Sky News Agenda

SUBJECTS: APEC deal; carbon tax; mining tax; schooling arrangements in Northern Territory intervention

E&OE… 

Kieran Gilbert: Mr Pyne thank you very much for your time this morning. 

Christopher Pyne: Good morning Kieran. 

Gilbert: Developments over the weekend first at the APEC summit.  Can I get your thoughts on this trans-pacific partnership, Japan signing up to it as well.  Does the Opposition welcome that? 

Pyne: Of course.  We always welcome any improvement in our trade relations in countries with similar systems to our own around the world.  APEC has been a very good forum internationally for Australia where we have initiated APEC and continued to encourage it under the Hawke, Keating and Howard Governments and now under Rudd and Gillard Governments.  This is ongoing progress with APEC.  We certainly welcome it and I think it will be a good contribution to freer trade between at least those nine countries with similar outlooks. 

Gilbert: Mr Pyne, as I mentioned at the start of the program President Obama is visiting this week so the focus will be on that understandably.  He’s expected to announce with Prime Minister Gillard an expanded military presence.  Obviously bipartisan support on that, the Government repudiated the Greens criticism of that.   Do you think there will be any sensitivity in the community about an expanded presence by the US here? 

Pyne: I think the Australian people have a very deep attachment to the US alliance.  I think politically whenever the Labor Party appears to be moving from a strong commitment to the US alliance they are jerked back to support it by public opinion.  I think the public understand how important the United States is to Australian and to the world and that why we’re all willing them to be successful in their economic reforms.  In terms of their engagement in the Western Pacific, it is very important for Australia’s security interests and for the entire peace and stability for the Western Pacific that the United States is engaged.  And anything Australia can do to assist that I certainly welcome and the Coalition welcomes. 

Gilbert: If we can turn our attention now to the Nielsen poll there’s a boost for Julia Gillard, approval rating up six points from a very low base, the Coalition still well in front.  Obviously there’s not much to worry about just yet. 

Pyne: Well, Kieran, the next election will be a referendum on the carbon tax.  It will be an election about which side of politics is best placed to reduce the pressures on cost of living for Australians and all the other issues, while very important, will be peripheral.  Cost of living is the vital issue in Australia today and the Government on the one hand introducing a carbon tax that will increase prices, particularly electricity.  There’s mining tax which will reduce dividends and which will therefore reduce incomes.  Introducing a flood levy, which reduces the take home pay of Australians and having a blow out in their border protection costs because they’ve lost control of our borders all adds pressure to the budget with a growing budget deficit and debt which we’ve experienced over the last four years of this Government. 

Clearly the Liberal Party – which has a record of reducing taxes, reducing government spending and taking the pressure off cost of living – goes into that election with an advantage in the minds of the Australian people. 

Gilbert: One thing the Government is going to do is reduce taxes as part of its mining tax proposal and this seems to be pretty popular according to this Nielsen survey.  It shows that its got a clear majority backing it.  Are you concerned the Coalition is on the wrong side of the debate when it comes to the mining tax? 

Pyne: Kieran, I think when it comes to increasing taxes the Australian people are well aware under the last four years under the Rudd-Gillard Government taxes have gone up.  It wasn’t a Coalition Government that introduced a carbon tax.  It isn’t a Coalition Government that’s introduced a flood levy, a tobacco tax, a flood levy and now the mining tax.  The truth is the only tax cuts delivered by this Government were the tax cuts promised by Peter Costello and John Howard during the last few years of the Howard Government.  This Government hasn’t actually introduced any tax cuts.  It’s only made sure that the promises of the previous government were kept.  On the other hand they’ve increased taxes.  When it comes to credibility on reducing taxes I think the Coalition is streets in front and I think we all know when people are facing cost of living pressures. 

There was a poll out today showing one in three Australian families are going without meals in order to be able to feed their children.  75 per cent of people are cutting back their expenses at the supermarket or at the butcher on bare essentials because of cost of living pressures.  And the Government on the other hand would rather act like the economy was going swimmingly and that we had nothing to worry about. 

Gilbert: But isn’t it appropriate to level up the playing field in the two speed or three speed economy however you want to describe it?  53 per cent of people in this Nielsen poll back the mining tax now. 

Pyne: You don’t make the slow lane faster by slowing down the fast lane.  It is a very weird Government which thinks that in order to improve the economy in some states and in some regions we need to slow down the economy in others.  Now is not the time, when the world is facing real international uncertainty, real economic pressures we should be reducing and hurting our most successful export industries.  It beggars belief that the Government couldn’t instead find cuts within their own budget to reduce their spending rather than doing what Labor always does, which is to reach for the tax jar in order to increase their revenues so they can spend more.  It’s like a household budget.  People know that.  You have to live within your means and this Government simply isn’t capable of doing so. 

Gilbert: According to the financial review we can expect a mini budget in the next couple of weeks with deep spending cuts.  Given your comments just then and the global uncertainty you’d welcome that? 

Pyne: Let’s see.  The Government in the budget in May Wayne Swan kept issuing blood curdling threats of cuts and pain that was going to be visited on the economy for the May budget.  In the end they had less than two billion dollars of cuts in the May budget.  So when they talk about cuts let’s actually see what they come up with.  The proof of the pudding as they say will be in the eating Kieran rather than the rhetoric that we usually get from this Government.  Usually when this Government is in trouble on spending it increases its taxes to widen it’s revenue.  That’s what it’s done every single time for the last four years.  They have never taken steps to reduce their spending.  They always need a reason for a new tax and I think the Australian public are awake up to them. 

Gilbert: One last issue I want to ask you about, plans to toughen the Northern Territory Intervention, apparently Jenny Macklin’s going to be announcing this today including conferencing between parents, Centrelink officers and government, and even giving Centrelink officers the capacity to go into a children’s [sic] home, get them out of bed and send them off to school, and you know with the threat of suspending welfare hanging all over this, what do you make of these plans to toughen the Northern Territory Intervention and linking them so strongly to school attendance in this way?

Pyne: Well Kieran I think the Australian public are thoroughly sick of fiddling around the edges of indigenous health, work, education and housing issues and of course it was the Howard government that initiated the Northern Territory Intervention. It has had its successes and it needs to go further and be improved, and quite frankly the government is heading in the right direction in the Northern Territory Intervention. There’s no doubt that if young aboriginal children don’t get an opportunity for education then their futures will be very bleak indeed. All their opportunities for improvement of their standard of living, to get a job, to get decent housing, to look after their health, are linked to their early education, so anything that we can do that ensures that young aboriginal children get the opportunities that perhaps their parents or grandparents didn’t get because government’s weren’t strong enough to make the decisions that needed to be made, I welcome.

Gilbert: Christopher Pyne, appreciate your time, thank you this morning.

Pyne: It’s a Pleasure Kieran, thank you.

ENDS