Transcript - Meet the Press
15th May, 2011
PAUL BONGIORNO, PRESENTER: Hello and welcome to Meet the Press. For a Budget many claimed wasn't tough enough, Wayne Swan's effort on Tuesday night is certainly causing the Government as much pain as he's said to be inflicting on Australian families. The Treasurer told the Budget night news conference that he took no joy from many of the measures he put in place but the bitter medicine needs to be taken. WAYNE SWAN, TREASURER (TUESDAY): We're on track for surplus in 2012/13 on time and as promised and this provides the solid founds for the targeted investments we announce tonight.
WYATT ROY, LIBERAL MP (WEDNESDAY): I'm about to turn 21. No Labor government in this place has ever delivered a Budget surplus in my lifetime. Why should anyone believe you now?
PAUL BONGIORNO: Tony Abbott managed to ignore the Budget in his formal reply.
TONY ABBOTT, OPPOSITION LEADER (THURSDAY): What Australia needs - not a carbon tax but an election. Only an election could make an honest politician of this Prime Minister.
PAUL BONGIORNO: Critically for the survival of the minority government, the Budget had a regional slant. But the country cousin in the coalition weren't all that impressed.
WARREN TRUSS, NATIONALS LEADER (WEDNESDAY): This is a Budget whose strategy has utterly failed. It utterly failed regional Australians. It will deliver nothing for our communities.
PAUL BONGIORNO: Nationals leader Warren Truss is our guest. Warren Truss. Good morning. Everybody is talking about it. Do you think that Tim should pop the question?
WARREN TRUSS, NATIONALS LEADER: Well, that's a matter for them and we wish them every happiness in their personal life.
PAUL BONGIORNO: Moving on to the anti-carbon tax rally this afternoon that you're attending. Why is this rally in Rob Oakeshott's electorate?
WARREN TRUSS: I have attended a number of rallies in relation to the carbon tax. Australians are very angry about the increased costs this is going to bring to the cost of living. They're also concerned about the loss of Australian jobs. They're concerned about the impact that it will have in our economy when competing against the rest of the world. Of course, there's a particular concern because their local member, along with Mr Windsor, actually voted in the Parliament this last week for a resolution in support of the carbon tax. His vote will be critical in saving the community from higher costs and people are angry and they want their voices heard.
PAUL BONGIORNO: Well the rally, I notice, has been organised by the same people who organised the rally outside of Parliament House. Will you be ensuring that you're not standing in front of a fence of placards to the Prime Minister?
WARREN TRUSS: Well, I hope I am. But obviously it is a free society and people walk around with their own views. But certainly, I resent any suggestion that there should be offensive placards there and I appeal to people not to go over the top. They've got every right to express their democratic views. That's what I'm going there to do. Others have the right to an alternative view. But overwhelmingly, the people of Australia don't want this tax and they're very, very annoyed that their Prime Minister lied to them and told us that we weren't going to have it and now her credibility is clearly damaged.
PAUL BONGIORNO: The flyer for the rally doesn't accept the science that carbon dioxide is in fact a global warming gas or that human beings can do much to stop climate change. Do you agree with that?
WARREN TRUSS: Well, obviously the climate has been changing for a long, long time. There are more people on the earth now than ever and so that clearly has an influence. However, it is quite obvious that a tax on Australians will not alter the temperature of the globe. You can't lower the sea-level by charging Australians more for the things that they do, unless the whole globe responds. Even then, Tim Flannery tells us that it will take up to 1,000 years to make any difference.
PAUL BONGIORNO: But do you accept or do the Nationals and the Coalition accept the target of a 5% cut in emissions by 2020?
WARREN TRUSS: Yes, we've accepted that target and once more we will set about delivering it through direct action.
PAUL BONGIORNO: Just homing in on that, we know that that will be a real cut of around about 28% I think is the latest estimate because our emissions are in fact increasing. So that's a very big cut. Why go ahead with this cut if it is not going to make any difference?
