Transcript of Senator Mitch Fifield
Shadow Parliamentary Secretary
for Disabilities, Carers and the Voluntary Sector
Sky News AM Agenda
Ashleigh Gillon and Tanya Plibersek
30 March 2009
8:45am
EO & E
Subjects: Joel Fitzgibbon, National Rental Affordability Scheme, First Home Owners Grant
ASHLEIGH GILLON:
Welcome back to AM Agenda let’s go straight now to our politicians panel. Joining me from Melbourne is the Liberal Senator Mitch Fifield. Good morning Senator.
MITCH FIFIELD:
Good morning Ashleigh.
GILLON:
And from Sydney the Housing Minister Tanya Plibersek, good morning.
TANYA PLIBERSEK:
Hi Ashleigh.
GILLON:
Tanya Plibersek, firstly to you. You heard Nick Xenophon’s idea just before the break, do you think it is a good idea to make MPs repay the cost of sponsored travel if they don’t declare it?
PLIBERSEK:
Oh look I think it’s very important to have strong accountability rules. I think it is very important that people do declare and that there are sanctions if there are any suggestion that they’ve intentionally avoided declaring trips or gifts or anything like that.
GILLON:
So Tanya Plibersek do you think that then the rules at the moment aren’t good enough?
PLIBERSEK:
I think the rules are very strong. I think it is important that people follow the rules.
GILLON:
Mitch Fifield what’s your take on this? Should the Government perhaps put more taxpayer money into funding MPs trips overseas?
FIFIELD:
I’m not sure about that, I think that the provisions for members of parliament to travel are adequate as they are. I don’t have a particular problem with Nick Xenophon’s proposal. Nick has a lot of good ideas. But the failure here isn’t the disclosure regime. The failure here is the Minister’s behaviour. I think there are three distinct but related issues here. The first is that the Minister clearly failed to disclose these two overseas trips. He breached his duty to the Parliament. He broke the parliamentary rules. The second issue is that at his press conference he either fibbed or he forgot in relation to overseas trips and I think most viewers would certainly remember if someone had paid for their overseas travel on not one but two occasions. And the third issue, which stems directly from the first two, is that the Minister through his failure to declare and his fib or his forgetting, the Minister has created a perception that he is potentially subject to influence. Now I am not saying that the Minister has been subject to influence, or is subject to influence. And I am not saying that someone has attempted to bring influence to bear. But what I am saying is as a direct result of two failures on his part, he has created a perception that he is potentially subject to influence. Now what he has to do today, at the very least, is write to the Prime Minster and say that he in all respects has now complied with the parliamentary disclosure regime. He hasn’t done that as yet. We don’t know if there are other instances where he has been given gifts or travel or some other sort of consideration from some other individuals that he hasn’t declared. He must do at the very minimum.
PLIBERSEK:
Yeah I think….
GILLON:
Tanya Plibersek I assume that you have taken these sort of trips throughout your career, I assume you have also declared them. But how easy is it an overseas trip funded by someone else? As Mitch Fifield points out, to most of us that seems to be quite a strange concept.
PLIBERSEK:
Well the point is that Joel Fitzgibbon was asked in a press conference whether he had taken these trips, he gave the wrong answer. He went away and realised he had given the wrong answer. He corrected the record straight away. I think people do have lapses of memory occasionally. You are talking about things that happened years ago. The most important thing is that he went away and checked and immediately corrected the record. I think its right that people should do the paperwork in the first place and shouldn’t have oversights ever, but we are all human beings and we all make mistakes occasionally. What he has sought to do is correct the record and he has apologised very fully to the Prime Minister and to the acting Prime Minister and I think that should be the end of it.
FIFIELD:
Tanya you’ve never forgotten overseas trips…
GILLON:
Senator Fifield there still are a heap of questions to be answered about this so called spy scandal from last week, but it does seem a bit of a stretch to go from the Joel Fitzgibbon story to suggesting that the whole Rudd Government may be too influenced by the China, by China like we saw Joe Hockey suggest last week. Do you think that is just a bit of a scare campaign?
FIFIELD:
Look I’m not suggesting that the Government is overly influenced by a particular nation, this is about Joel Fitzgibbon…
GILLON:
Some of your colleagues certainly have been, no?
FIFIELD:
This is all about Joel Fitzgibbon and Joel Fitzgibbon’s behaviour. My concern is that he has created a perception that he is potentially subject to influence. Now that’s not to say, as I said before, that any influence has been brought to bear or is being brought to bear. But it has created the perception that he is potentially subject to influence. Now that is something he needs to address. At the very least he needs to write to the Prime Minister today and indicate that he has now fully declared. As of this point in time we don’t know that he has. That’s what he should do at the very least.
PLIBERSEK:
Ashleigh I’m actually very…
FIFIELD:
I think more importantly the Prime Minister needs to pick up the phone and…
GILLON:
Just a final word on…
FIFIELD:
…talk to Joel Fitzgibbon.
GILLON:
Senator Fifield I think you’ve made this point. Tanya Plibersek a final word on this and then we do need to move on.
PLIBERSEK:
Ashleigh I’m a little bit perplexed. You are right that there have been sort of suggestions from the Opposition that Labor is playing too much attention to China. This is our, one of our major trading partners, we’re in the middle of a global financial crisis. It’s more important than ever that people are buying our goods around the world and we’ve suddenly got this strange sort of suggestion that we shouldn’t be talking to China, that our Ministers shouldn’t be in contact with China. At this time in particular it’s more important than ever that we have good relations with all of our neighbours so that they’re buying Australian goods.
GILLON:
Senator Fifield I will let you respond to that and then we do really need to move on. Is the opposition concerned? Shouldn’t ministers be travelling to China as Tanya Plibersek suggests?
