Transcript of
Senator Mitch Fifield
Shadow Parliamentary Secretary
for Disabilities, Carers and the Voluntary Sector
Sky News AM Agenda
Kieran Gilbert and Bob McMullan
18 May 2009
8:30am
EO & E
Subjects: Neilson poll, budget, Fremantle by-election, alcopops tax, cigarette excise, ministerial travel
KIERAN GILBERT:
Good morning and welcome to AM Agenda. Has the gloss finally worn off the Rudd Government? The latest AC Neilson poll has the Government’s two party vote down 5% in the last couple of months. Coming up on AM Agenda I’m going to be speaking to John Stirton who is the polster at Neilson. First though on AM Agenda it is a very good morning to our Monday morning panel. Senator Mitch Fifield, the Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Carers in Melbourne. Good morning Mitch.
MITCH FIFIELD:
Good morning Kieran.
GILBERT:
And with me here in Canberra is the Parliamentary Secretary for International Development Assistance Bob McMullan. Good to see you Bob.
BOB MCMULLAN:
Thanks Kieran.
GILBERT:
The polling numbers show the Government’s primary numbers down 3 points, the Coalition up 6. Is the honeymoon the long honeymoon finally over?
MCMULLAN:
Oh look you can’t focus on any one poll on any one day, they go up and down. You’ve got to keep an eye on the horizon, you’ve got to keep your eye on the long term and have faith that good government will receive its reward. If you worry about the poll this week, and there will be another one next week, and there will probably be another one tomorrow, you just get yourself in a lather and a focus on the short term. You’ve got to focus on the long term.
GILBERT:
Yes that’s true I suppose, but does this reflect, 18 months in to the government that you now, that this is politics back to normal. A senior Liberal said to me the other day after the budget, you now own the crisis and you own the response to it, whereas before you could point to the international events as the reason for it all.
MCMULLAN:
No I don’t think so. You never underestimate the Australian people, they are not stupid, they know this is an international recession, they see every day that Australia is doing better than any other developed country in the world. So they are not going to be ignorant of that fact whenever they make their judgements. So you don’t underestimate the people and you don’t want to put too much store in any one poll. I mean Nielson is a really good efficient polling company, I have a high regard for them, but they are a polling company, they take samples, it is not a universal assessment like a ballot. So you assume from time to time that samples are wrong as well as sometimes they are right. So you don’t want to get too carried away with any one poll.
GILBERT:
Senator Fifield, Tony Wright in the Age newspaper in your home town in Melbourne said today that the Opposition leader could be justified in cracking a little piccolo of champagne but only to have a whiff of it, not to taste it because, essentially the point is not to get too carried away.
FIFIELD:
I think all corks are staying firmly in place. But what this poll does show is that spin can only take a government so far. The public see through spin. They see through the lines the government puts out. Clearly the Australian people don’t like their future being mortgaged, and they don’t like a government that fibs to them. This is a government that has told lies. This government promised at the last election that they wouldn’t touch the private health insurance rebate. They are taking an axe to that. There are a range of other election commitments which the government has broken and I think the Australian public are now starting to see the Rudd Government for what it is. An operation that spins and spins. And I think that what the public expects is a government that governs.
GILBERT:
Will this consolidate the Turnbull leadership, do you think? Will it consolidate his grip on the leadership? It hasn’t translated to his personal rating, Senator Fifield. But the fact that the Coalition has got some sort of bounce in this poll, will it give your colleagues a bit of a morale boost and therefore help Mr Turnbull consolidate his grip on the leadership?
FIFIELD:
Well look our leadership isn’t under question. We are keeping the focus squarely on the Labor Party, we’re keeping the focus squarely on Kevin Rudd’s leadership. That he is someone that breaks his word.
GILBERT:
Is it a morale boost though? Is it a morale boost? You haven’t been going well, at all, finally a glimmer of hope.
