Sky News AM Agenda

SUBJECTS: Foreign aid cuts; welfare increases; Labor waste; Paid Parental Leave; No-confidence motion E&OE................................ Hon Christopher Pyne MP: Good Morning Kieran Kieran Gilbert: On foreign aid, the increases are going to be delayed again. The Coalition has committed to this, this was bipartisan – it had bipartisan support, the increase, but you hadn’t committed to maintaining that timeline. What do you make of this latest delay? Pyne: Well, the Government is entering into another budget fudge, Kieran. I mean the bottom line is they’re taking money from foreign aid and they’re spending it in consolidated revenue, but they’re pretending that they’re hypothecating that against the border protection failures, so they’re saying we’ve got to cut foreign aid and we’ve got to spend that on refugees or asylum seekers onshore. What they’re really doing is making a cut to foreign aid, and they have a budget blowout in terms of border protection, because it’s a massive Government failure. We’ve had forty thousand boat arrivals since Julia Gillard was Prime Minister. Over twenty thousand this financial year alone. It’s like a closing down sale for people smugglers, and they’re trying to get as many people into Australia as they can in case the Government changes in September and they know there will be a government that will actually crack down on people smuggling. So it’s just a budget fudge, it’s a cut to foreign aid, and of course there’s the budget blowout on the side of border protection. Gilbert: But the Coalition had also agreed to that target and the timeline. Pyne: We believe in that target, and that hasn’t changed. We believe that the Millennium Development Goals are important, and that we should all do our best endeavours to reach the target that Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott signed up to years ago. Gilbert: Can it still be met in the current climate? Pyne: It’s very hard to meet any of this Government’s commitments given the extraordinary unravelling of the budget. I mean, two weeks ago they said the budget revenue black hole was $7.5 billion. It changed to $12 billion. Last week they said it was $17.5 billion. We’ll find out tomorrow what the final figure is. So I can’t commit to too much until I know exactly what the budget looks like. Gilbert: Indeed. And you say the Coalition supports the increase under the Millennium Development Goals, but something that Julie Bishop hasn’t done recently – the Foreign Affairs spokesperson for the opposition – she has not committed to honouring that timeline, not given any guarantee. David Cameron in the UK, his Government has already reached half a per cent of gross national income spent on aid, and he’s ring fenced that spending. The Coalition is not willing to do that Pyne: Well, David Cameron is in the much better position of having a Chancellor of the Exchequer who knows what he’s doing, and of course Britain is being run much better than Australia is being run right now by Wayne Swan and Julia Gillard Gilbert: But the economy’s a lot weaker, and they’re still able to do that. Pyne: Our economy is in a weak position, Kieran, make no mistake. Gilbert: But it’s nothing like the UK. Pyne: Well, and in spite of that, and if you’re right - if you’re right and the British economy is weaker than Australia – they’re doing better at managing their budget. Apparently if you’re right and we have a stronger economy, then we have a weaker Treasurer and Prime Minister, who are mismanaging the budget and the economy. We now have $300 billion of gross debt, a massive $257 billion of deficits over the last five years. Goodness knows what tomorrow’s deficit will be, so the Coalition can’t commit until we see the final figures. Gilbert: Yeah ok, well with the UK the point is UK has got a weaker economy Pyne: Because we have a weaker Government. Gilbert: But they can still commit to foreign aid. Our parties aren’t doing that. Pyne: Well, Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan are trying to fill in the hole they’ve created on border protection, a $6.5 billion blowout in border protection costs because of their weak policy in terms of our borders, so of course Britain could well be doing better than our government. Most countries are doing better than the Australian government because we are led by a very weak Prime Minister and a very poor Treasurer. Gilbert: On to the unemployed and single mothers, the Government is going to give them more scope to earn money before they lose their entitlements. I think it’s only forty dollars a fortnight additional before their welfare starts to fall away. Do you support that? Pyne: Well Kieran we need to see the detail in the budget but and I think anything that encourages people who are on welfare or unemployment benefits into the