TRANSCRIPT
Of
SENATOR MITCH FIFIELD
Sky News AM Agenda
Ashleigh Gillon & Senator Mark Arbib
20 October 2008
8:45am
E & OE
SUBJECTS: Economy, polls, NSW by-elections, ACT election, US election
ASHLEIGH GILLON:
Welcome back to AM Agenda. I’m joined here in Canberra by the Liberal Senator Mitch Fifield and the Labor Senator Mark Arbib. Thank you .both for your time. Well last night we saw Kevin Rudd take to the stage in this special on the economic crisis on television. He seemed to be pretty reassuring, telling the audience that he’s pretty sure we can keep the budget out of deficit. We’ve just got a quick grab of that.
KEVIN RUDD:
I’m so glad we put aside a big surplus in May, ‘cos doing that has enabled us to take this decisive action and still enable us to deliver the next budget with a comfortable bottom line, a comfortable surplus still.
GILLON:
Senator Fifield firstly to you, the Prime Minister seemed to be taking more of a reassuring stance. It wasn’t so much of the hyping up that Malcolm Turnbull has accused Kevin Rudd of doing over this crisis.
SENATOR MITCH FIFIELD:
Well it’s important as a Prime Minister in a crisis like this to be sober, to be reflective, to be thoughtful, so that’s certainly welcome. But I must say that I thought last night on commercial TV the Prime Minister was treating this situation a little bit like light entertainment. It was a bit of a cross between Geoffrey Robertson and Eddie McGuire…
SENATOR MARK ARBIB:
You’re kidding.
FIFIELD:
But running a government isn’t running a TV show. He’s running a government. He should be accountable to the Parliament. He should make himself available there. That’s where he should be answering questions. He should start by releasing the updated economic forecasts.
ARBIB:
Last night he showed he was in touch. He showed he could sit down and talk to voters, actually listen to their concerns, and he was on top of it. The thing that amazed me is that he is on top of the detail. This is a leader who actually understands what is happening in our economy, actually understands what’s happening overseas and has a plan in place to actually try and assist the economy, to stimulate the economy to ward off global recession. So I think it was a great night and it sort of showed that he’s sort of treading both sides strong decisive leadership but also in touch with Australian families.
GILLON:
Well of course the Prime Minister is pretty comfortable in that sort of setting. He’s done these community cabinets where there’s a similar sort of thing. People can ask random questions at those but do you think it was a bit over the top last week calling this a rolling national security crisis? As Malcolm Turnbull has pointed out we’re not in war. Was that a bit over the top do you think, Mark Arbib?
ARBIB:
Well this is the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression in 80 years. We just had Andrew Robb saying it, the shadow spokesperson, two minutes ago. Turn on CNN, turn on Fox News. Last night IAG got bailed out by the Dutch Government, something like $20 billion. Every day another bank falls, another bank or major company gets bailed out. It’s an amazing crisis and it is changing every minute. It is moving so fast and it is absolutely impossible to keep on top of. So we are working around the clock to ensure the economy is insulated as much as possible from the global crisis. On the other side, Malcolm Turnbull, he showed again that that guy is completely out of touch. Out of touch with what is going on overseas and out of touch at home. For him to say that somehow we’re exaggerating the crisis or trying to hype it up is ridiculous. I mean he has shown he is just not in touch one iota.
FIFIELD:
Malcolm Turnbull takes the economic crisis very seriously. It was Malcolm in January who was warning that Australian growth could suffer as a result of what was happening in the US. It was Malcolm Turnbull who has proposed most of the responses to the economic crisis that Kevin Rudd has picked up. So Malcolm takes it very seriously…
ARBIB:
He also takes credit for everything.
FIFIELD:
…but this government does have a tendency to hype its language. We saw that with the supposed inflation crisis. It’s important for Prime Ministers to be very careful, to be sober in their language and I think that rather than treating this crisis like light TV entertainment the Prime Minister has got to make himself available to the Parliament, answer questions and he should start by releasing the updated economic forecasts.
GILLON:
Mark Arbib, Senator Fifield makes a point here. Some economists are predicting that we could see unemployment rise to 10-15% but the Government is still refusing to release these forecasts on which they would’ve based, I assume, this $10.4 billion stimulus package last week. What’s the problem with releasing the figures?
ARBIB:
Well the mid-year economic figures come out next month. So everyone will see the figures next month…
GILLON:
But in the meantime you’re expecting the Opposition to get behind this so what’s the problem with sharing this information?
ARBIB:
Well it was a week ago that the Coalition actually came out and proposed tax cuts. What did they base that on? They just threw out there “oh we should have tax cuts.” So I mean I think they’re trying to walk both sides of the street on this. The truth is this crisis is so deep. I mean I don’t think any of us have seen something, an economic crisis like this. And it is moving light speed. Every day the figures change. Every day the estimations change of how serious it’s gonna be. And for Malcolm Turnbull to say we’re exaggerating it just shows how out of touch he really is. And for Mitch, for you to be saying that as well, I mean I thought more of you mate. I thought you were in touch. You say it every week that you are but you’re obviously out of touch too.
