ABC 891

SUBJECTS: NDIS; Superannuation E&OE................................ Presenter: …. Education and Manager of Opposition Business in the House, he’s the Federal Liberal MP for the State, South Australian seat of Sturt. Good morning to you Chris Pyne. Hon Christopher Pyne MP: Good morning Matthew. Presenter: ...and Mark Butler, he’s Federal MP for Port Adelaide and is Minister for Housing, Mental Health, Ageing and Social Inclusion, Mark Butler good morning to you Minister. Hon Mark Butler MP: Good morning gentlemen and Christopher. Pyne: Good morning Mark. Presenter: Minister, if we can start with you because your brief covers social inclusion we’ve done an interview with, as you would have heard, a young man, family man who’s had terrible bad luck effectively, it could happen to anyone, a major stroke. He’s in Hampstead Rehab Centre. Needs, he’s been assessed and is told with sixteen hours care from, provided by the State, he would be able to live at home, with his family. That’s where he wants to be and that’s where his heart is. Why should it be so hard, because it makes economic sense for that to happen, does it not? Butler: Well it does. I think any rational observer would say that this is a false economy, looking at it hard heartedly about dollars and also the sooner you can get someone back to the warm embrace of their family the better for everyone. So look, it’s a bit unclear to me what exactly the circumstances of this fellow are from reading the Facebook page, whether he needs transitional care of a short term nature or more permanent care but I’m happy to look into this for him this morning and see what we can do. These are both types of care that the State Government has responsibility for. Hospital in the home type programs to help ease people out of hospital as soon as they can or more permanent care of the type that disability Services provide and Christopher and I and every other Member of Parliament around the country have been hearing stories like this for years which is really the main driver behind the creation of the National Disability Insurance Scheme Presenter: Will that cover ….? Butler: To this fellow today but in the future it is precisely the sort of support that will be provided to people under the National Disability Insurance Scheme if it’s the type of permanent support that I suspect this fellow might need. Presenter: Oh, Okay. So under the NDIS, under that insurance scheme, once he’s assessed as having a disability, which he obviously has, he would then get a certain amount of funding and he could use that to pay for his sixteen hours care. Butler: That’s right. The touchstone of the NDIS is that a person with a permanent disability will get reasonable and necessary support. Also that the person can have a very large say in how that support is provided so if this fellow has a permanent need for this type of support then that is the type of service he’d be able to get under an NDIS. Presenter: Chris Pyne … Butler: If it’s a transitional thing though which is just really about rehabilitation outside of the hospital setting, that will still be the responsibility of the health system at and around the country we have seen programs generally called “Hospital in the Home” which tries to ease people out of the hospital bed back into the comfort of their own home whilst still providing a level of personal care and nursing service to them in that environment. Presenter: Chris Pyne, the NDIS is supported by the Opposition. There are questions about the funding and the scope of it. Would you see it as fixing these sorts of situations? Pyne: Well, the Coalition and Labor have the same approach to the National Disability Insurance Scheme, we do support it. It’s a bi-partisan policy area. Our only concern in the Coalition is it’ll take a Liberal Government to work out how to pay for it because obviously it will be very expensive and we definitely believe that it should happen. Labor’s only put $1 billion aside for it this year. The Productivity Commission has recommended $8 billion so the Coalition, if we are elected in September will have to find $7 billion over the next four years to do the job that Labor has begun but we’re up to that task. We’re prepared to do it. We’re not going to do it by raiding peoples’ super accounts or by increasing taxes and of course unfortunately for the.. Presenter: You’ve got a ‘Magic Pudding’ have you? Pyne: Oh well, Labor certainly doesn’t. What we’ve seen is that they have produced $300 billion of Government debt. Presenter: Chris Pyne you know what I’m putting to you if you’re not going to do all these things which could reveal large amounts of money, where are you going to get yours from? Pyne: Well we aren’t going to promise things we can’t deliver, that’s to start with. We’re not going to increase taxes, in fact we’re going to abolish the Carbon Tax and the Mining Tax. We aren’t going to raid peoples’ super accounts unlike this Government. Presenter: Yeah, you haven’t told us where you’re going to get the money from. Pyne: We’ve already said that we will be