work force is a positive move but we need to see exactly if there’s a savings measure, if there’s an expenditure measure we haven’t seen the details, just the Government’s drop for the papers. So, sure we want to get more people into the work force and the best way to do that is to have a growing economy, not to have the heavy hand of government taxes. Thirty new taxes or increased taxes since this Government was elected in comparison to the Howard Government which cut taxes. Gilbert: The Coalition’s going to release a document today of the biggest wastage within the Government. $10 billion of Government waste. This is obviously designed to counter the argument that Wayne Swan is putting it out of revenue write down but you must recognise and concede there have been enormous billions and billions of dollars of write downs, not just this year but throughout this Government, the term of this Government? Pyne: But Kieran there have been billions and billions and billions of dollars of wasted expenditure. I mean, in education alone in the school halls program, $16.5 billion was spent on school halls. Some estimates say that up to 50 per cent of that was wasted, wasted on overvalued school halls. And no one decries more infrastructure for schools but did we really need to waste billions of dollars on overvalued school halls and the pink batts programme. They paid a $1 billion to put them in and $1.5 billion to take them out, so this Government has been so incompetent …. Gilbert: It’s only a fraction of the overall write down in revenues though isn’t it? When you look at the well, $17 billion in this financial year alone? Pyne: Well Government waste is never a positive thing. We can’t no one wastes in the household budget, no one just shrugs their shoulders and says ‘oh well, $10 billion there, never mind’, we’ll make it up somewhere else. The reason the Budget is in such strife is because Wayne Swan who is the constant golden thread of incompetence since the beginning of this Government, he has been the Treasurer the whole time. Wayne Swann can’t manage a budget for Australia and $10 billion of waste is just the tip of the iceberg. I imagine that if we are elected in September, we’ll find out that there’s been a great deal more waste that’s never been uncovered. Gilbert: A couple of other issues that I want to ask you about the paid parental leave scheme, I suppose in the context of that waste that your, you fear, might experience in Government, the affordability of that scheme continues to be questioned by some of your own colleagues but employer groups are now saying that employers will scale back on their own parental leave schemes given the Coalition’s more generous approach isn’t that going to be counterproductive if you’ve got private parental leave frameworks within companies being reduced or not going ahead because of the Coalition plan. Pyne: Well Kieran, one of the attractions of Tony Abbott’s Paid Parental Leave Scheme is it actually represents a reduction of a burden on small and medium size businesses because paid parental leave will be treated as a workplace entitlement and it will be paid by the 3,200 largest businesses in Australia, so any small business or medium size business that already has a parental leave scheme of course will be able to give way to the government’s paid parental leave, now that means that would be a cost reduction to small and medium size businesses which is why of course, they welcomed it. Gilbert: Alright, finally I want to ask you about this, the prospect of a no confidence motion. When Parliament rose our viewers would remember that the Coalition was talking about moving a no confidence motion upon the return of Parliament. Is that still the plan this week? Pyne: Well we want to move a no confidence motion when it’s the right time to do so and when that time is right will be when Mr Oakeshott and Mr Windsor give up their lock step support for Julia Gillard and the Labor Government. Gilbert: That won’t happen though. Pyne: Well if it … Gilbert: Their support of this Government they said will remain until the election. Pyne: At some point Tony Windsor and Robert Oakeshott will be put to the test and if they want to back in the Gillard Government well that will be a matter for them but we will not be telegraphing our Parliamentary tactics in advance, Mr Oakeshott.. Gilbert: Does that mean you’ve shelved your plan for a no confidence motion? Pyne: No, not at all. The point is we’ve said all along that we would move a no confidence motion when the time was appropriate to do so. Mr Oakeshott and Mr Windsor have been giving conflicting signals about their support or lack of support for such a move. We will see at the right time when that should be moved. Gilbert: Manager of Opposition Business Christopher Pyne thanks for your time. ENDS.