ABC 891

SUBJECTS: Paid parental leave; Car industry; PNG ‘solution’; Labor’s negative campaign; Sturt Campaign E&OE............................... Presenter: He’s the Federal Labor MP for Port Adelaide; he’s the Minister for Climate Change, good morning to you Mark Butler. Mark Butler: Good morning gentlemen. Presenter: And Chris Pyne, a little bit earlier, even though it’s the same time here, but he’s in Perth. He’s the Federal Liberal MP for Sturt and Shadow Education Minister. Good morning to you Christopher Pyne. Christopher Pyne: Good morning Matthew and David and Mark. Presenter: Christopher Pyne, will self-funded retirees end up paying so that a woman on $150,000 a year can have $75,000 off to have a baby? Pyne: Well I don’t see how when self-funded retirees are not part of the taxable income of the… Presenter: Well, the dividends are likely to be affected according to work done by The Australian today. Some detailed work into this. Shareholders will take a $1.6 billion annual hit from Tony Abbotts’ parental leave scheme by losing tax breaks on their dividends. Presenter: And it goes on to say the biggest impact is tipped to be felt by retirees who rely on dividends for some of their income. Pyne: Well they are talking about the imputation credits and my understanding is that this will be a matter that will be sorted out. I’ve spoken to Joe Hockey about it. We don’t necessarily agree with the analysis in The Australian. The most important thing is that what the Coalition is attempting to do is ensure that working women are treated as a workplace entitlement rather than a welfare entitlement when they have a baby that they receive the same amount of money that they would have received if they had kept working. And you get paid when they are on pregnancy leave as if they are on holiday. Presenter: When you say sorted out, do you mean there’s a media problem that needs to be sorted out, a misunderstanding, or there’s a problem with the scheme that needs to be sorted out? Pyne: Well I have to do an analysis of the story in The Australian and Joe Hockey is doing that today. There will be comments made about that, but I don’t accept the analysis in The Australian; it’s another one of Labor’s red-herrings attempting to try and confuse people about what is a very, very positive policy. It’s a policy about productivity, population and participation. It’s a policy that’s very welcomed and what Labor is doing in this campaign is because they’ve got nothing positive to say about their past, they have no record to run on, they’ve got nothing positive to say about the future, all they’re doing is lying about the Coalition’s policy. Presenter: Are you saying The Australian is party to a Labor Party red-herring? Pyne: No, I just… Presenter: I think there will be a few smelling salts being handed around… Pyne: No, I’m not suggesting that, I’m just suggesting that Labor is putting a lot of red-herrings around in this campaign and… Presenter: Well, how are you going to sort this out, because either it is going to affect dividends to self-funded retirees, or it’s not? If it’s not, you can just say now – no it will not affect them at all. The company will not pass that on or re-coup it via lower dividends. Pyne: Well my understanding is that they won’t be affected, but I’m not the Shadow Treasurer. Joe Hockey’s the shadow treasurer and I’d rather he answer that question specifically, as I’m sure he will at some point today. The wider point is that our policy on paid parental leave is a work place entitlement not a welfare entitlement, that treats women with the respect that they deserve and it means that women can take 26 weeks leave, continue to be paid the wage they would have received, pay their mortgages, pay their school fees, et cetera, helping the household without losing money as they would under the Labor Party’s scheme. Presenter: Mark Butler? Butler: Well there is a very easy way this could be clarified and that is that the Liberal Party show how they are going to pay for this policy. This is going to be, as far as we can understand it by we I don’t mean the Labor Party but the media and the Australian people; this is going to be a policy that spends about $5 and a half billion a year once it’s fully implemented. Pyne: Exactly – it’s a very generous policy… Butler: Just to put that in context, it’s about what the Commonwealth spends on public schools every year, it’s about what the Commonwealth spends on child care every year, yet the very senior shadow ministers can’t explain how it’s going to be paid for. This story is also in the Financial Review, it’s based on comments that Liberal party people have made that the franking credit would not apply to the tax that’s going to be imposed on 3,200 large companies in which many millions of Australians, self-funded retirees, mum and dad investors, invest their hard earned money; they are not going to get a franking credit for this by which they’ll contribute about $1.7 billion every year to this unfair, unaffordable, paid parental leave scheme. Presenter: Mark Butler, you say it’s un-costed; it is at least in the forward estimates. Your plan for the car industry in Australia is not in this forward estimates or the next parliament’s forward estimates. Is that correct? Butler: No, no, no. The announcement we made on the weekend applies to the next period of the car plan which is from 2016 to 2020 so the existing iteration of the car plan which runs to 2016, which is obviously in the budget forward estimates is all there, all paid for. What we announced yesterday to give investment certainty to Holdens and to supply companies and others in the industry is that that plan will continue for the rest of the decade, and actually we’d put in place legislated certainty to go into the next decade as well. Presenter: Can you explain Mark Butler, you’re part of the Rudd campaign team, now we’re told that you are embedded, you might call it dragooned or enchained… Pyne: What a horrible thought. Butler: Isn’t embedded a military term? I can tell you I’m not wearing any species of uniform. Pyne: Not yet. Kevin Rudd will have all of his travelling team in… Butler: This is the man of the blue tie brigade? Presenter: Mark Butler, Kevin Rudd began this campaign by saying that people have had a gut-full of negative politics. He wanted to lift the debate, and