FIFIELD:
No.
ARBIB:
The people, tell the people who’ve lost their superannuation, lost 40% of their superannuation that we’re somehow hyping this up. They know how serious it is and so does Kevin Rudd.
FIFIELD:
It is a very serious situation, but Malcolm was making the self-evident point that Kevin Rudd and the Treasurer do have a tendency to inflate their language on occasion. He’s not by any means underestimating the significance of the situation. But Prime Ministers need to choose their words carefully. They need to be very thoughtful. They need to be very reflective. They need to inspire confidence within the community and that’s what we’re calling on the Prime Minister to do. And the best way he could instil confidence in the community and the public is by making himself available to the Parliament and by releasing the forecasts.
GILLON:
Well the polls show today that Kevin Rudd’s never been more popular. In fact Labor is more popular now than it was at the last election. This means that it’s not really all bad news is it? I mean the Government would be pretty happy with this especially when looking at the Prime Minister’s personal approval rating.
ARBIB:
Well the poll is obviously positive but really in times of crisis like this you don’t want to be looking at polls. So we know that Kevin Rudd is making the right decisions. We know that he’s on the front foot taking decisive action. I mean the stimulatory package, $10.4 billion, guaranteeing bank deposits, moving forward infrastructure to actually try and stimulate the economy. These are the things that are gonna have an effect on the day to day lives of Australians. We understand how serious this problem is and also we want to get in early to ensure we have the best inoculation possible. In terms of stimulatory packages, as everyone knows who understands anything about the economy, you have to act early. If you wait until you’re in a recession or on the verge of recession it’s too late. So you’ve got to get in now and that’s what we’re doing. Acting early.
FIFIELD:
Ashleigh there’s two things which I think are important to separate. We are being bipartisan. We’ve supported the Government’s stimulatory package. We’ve supported the bank security package. But an opposition also have a job to hold a government to account, to carefully examine what a government is doing. And they’re not mutually inconsistent things. Supporting the broad intent of a government’s response but also holding that government to account and asking them questions.
ARBIB:
Well I think you guys are playing a very very dangerous game. At a time of crisis, at a time of where, you know, the world economy is bordering on recession. You’ve got the US going into recession. You’ve got Europe going into recession. For the Coalition to be walking both sides of the street on this issue really is irresponsible…
FIFIELD:
No that’s not what we’re doing.
ARBIB:
Well you are, you are.
FIFIELD:
We’re doing our job.
ARBIB:
One minute you support it the next minute you don’t.
FIFIELD:
We’re doing our job.
ARBIB:
It’s irresponsible.
FIFIELD:
No opposition could give a government a blank cheque. We’ve offered support on these key measures but that doesn’t mean the Government gets a free ride…
ARBIB:
And you keep withdrawing it.
FIFIELD:
No it doesn’t mean that the Government gets to have a free ride and to avoid scrutiny and to avoid accountability. An opposition can responsibly support the thrust of what a government is doing but also hold that government to account.
GILLON:
Okay I just want to move on to another issue. Labor was punished over the weekend in New South Wales and the ACT where here in the ACT we still don’t know which side the Greens will go to to form a minority government. But Mark Arbib let’s start with New South Wales. It really was, as Premier Rees says, it was a shellacking, you really got burnt.
ARBIB:
Yeah well, we expected a bloodbath and we got a bloodbath. Terrible terrible result. Really nothing good comes out of it for us. The only positive for Nathan Rees is that he’s taking the message on board, he’s not sort of pushing it away, like he could push it away anyway. But he’s taking it on board and he’s saying he’s gotta change and gotta get it right. He doesn’t have much time to act when you get a result like that. The voters didn’t take out a baseball bat they took out a bazooka. So it was right in our face. On top of that, he’s saying now, looking at fast tracking his own infrastructure program, looking at taking away developer levies to try and stimulate the economy, looking at nurse training and he’s got a mini-budget coming up in November. The problem that he’s got, the problem that everybody’s got, we’ve got a global economic downturn and that’s going to make it very very difficult for them to spend large amounts of money.
GILLON:
Senator Fifield after all the problems of the Iemma Government and the Rees Government is facing now, it’s a bit hard to draw federal implications. Do you think that state issues were the real thing here?
FIFIELD:
Look there’s no doubt that people walked into polling booths at the weekend wanting to kick out the worst government in Australian history – the New South Wales Labor Government. They’re totally toxic. They can’t run anything. They can’t run hospitals. They can’t run schools. They can’t fix roads. There’s nothing that the New South Wales Labor Government can do properly and the New South Wales people can’t wait to kick them out and that’s what we saw at the weekend. It’s just a pity that they’ve got to wait a little over two years to have their say.