WARREN TRUSS: Well, if we actually make a real difference, if we actually do things that reduce Co2 emissions, we're achieving practical results. My argument is that the tax simply won't work. People won't change their behaviour as is required and therefore, they'll just pay higher costs and not deliver any Co2 reductions and if the rest of the world doesn't respond, essentially our industry will move to other parts of the world that don't have the environmental standards that we have and in the end... Co2 emissions will go up. It's a failed strategy.
PAUL BONGIORNO: If your argument is whole, it makes me wonder why we bother with the direct action as well?
WARREN TRUSS: Because what we're doing in that plan is delivering things that are good for the environment, even if you don't believe that it is going to make any difference to the climate. What we're doing will give us better soils, a better community, a better environment to live in and so it is a win/win situation.
PAUL BONGIORNO: Just going to one of the big take-outs from the Budget. An analysis of all of the electorates around Australia found that the median household income in your electorate is $47,000. That's a long way from $150,000 per household. In the Coalition's criticism of the cut to the family payments, are you expecting your poorer voters to subsidise the more wealthier voters on $150,000?
WARREN TRUSS: It's true, there aren't many people in my electorate who earn above $150,000, but there are a lot who have aspirations to one day reach that stage. And if that aspirational goal is killed off, then our whole community is advantaged.
PAUL BONGIORNO: We're talking about real money for people who haven't got any?
WARREN TRUSS: Let's talk about the real money because these cuts start to affect families at $45,000. Families in my electorate will be affected and even a cut to the private health insurance rebate will mean that poor people in my electorate will wait even longer to get into a public hospital than they otherwise would. So everyone loses from these cuts.
PAUL BONGIORNO: Time for a break. When we return with the panel, are the Nationals being outperformed by the Country Independents? And the shattering moment of the week came from the Treasurer, not during the Budget, but during an ABC Radio studio. It was a case of a little glass warfare?
WAYNE SWAN: What we'll need to see tonight is... (Glass Breaks).
RADIO ANNOUNCER: We've just had a glass breakage here.
PAUL BONGIORNO: The Prime Minister picked up the pieces.
JULIA GILLARD, PRIME MINISTER (THURSDAY): Wayne Swan did smash a glass this morning. That's less important than Tony Abbott smashing the Budget surplus tonight.
PAUL BONGIORNO: You're on Meet the Press with Nationals Leader Warren Truss and welcome to the panel Jessica Irvine from The Sydney Morning Herald and Dennis Atkins from The Courier Mail. Good morning. The Country Independents believe that the deal they hammered out is being honoured and the proof of the eating was in the Budget pie.
ROB OAKESHOTT, INDEPENDENT (WEDNESDAY): There were 80 commitments that were worked on over six months ago and we're really starting to see some of them turn into reality. This is a Budget that's going to pass. It would be unprecedented for the Coalition to oppose this.
JESSICA IRVINE, THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD: Good morning. You've said in Parliament that there's nothing in this Budget for regional communities, but if you look at the Budget there's $4.3 billion for regional universities and half of that is actually for hospitals. Here's a simple question - are you going to oppose that spending?
WARREN TRUSS: Well, we won't be blocking supply, obviously. We'll be supporting measures that are good for regional Australia and good for Australia. However, the numbers that are being quoted are ambitious. The reality is that Labor has bulked together programs, many of which were going to happen anyway and put them into a single big number.
JESSICA IRVINE: So are you saying that that is old money?
WARREN TRUSS: There is very little expenditure in regional Australia.
JESSICA IRVINE: So that $4.3 billion is not new money?
WARREN TRUSS: Most of it is not new money. Most of it comes out of our previous funds. Are you suggesting that there would have been no money spent on health in regional Australia without the Independents? That is clearly nonsense. They've bulked up programs to make them sound good. A classic example is the Pacific Highway project. A billion dollars we are told of new money but $700 million of that was in the previous budget and $280 million has been moved from Sydney. And in fact, the Infrastructure Minister himself says in his press release and it is in the Budget paper that it will not produce a single metre of extra bitumen. The NSW Government is going to have to provide the money for any road to be built.