use his hands to show that. And here we are, that hasn’t lasted 2 and a half weeks, with ads that can only be described as very very negative and personal against Tony Abbott. What happened to positive Kevin? Butler: Well, first of all, have a look at the ads – they are not personal against Tony Abbott at all. They are very much policy based… Presenter: We’ve got a photo where he looks like Freddie Kruger! I mean little kids are running off screaming to their mummies because of the billboards. Butler: Have a look at the ad campaign that was released against the Prime Minister in the first couple of weeks of this campaign…. Presenter: But he said he was going to be better than that? Butler: The Prime Minister said that he wanted a positive campaign but he also has a responsibility, a very important responsibility to make sure that voters have a clear and transparent choice…. Presenter: So you only have a clear and positive campaign when Kevin Rudd thinks he’s going to win. When you think he’s going to lose, you switch to negative mode – correct? Butler: No, no. When he thinks, and he does think with some very clear justification that Tony Abbott is trying to screw himself into a little ball and slide himself through this campaign without being transparent with the Australian people about what services are going to be cut to pay for things like this paid-parental leave scheme, then he has a responsibility to put pressure on Tony Abbott to come clean. It’s time now for some very straight talking here for Mr Abbott to be very clear about what the Australian people would get from a Tony Abbott Prime Ministership… Presenter: Mark Butler, on another topic, since the PNG solution was announced nearly 3,000 people have arrived. It doesn’t seem to be working… Butler: Well, from the day of the announcement, the Prime Minister and the Immigration minister, Tony Burke made it very clear that it was our expectation that people smugglers would try and test our resolve. They would spin every lie they could to potential clients and customers of theirs that ‘don’t worry, it’s going to be knocked over in the High Court, or it’s going to be changed in the event of an election, change in the government. We’ve known this for a long time. The intelligence from those transit countries has been very clear. We said this would take some time but that it was undoubtedly the right solution, and we’re still committed about that. Presenter: Chris Pyne? Pyne: Well, clearly the PNG solution has unravelled since it was announced a few weeks ago. The Prime Minister of PNG, Peter O’Neill said only on the weekend that in fact at least half of the people who will go to PNG will be re-settled in Australia. Presenter: It’s an off-shore solution which is Liberal Party policy is it not? Pyne: We support off-shore processing but we also support bringing back temporary protection visas, tightening the appeals process to ensure that refugees might be able to pursue, or asylum peruse, and of course turning back the boats if it is safe to do so, which the Labor party used to support, but can’t support now because it’s Tony Abbott’s policy. Mark Butler, quite frankly needs to explain why it is that people are drowning off Christmas Island yesterday in a capsized boat. Three boats have arrived in the last three days, why Peter O’Neill, the Prime Minister of PNG says the opposite to what the ads that the tax-payer is paying for are saying on our television screens at night about asylum seekers never being resettled… Presenter: And you can guarantee that no asylum seeker will drown under your policy, under a Coalition Government. Pyne: Well we will stop the boats, as we have done before… Presenter: That’s wasn’t the question. Pyne: Between 2001 and 2007 less than three boast a year were coming. We’ve had three boats in the last three days. We’ve had 3,000 asylum seeker arrivals since the PNG solution was announced. The Labor Party started the people smugglers business model again – we will stop it. Presenter: Now Chris Pyne, just finally, were you serious or were you having a bit of a lend of people when you said that your staffer, who has turned out is a Fairfax rural journalist, was helping Rick Sarre by taking down his election posters? Pyne: Well, she wasn’t taking down his election posters… Presenter: Well she was photographed doing that I think, wasn’t she? Pyne: No, no. Presenter: Well was she’s a volunteer? Pyne: She’s a volunteer. She’s been entirely cleared by the police. She’s kept her job because she’s got no case to answer. She was putting up my poster, the Labor Party’s poster was falling down because it had been so badly put up. So she kindly re-put it back up for them. They took photographs of her and tried to pretend that she was taking the poster down. She was doing no such thing. Presenter: You don’t think it looked a bit interesting Chris Pyne? Pyne: Look, that’s what happened. That’s why it’s a non-story and Labor were desperate to try and create a distraction from the fact that one of their staffers of Jack Snelling lied about Andrew Southcott being in Fiji at the beginning of the campaign on Twitter! Presenter: By the way, Nick Xenophon has just texted through that he will oppose the Libs paid parental leave scheme. He says it’s over the top, it’s better to assist parents with child care and Michael Pratt, former Liberal member for Adelaide, is apparently helping Nick Xenophon in his campaign out in the Riverland today, and the South East. Pyne: Well, good luck to him. Butler: Well there’s a long list of Liberal Party people who have said this policy is a complete dog of a policy. Elder statements like Geoff Kennett, Peter Reith, many many others and we know that many of the Coalition if they get into government will cross the floor against it. Pyne: Oh what lies! Butler: I’m being clear… Pyne: For goodness sake. You’ve got nothing positive to say about the last six years, you’ve got nothing positive to say about your future plans, which the Coalition does have, you’ve only got left attacking the Liberal party. Presenter: Ok. And we will leave it there until next week at least, or maybe not at least – it depends what happens. But Christopher Pyne, Federal MP for Sturt thank you. And Mark Butler, Federal Labor MP for Port Adelaide, both senior players in the election campaign for their parties. 21 August 2013