FIFIELD:
Well obviously we prefer the polls to be trending up rather than down for us. It’s been a while since we’ve had a reasonable poll. But what this really tells us is that the Australian people are seeing through the Rudd Government, that they don’t like being fibbed to. They expect governments to honour their election commitments. And this government isn’t.
GILBERT:
Bob McMullan does this scotch talk of an early election?
MCMULLAN:
Well nobody wants an early election and I don’t think this changes it either way. We’ve been elected for three years. It was very hard task getting elected for three years, the last thing we want to do is say lets only use half of it and have another go. So we don’t want an early election and if the indication is that our budget measures are going to pass, including alcopops now from what Mr Turnbull said yesterday, well that’s what we want. We want to govern for the three years for which we were elected, I don’t think this poll changes anything, it is simply one of those short term variations that you see, we’ll look at the long term trend, we’ll keep our eye on the good government of the country and expect that the Australian people will reward good government when they get asked to do so.
GILBERT:
On the Prime Minister’s own rating though. Its 74% down to, now down to 64%, is this more realistic, do you think that sort of number 74% was extraordinarily high and he was able to maintain that for a long time but he’s been brought back to the field a bit.
MCMULLAN:
Well if 64% is where he finishes he will be a very lucky Prime Minister, this is extraordinarily high rating and it shows a great deal of support for Kevin as Prime Minsiter. He deserves it, he is working hard at it, he is making hard decisions he is leading domestically and playing a very good role for Australia internationally, he deserves the support he is getting.
GILBERT:
But the gloss is coming off a bit?
MCMULLAN:
Well I’m not sure whether he is 64 or 74, it will take a while to judge but they’re both very good numbers for any leader. John Howard very rarely got there, Malcolm Turnbull would die to be there.
GILBERT:
Mitch Fifield the poll shows that the majority of people were satisfied with the budget 62% satisfied with the budget, 56% thought it was fair. Overall, that isn’t too bad is it? If you are going to deliver a budget, one that they say was going to be tough, that sort of number is pretty good isn’t it 62% satisfied?
FIFIELD:
Yeah but there was still a very sizeable whack of the Australian public who were dissatisfied with the budget and they have got good reason to be dissatisfied. This is a budget which brings in a $58 billion deficit. And we are on track to have $188 billion of government debt. Now this government says that the debt and the deficit is all the fault of the global financial situation, and it’s all the fault, bizarrely, somehow of the previous government. But two-thirds of that $188 billion debt is as a direct result of policy decisions of this government. And I think the public see through the rhetoric of this government. They know what it is that’s taking us into hock, what is mortgaging our future are decisions by this government. And I think you are seeing that reflected in a significant dissatisfaction figure for this budget and in the overall poll numbers.
MCMULLAN:
Mitch your argument is our debt is too high, but you advocate it being exactly the same. You said we didn’t do enough about it, but as soon as we do something about it you vote against it. The problem Mitch, for you is that you’ve got a position that’s trying to say we are against debt and deficit but your policy is we actually support the same number you do. Now you can’t have it both ways.
FIFIELD:
Not at all. Not at all. And Bob I am happy to enlighten you. Our starting position, in this budget, had we been in government, would have been very, very different. Obviously…
MCMULLAN:
No your starting position would have been exactly the same. It’s set by external factors.
FIFIELD:
Not at all. If we had been delivering this budget, clearly we would have been in office for the last 18 months, which means we would have managed the economy differently, we would have managed the budget differently. We wouldn’t have trash talked the Australian economy in 2008. We wouldn’t have killed business and consumer confidence in 2008, well ahead of starting to feel the effects of the global financial situation.
MCMULLAN:
You wish.
FIFIELD:
What this government did was slowed growth in Australia ahead of when it would have happened as a result of external factors. So going in to this budget, had we been in office, we would have had a different set of revenue figures, expenditure would have been different, the growth numbers would have been different. So we would have had a very different starting point. The logic of the government’s position is essentially: if you had been managing the economy as badly as we had, if you’d been managing the budget as badly as we had over the last 18 months would you be doing what we are doing now? Well the answer is we wouldn’t have managed things the same way over the last 18 months.