able to find the savings within current expenditure. We believe that’s possible. We know we can do it because we’ve done it before. The Howard Government did it. We know that Labor will never do it. Labor can’t.. Presenter: What could you possibly cut, what could you possibly cut that would pay for an NDIS, a National Disability Insurance Scheme? Pyne: Well we believe that we can find savings of a billion dollars a year just in red tape that the Government currently surrounds our businesses with and our schools with. In my own portfolio we collect data that we don’t use for anything. We believe we can save a hundred million dollars a year in education just to start with in terms of not collecting data that we don’t actually use. I mean the Labor party will never… Presenter: That’s small cheese though isn’t it? Pyne: Hang on, it all starts, you have to start somewhere. When you are putting your household budget together and you are spending far beyond your means like this Government is doing you have to look at every government program to see what you can shave off in order to be able to find those savings and red tape is a very good start. Labor will never do this; Labor will instead increase taxes on superannuation. Presenter: Mark Butler that is a consistent attack isn’t it? Butler: It is important to be bipartisan for a, for an attempt to be bi-partisan about an important social policy. I mean Christopher did say that we would put a billion dollars on the table, and we have for the launch process of the NDIS and South Australia is participating in the launch. But what we also have said, and Penny Wong said this a number of times is that in the lead up to and in the budget we will show how we intend to fund the NDIS in a permanent way, in the fullest sense of the NDIS rather than the launch phase which is what the one billion dollars is about. So Christopher’s getting a little confused between the funding for the launch and the very significant challenge I think the country has to fund decent disability services which are long over-due for Australians in the longer term. Presenter: Superannuation? The Financial Review reports today the Federal Government has sought to end damaging speculation about its planned superannuation changes by stating they will affect only people with incomes of around $300,000 and over. Is that, did you finally work out what a super wealthy person was? Butler: Well I have seen a bit of speculation this morning about you know so called budget changes to superannuation. And I’m not sure that it is anything more than speculation we have had in previous editions of the Financial Review and The Australian and other papers of the last couple of weeks. I mean the point is these are all at the end of the day speculative pieces about what the Government might be deciding or might not be deciding about superannuation policy and it’s not helpful for the Government to be responding to every piece of speculation a journalist comes up with. Presenter: It is pretty clear that you are going to dip your fingers into the till of super at some stage isn’t it? Butler: Well I don’t think that’s right. Just because there has been speculation upon speculation in all of the papers around the country… Presenter: If you weren’t going to do it Mark Butler you would just rule it out? Why take all the pain for something that you will never going to do? Butler: Well, I think people are getting a little confused about changes we announced last budget. I mean we did announce last budget that people on incomes of over $300,000, which is about 1% of the workforce would have their taxation on their superannuation contributions increased to 30%. So their tax concession would be 15%. In order to pay for tax relief for 3.6 million of the lowest paid workers in Australia who currently get no tax concession at all on their super. So they would also get a tax concession of 15%. Now these aren’t changes that the Opposition have said they will oppose. They have said… Presenter: Ok… Pyne: Can I say two things? Firstly, it’s not speculation that the Government is coming for your neighbours super and will soon come for yours. Craig Emerson who’s a Minister in the Government has said that they will be taxing people’s super of $300,000. Other Ministers have said.. Butler: That’s last year’s budget. Pyne: Well you read, perhaps you should read what Craig Emerson has said. Other Ministers have said two-hundred and forty thousand is apparently fabulously wealthy. We know that the Government when it came to power cut a thousand dollars off the superannuation co-contribution for low income workers. It took 3.3 billion dollars away from low income earners in one of its first acts after Kevin Rudd said it wouldn’t change super one jot or one piddle. Now, if Labor is re-elected, today they are coming for your neighbours super. If they’re re-elected they will come for your super because they always have to fill their black holes of spending. Presenter: I think you’ve both had a good go on those issues this morning. Chris Pyne… Pyne: Pleasure. ENDS.