FIFIELD:
Of course we need to have a good relationship with China and it’s important that Ministers talk to their Chinese counterparts. No one is suggesting that that shouldn’t happen.
PLIBERSEK:
That’s not what your colleagues are suggesting…
FIFIELD:
But I think what should happen is there is a conversation which should take place which hasn’t yet happened and that’s between the Prime Minister and Joel Fitzgibbon. The Prime Minister has not yet spoken to Joel Fitzgibbon. He needs to. He is the Prime Minister. This is a major issue. It needs to be resolved. The PM needs to pick up the phone.
GILLON:
Ok well just moving on there are reports today that the National Rental Affordability Scheme is going to be extended. Tanya Plibersek, this is obviously your area, what are the details?
PLIBERSEK:
Well today we’ll be making a final announcement of all of the organisations that will be providing the first round of 4000 National Rental Affordability Scheme rental properties. People started moving into these properties at the end of last year but of course some of them haven’t yet been built, we’re finalising those now and just on Friday we had preliminary results from the second round and I am very happy. I’ve been advised that about, we’ll have applications for about 20,000 additional properties through this second round of the National Rental Affordability Scheme. This of course is the scheme where people pay a minimum of 20% less than commercial rent than for a rental property, the person builds it, the not-for-profit housing organisation or the builder or developer who builds it gets a $6000 subsidy every year for ten years from the Commonwealth and $2000 every year for ten years from the State Government. And in return, as I say, they rent out the property at a discounted rate to people on low and medium incomes. I am very happy with how the scheme is going and the fact that we closed round two on Friday with up to another 20,000 properties coming makes me, I’m pretty pleased about that.
GILLON:
I bet. Senator Fifield do you and the Opposition support this measure? Is it something that you can see the worth in?
FIFIELD:
Well I hope this scheme is as good as the Government says it is and as good as they present it to be. My concern with the scheme is that it could be seen as a subsidy to developers. It’s up to $8000 to developers. There is an economic benefit which someone will pocket along the way I hope that the benefit actually goes to those who are renting these properties. The issue…
PLIBERSEK:
Sorry, do you have any suggestions for increasing the stock of affordable rental accommodation, other than this?
FIFIELD:
I’ll just continue, the issue which concerns me is how do you determine what the market rental is at one of these sites.
PLIBERSEK:
There is professionals, they’re called valuers and real estate agents…
GILLON:
We’ll let Senator Fifield finish and then you can respond to this in a second.
FIFIELD:
There are a lot of questions which need to be answered about this particular program. My concern as I say, is it a subsidy to developers? Who is pocketing the economic benefit? And is it a fair and accurate rental price which is being determined at these sites? Those things need to be answered.
GILLON:
Well the Housing Minister is here…
PLIBERSEK:
I can give you a few answers on that.
GILLON:
I would hope so.
PLIBERSEK:
Well the commercial rental is determined by professional valuers and real estate agents who’ve got a pretty good idea of what the commercial rate is. The second thing is the reason that we have decided to pay these benefits to get construction at the more affordable end of the rental market is because right across Australia we have vacancy rates in most capital cities around or below 2%. People are queuing out the door of rental properties at a Saturday morning, desperate to find a place to rent. This problem arose because of years of neglect in housing policy by the previous Government. It was absolutely vital that we took some measure to increase the stock of affordable rental stock. We’ve done that. The program in its early stages is proving to be very successful and it would be just terrific if the opposition, instead of looking around for ways of talking down these programs ever gave an alternative. If they believe they have a better alternative of course I am happy to hear it. Or just got on board and said isn’t it terrific that thousands of Australian families will have a few extra dollars in their hip-pocket because they will be paying discounted rent.
GILLON:
Well on another measure on the weekend you released figures about the First Home Owners Boost delivered as part of the stimulus package. If it has been so successful why won’t the Government commit to extending this program past June 30? Aren’t you risking a housing slump when that program finishes up?
PLIBERSEK:
Well there is two points about that. One of the reasons that the program, the First Home Owners Boost, has been successful is that people have brought forward their decision to purchase. So people who were thinking about buying in a year or two have brought forward that decision because this program has an end date. Economic stimulus measures should have an end date to work effectively. The second thing that is worth saying is that those 42,000 grants that have been paid already are for properties that have already exchanged, or new properties that people have moved into. People will be able to sign contracts up to the 30th of June and much of that building will actually take place after the 30th of June, so there won’t be a sudden ending of this program. The third thing I would say is that we have always said that if the global financial crisis is worse or deeper than we expect that if we need to take further measures in the construction sector, we stand ready to do so. This is an absolutely vital employer in Australia, about 9% of Australians work in construction or in related fields. So we are absolutely determined to ensure that we keep activity in this sector as strong as we can be.
GILLON:
Senator Fifield do you share any concerns about this scheme that have been raised by some industry experts that this scheme could be artificially inflating housing prices?
FIFIELD:
It is important to remember that the Coalition introduced the First Home Owners Grant in the first place, partly as a compensation measure for the GST. It was part of our new tax system. And the Australian Labor Party opposed all elements of our new tax system and the compensation arrangements including the First Home Owners Grant. So I am very pleased that Labor have now fully embraced the First Home Owners Grant. We supported the Government’s decision to extend the First Home Owners Grant in the current circumstances and there possibly is a case to be made for that extension to continue after its expiry.
GILLON:
Ok Mitch Fifield and Tanya Plibersek, we could keep this debate continuing for some time but we have run out of time unfortunately for this morning. Thank you both for joining us.
PLIBERSEK:
Great to talk to you Ashleigh, bye-bye Mitch.
FIFIELD:
Thanks Ashleigh, see you Tanya.
ENDS