to start to use some common sense and pull in their horns and live within their means so that we are not exposed to the sorts of things that are happening around the world.
MARTIN KING:
Well Andrew, the government is putting a brave face on today’s inflation figures. Wayne Swan today blamed higher fruit prices, including bananas, natural disasters and higher global oil prices. Why the chuckle?
ANDREW ROBB:
What they are is masters of spin. They will find something to try and suggest there is nothing they could do about it well there is plenty they could do about it.
I’ve just been in Tasmania where all the fruit, where the biggest vegetable growers in the country are in northern Tasmania. They can’t get water for the summer, they can’t get approvals for dams because of the way the government is managing all of the regulations and so as a consequence prices go up. It is a function of what this government does day in day out, it’s not just something magical where the prices of fruit and veg go up all of a sudden.
The reason behind many of those movements in the inflation which often go back to what government is doing and unless you have a feel for business and what’s going to create jobs and what’s going to give people an incentive to invest then you just keep going backwards and that’s the sense.
People I find are deeply despondent that the government is not giving any direction, does not look like it is up to the job.
The way in which they handled the live cattle export is just an absolute disgrace.
Thousands and thousands of families in the whole of northern Australia have now been thrown into great uncertainty and they are poorer just of the way the government has handled that situation.
MARTIN KING:
Alright Andrew, we have to leave it there we are running short of time, but we’ll put that to the listeners 131 873, Andrew thanks for your time.
Media Contact: Cameron Hill on 0408 239 521.