MCMULLAN:
That is possibly the most convoluted explanation of a non-position that I have ever heard. The rest of the world judges that the Rudd Government’s management of the economy has been very solid. We get ticks from the IMF, we get ticks from the OECD, they say we are doing better than any other country and that we are going to come out of the recession better than any other country. Now if that convoluted explanation is the best you can come up with no wonder your approval ratings are where they are.
FIFIELD:
It’s not convoluted at all. We would have had a different starting point because we would have been managing the economy for the last 18 months, we would have taken different decisions to you.
GILBERT:
Ok well look we have been discussing a bit of the opinion polling today, politicians always say there is only one poll that counts. Yesterday over the weekend we did see a poll that counted, that being a by-election in the state seat in WA of Fremantle. It’s a Labor, it’s a Labor hold for decades and decades, a strong Labor area you know, you grew up in Perth.
MCMULLAN:
Yeah I know it very well.
GILBERT:
You know it well. Is this a sign that the greens are now moving into that sort of territory in the lower house, that they can get the numbers they need to win lower house seats and does it pose a potential threat for seats like Sydney and Melbourne and Grayndler? Those inner-city seats where the Greens traditionally do better.
MCMULLAN:
Lets just remember that people said exactly the same thing when the Greens won Cunningham in a by-election, and they lost it at the general election and we’ve held it safely ever since. I know the area of Fremantle and I know the local issue that was electrifying the area and the greens took a stand on that local issue against a decision the previous Labor Government had made. So nobody ever likes losing a seat, and particularly not Fremantle which we have held for a long time.
GILBERT:
You don’t think we should read anything further into that about the Greens making inroads more generally?
MCMULLAN:
What we should read into it is no seat is safe forever, for anybody, and we all have to be sensitive to the concerns of the voters. That is a perfectly reasonable thing in a democracy. But as a portent of long term trend no I don’t think so, it’s just a one off like Cunningham, and it shows if parties get complacent us or the conservatives you can lose your seat to independents or greens or someone else, even in your safer seats.
GILBERT:
Senator Fifield any thoughts on that win for the Greens on the weekend in WA?
FIFIELD:
Well Labor have been losing support from their left flank for a number of years. We have seen it in the Senate, with the increase in the number of Greens, and we’re now seeing it in seats such as Fremantle. I think one of the issues is that people are attracted to a party of conviction. Now I happen to disagree with the Greens convictions, but they have much clearer positions on a range of issues than the Labor Party do. So I can understand if you are on the left of politics that you might be attracted to the Greens because they at least have a much clearer position on a range of issues. I think the difficulty for Labor is, in trying to appeal to the Greens in these inner city seats in Perth, in Melbourne and Sydney. If they do that then they do run the risk of alienating their support in outer-suburban seats. So I think Labor are in a very difficult situation with their inner city seats and we’ll probably see, over time, those seats falling to the Greens and becoming Green seats rather than Labor seats.
GILBERT:
Stay with us after the break on AM Agenda. We are going to look at the ongoing policy debate in the wake of the budget.
BREAK
GILBERT:
Welcome back to AM Agenda and here with me in the Canberra studio is the Parliamentary Secretary for
International Development Assistance Bob McMullan, thanks for being here Bob. And in Melbourne I’ve got Mitch Fifield the Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Carers. And Mitch I want to ask you about the issue of alocpops, the alcopops act and it looks like now the Coalition is going to let this one through after expressing so much opposition to it, you are going to allow this one through.
FIFIELD:
Well we’ll take a look at the legislation when it comes back into the Senate, and we’ll look at it in the context of the current budgetary environment, as you would expect us to.
GILBERT:
Well let’s here what your leader had to say yesterday, he was on the Nine network. Lets recap what Mr Turnbull had to say on the issue of alcopops.