JESSICA IRVINE: What new money is in there, will you guarantee that you will let that pass?
WARREN TRUSS: We won't be blocking supply.
JESSICA IRVINE: So you're not going to oppose any of the measures in this Budget?
WARREN TRUSS: We'll look at each of the items that comes before the Parliament in legislation. Many of these things are a part of the Budget and will not require legislation and we're not going to block supply.
DENNIS ATKINS, COURIER MAIL: Mr Truss, you say that a lot of the spending measures have been bulked up because of the Independents in the Parliament. Aren't a lot of voters in your heartland, in the National Party heartland going to look at this Budget and the $4.3 billion in it and say 'if we get this by having the Independents in the balance of power, perhaps we should keep them there, perhaps we should put more Independents into Parliament?'
WARREN TRUSS: They're rebadging existing money and electorates like mine get very little. In fact, there's only $300 million there for regional development in spite of the promise to the Independents of $1.4 billion and that's over five years. The biggest single project that Labor is going to fund under its regional development banner are the roads to Perth Airport. We were going to fund the roads to Perth Airport but out of the Roads Budget. They're calling it a regional development program. Country Australians who live in little towns in my electorate or in towns in NSW or Victoria or WA, what are they going to get if half of the money is going to Perth?
DENNIS ATKINS: So, are you saying that the Independents haven't delivered anything for regional Australia?
WARREN TRUSS: Well, what I'm is saying that Labor hasn't honoured the deal and it is time that the Independents just didn't mouth Labor's rhetoric, it's time they actually insisted that the deal be delivered, that real money is provided for all of regional Australia. Regional Australia is not getting a good deal out of this Budget. They're just getting empty rhetoric.
DENNIS ATKINS: I was interested before when you were talking with Paul about the Budget and you said that under the family tax benefits cuts that people on incomes as low as $45,000 would lose some of their benefit. Can you explain how that is going to happen and how much someone on $45,000 stands to lose?
WARREN TRUSS: There are a range of initiatives and I was referring to the cuts in the Budget which start at $45,000, including the supplement and other matters on that nature. I appreciate that the freeze on the fringe benefits tax cuts in at a higher level. There are also things like the withdrawal of the spouse rebate. A lot of those things are going to have an impact. But in some instances, the very fact that you cut benefits to people on higher incomes can also have a ricochet impact on people with poorer incomes and that is particularly true when you hack into health expenditure where so many people in the private sector are using the private sector to make their own arrangements. For instance, the study done by Deloitte's says that the Government will save $1.9 billion by cutting the rebate but will add $3.8 billion to the health costs of treating these people in public hospitals.
JESSICA IRVINE: Has the Coalition made a decision whether it will oppose those that freeze into the indexation of the supplement and those sorts of middle class welfare cuts that we've seen? Are you going to oppose those?
WARREN TRUSS: We've indicated clearly that we will be opposing the changes to the private health insurance rebates. We've done that several times before. Labor promised faithfully they would not be making that change before the 2007 election. They've repeated it subsequently. It is just another lie and we will continue to oppose that.
PAUL BONGIORNO: What about the cuts to the...the freeze on the family payments?
WARREN TRUSS: Again, many of these things are a part of the overall Budget strategy and we will not be blocking supply.
PAUL BONGIORNO: We have a question from Facebook and Twitter from Andrew for you Mr Truss. "Can you tell us why the Nationals abstained from the Senate inquiry over coal seam gas?"
WARREN TRUSS: Well, this happened in the Senate last week and the Greens proposed a new inquiry into coal seam gas. But there's already a senate inquiry being undertaken in that regard. That inquiry was launched several months ago. It is under way and it will be dealing with those issues and it seems pointless to have two at the same time.
PAUL BONGIORNO: Thank you for being with us today, Warren Truss.
[ENDS]