ARBIB:
But this is the point as well, that some people, and I saw in the Herald today that Nathan Rees has been written off, there’s still two and a half years to go. The guy’s had six weeks. Give him a break. I think despite the by-elections he’s been doing reasonably well. Bringing RailCorp back in under government control was a very very good decision and a big decision. And there’s going to be more of those so give him a chance. I remember before the last state election we’d been completely written off. Everyone said there was no way Labor could win the last election. And we did. On top of that if you go back to last weekend’s results, something not many people have talked about, have a look at Port Macquarie. If you want to know the state of the Coalition, they did well in Sydney, but up in Port Macquarie the National Party got decimated. I mean this is a seat which is safe National Party territory and the independents won it again. They’ve spent now in two by-elections, in the Lyne by-election and Port Macquarie, the National Party have spent $1 million campaigning and they’ve come up with zero. And it was the Liberal Party handing out for the independents. You had Alby Schultz from Hume and you had Bill Heffernan handing out for the independents. So in terms of a unified Coalition, well that doesn’t exist in New South Wales. So while that’s going on and Rees has got the time to turn it around nothing is impossible. He’s just got to stay calm and get back to the basics.
GILLON:
Well here in the ACT Senator Fifield there’s not much hope, is there, that the Greens will side with the Liberals to form minority government? You’d assume that they’d go with Labor even though they’re not putting their cards on the table at this stage?
FIFIELD:
I imagine what the Greens will do is follow the Grylls model from Western Australia. That they’ll talk to both of the parties, they’ll go through the motions, but ultimately you would expect that the Greens would come down on the side of Labor. But there was no good news for Labor in the result at the weekend in the ACT. They’ve dropped two seats, they had a 9% swing against them. It’s bad news for Labor at state and territory level around Australia.
GILLON:
Yeah John Stanhope certainly did suffer this massive swing. It was expected though I guess. He has been in for a couple of terms now but we’d think that he’d continue on as Chief Minister.
ARBIB:
Well, a long term government and I’d hope that the Greens would, you know if they want to talk about the Liberals’ record, talk to this guy. They don’t even believe in climate change. So how can the Liberal Party and the Greens be getting together? I’d find that very strange.
GILLON:
We are running out of time. I just quickly before we go want to touch on US politics. The really interesting development overnight has been Colin Powell, the former Secretary of State, put his backing behind Obama. This is a bit of a surprise, Mitch Fifield?
FIFIELD:
On one level it is. But I would’ve had a little more respect for the decision had Colin Powell come out in support of Barack Obama when it looked like John McCain could win. If he’d come out shortly after Sarah Palin became the nominee for vice president when the Republicans had a spike. That would’ve been a gutsier move to come out at that point, it’s a little over two weeks until the election and Barack Obama looks like a sure thing.
GILLON:
Do you think that the timing of the announcement now of course would mean that so close to the polls this will really have more impact now though than when you were talking about if it had happened a few weeks ago. Mark Arbib, the momentum really is behind Barack Obama now.
ARBIB:
Well there’s no doubt about it. I was listening to Bruce Wolpe this morning on your program talking about the amount of money that Barack Obama is spending in terms of the campaign and commercials at the moment, 3:1, 5:1 to the Democrats and that is going to mean a lot. I mean they are now campaigning in Republican states. When you’re campaigning in Virginia and campaigning in North Carolina well, the Democrats must be on a roll. Going back to Colin Powell for a second. One of the things that has really irritated me about the Democratic campaigns over the last couple of elections is the large number of celebrity endorsements. I mean I don’t care who George Clooney is supporting…
FIFIELD:
That makes two of us.
ARBIB:
…and I think most Americans feel the same. That’s exactly right. And I think most Americans feel the same. But time and time again the Democrats would roll out celebrity endorsements, mostly actors, and I think it was counter-productive. On this occasion though having Colin Powell, someone with the war record he’s had, I mean a former Commander-in-Chief, not Commander-in-Chief, but Joint Chief of Staff. This is someone with real knowledge of national security and I think him coming out now for Obama is a real plus for Obama.
GILLON:
And did you catch Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live? What do you reckon, if you can’t beat them join them?
FIFIELD:
I think she’s a tremendous character.
GILLON:
That’s one way of putting it.
FIFIELD:
The Democrats hate her because she’s a feminist from the conservative side of politics and they just can’t get their head around that.
ARBIB:
Give me Tina Fey any day of the week.
GILLON:
Alright we have run out of time. Senators Mitch Fifield and Mark Arbib thanks very much for joining us again.
ARBIB:
Thank you.
FIFIELD:
Thanks Ashleigh.
ENDS