OPPOSITION LEADER MALCOLM TURNBULL:
We will definitely look at it again in the context of what they present us with, we haven’t seen their new bill, and also we’ve got to take into account the budgetary environment has changed. I mean last year the budget was solidly in surplus. This year we have a record deficit, a deficit so large, so shameful that the Treasurer wasn’t even prepared to mention it in his speech.
GILBERT:
Bob McMullan it sounds like you will, after all, be getting this one, this revenue measure through. You’d be pleased about that, I think its one and a half billion dollars over four years.
MCMULLAN:
Yes I think it will pass. I predicted last week that this is exactly what the Opposition would say after the budget, they’d say the circumstances are different, we are going to vote for it now. I told my colleagues that is what would happen, I’m pleased to see at least one of my predictions have come through, bad luck about some of my other, my sporting predictions, but at least I got my political prediction right.
GILBERT:
Well it’s fair enough isn’t it, they make a fair point, what Mr Turnbull says
MCMULLAN:
Well it’s fair enough to vote for it now, but it was also fair enough to vote for it 12 months ago, but we’ll be grateful for the support, we need the support to pass it
GILBERT:
But things have changed, so
MCMULLAN:
Yeah so things have changed in two ways. One is they are now advocating a tobacco tax because it has health benefits, well if you say that a tobacco tax can have health benefits, you have to live with the logic of your argument that an alcohol tax can have the same effect. So we welcome the support, it’s a measure worthy of support and when it passes it will be a good thing for the nation and for the budget bottom line.
GILBERT:
They don’t want to give you a trigger for a double dissolution as well do they?
MCMULLAN:
That could be part of it.
GILBERT:
Because I mean the polling is a bit better but do you think that is it, they don’t want you to have a trigger for a double-d in the back pocket?
MCMULLAN:
Well history suggests that people do tend to pass measures when they think it is in their political interest. But I don’t know all their reasons I’m just pleased they are doing it, it is overdue but welcome.
GILBERT:
Is that part of it, Senator Fifield, the fact that you did want to give the government a trigger for a double dissolution?
FIFIELD:
No we don’t view legislation on the basis of whether or not it gives the government a trigger for a double dissolution. We look at legislation on its merits. That’s what we did with the alcopops tax in the first instance. Labor presented it as a health measure. It wasn’t a health measure. It was an effort to raise revenue and that remains the case. It is not a health measure. But I go back to Bob’s logic before, Bob saying that if we support an increase in tobacco excise we should support an increase in alcopops tax. Surely that logic goes the other way around from the government’s point of view. If they think the alcopops legislation should be supported then surely they would think the tobacco excise increase should be supported.
GILBERT:
Well it sounds like they might be doing just that Mitch Fifield. Let’s hear what the Health Minister Nicola Roxon had to say about the proposal for an increase in the tobacco excise. She said this yesterday.
HEALTH MINISTER NICOLA ROXON:
I certainly agree that tax measures can have a health impact, and that is what I have been arguing for over 12 months with the alcopops tax. I think that of course that can apply to tobacco, we’ve seen in terms of history Australia has done successfully on that.
If he votes for the alcopops tax and changes his mind, then lets sit down and have a discussion. But until he does that we can’t take him seriously.
GILBERT:
Nicola Roxon there, the Health Minister. She was talking to Helen Dally on the Sky News Sunday Agenda program yesterday. Bob it sounds like your Health Minister is flagging a move in this direction, it fits in with the message on preventative health measures.
MCMULLAN:
Well history tells us that price is a factor in reducing tobacco consumption. We’ll wait for the Henry review on tax, you don’t want to look at one measure in isolation. But the idea that if we put up a tobacco tax it might reduce consumption is correct. It’s one of the reasons, so there is some merit in the proposal, for the same argument that says it won’t do the job that Malcolm Turnbull says it should do in terms of closing the gap in revenue on the budget from the private health insurance rebate. The Financial Review story this morning makes it very clear because the measure will cause a decline in consumption, revenue from it will fall over the years, whereas revenue from the private health insurance rebate measures that we have taken will rise. So the long term of the Turnbull measure will not fill the gap that getting the private health insurance changes will do. That’s a flaw in his logic. But his tobacco tax proposal is worthy of consideration.
GILBERT:
Did you get those numbers wrong, Senator Fifield? In terms of the, proposing the tobacco tax to make up for those, to means testing the health rebate, but you haven’t really, according to the Treasury numbers, go the forecast right.
FIFIELD:
I haven’t seen the Treasury work on this. And as we know, Treasury forecasts aren’t necessarily the most reliable thing in all cases. It strikes me as quite amazing that the government doesn’t bat an eyelid at a $58 billion deficit, they don’t bat an eyelid at a $188 billion debt. But they get incredibly excited about a minor costings issue at the margins. We have put forward a sensible proposal to cover the cost of keeping the private health insurance rebate, which we shouldn’t forget was actually a Labor party election commitment, to keep the private health insurance rebate. But Labor are pretty confused themselves over the issue of supporting an increase in the tobacco excise. We had Lindsay Tanner yesterday saying he thought increasing the tobacco excise was a bad idea. We had Nicola Roxon saying yesterday she thought it was a good idea. And then we had Nicola this morning, on Fran Kelly on Radio National saying she still thought it was a good idea but that she wasn’t going to entertain it because it was being put forward by Malcolm Turnbull. I think we have got to get back to the nub of this issue and that is a broken election commitment by the Australian Labor Party. They put their hand on their heart, they swore they would not touch the private health insurance rebate at all. They got quite indignant at the last election when anyone suggested that perhaps they weren’t to be believed. Well now we know they are not to be believed, they hate private health insurance. They are using the current situation as an excuse to take an axe to it. They should honour their election commitment.
GILBERT:
We saw reports on the weekend this is on just one final issue reports in the Sunday newspapers that government ministers had spent close to $2 million in seven weeks last winter break to be on various trips around the world. The Opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull lead the charge on the Nine network. Let’s hear what he had to say in his criticism.
OPPOSITION LEADER MALCOLM TURNBULL:
Well it is interesting that the government chose to reveal all of this travel on the day of the budget when it wouldn’t be noticed. So they are clearly ashamed of it, they let it out on a day when it would be overwhelmed by other events.
GILBERT:
The Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner commented on this issue yesterday. Let’s hear what the government retort was.
FINANCE MINISTER LINDSAY TANNER:
We certainly don’t. All these trips are necessary for things like climate change discussions, the global financial crisis. These are all reasons why Ministers have to travel and one of the reasons why it happens during this time is it’s one of the few times of the year where you get an extended break from Parliamentary sittings, and it is not the budget preparation break that has of course just preceded the budget when you actually do have a genuine opportunity to visit countries and to engage in these serious discussions.
GILBERT:
Lindsay Tanner on the Ten network yesterday. Bob McMullan $2 million in seven weeks is a fair old clip though, isn’t it?
MCMULLAN:
Well it’s pretty standard. There are demands on government to represent Australia internationally. Opposition members have to travel as well to keep up to date with what is happening globally but government members in particular. There are international conferences, are people saying Australia should send a cardboard cut out and a tape recorder? I mean we have to be there, involved in the negotiations, protecting Australia’s interests. The world is getting smaller. More and more issues are taking on an international flavour and people have to represent Australia at them.
GILBERT:
Mitch Fifield we are almost out of time but a quick response from you on this issue.
FIFIELD:
Look Labor were out of office for eleven and a half years and it looks like a lot of ministers broke a hamstring in getting down to the airport at the first break in the Parliamentary sitting so they could go overseas. What really smells here is the fact that this information was released on budget day. It shows that there are some ministers who have a bit of a guilty conscience about their travel.
GILBERT:
Ok Senator Fifield good to see you as always. And Bob McMullan Parliamentary Secretary thanks for joining us this morning, good to see you.
ENDS