Transcript – Sky News AM Agenda – 15 August 2011

Sky News – AM Agenda

Kieran Gilbert and Andrew Leigh MP

15 August 2011

8:35am

E & OE

KIERAN GILBERT:

With me on the program now is Liberal frontbencher Senator Mitch Fifield and Labor MP Andrew Leigh. Gentlemen, good morning to you both. Senator Fifield, first to you. The Opposition Leader this morning says he’s talking about prime agricultural land – that caveat was not made last week. He was saying flatly that farmers have the right to say no. He’s obviously seen it fit to clarify those comments.

MITCH FIFIELD:

Well I think Tony’s point always was concern about the preservation of prime agricultural land. The Coalition is strongly in favour of the coal seam gas industry. We’re strongly in favour of preserving prime agricultural land. But these are ultimately matters for the states. The states have responsibility for land title, the states have responsibility for access, the states have the ownership of mineral resources. So these matters are ultimately for the state governments.
 
GILBERT:

So Mr Abbott isn’t just a “rank political opportunist” as Martin Ferguson said – trying to please two groups of people at once?
 

FIFIELD:

Certainly not. Tony was flagging concern that there is in some states about the removal of prime agricultural land from production. I think that’s a relevant concern, it’s an appropriate one to articulate. What this debate is really about, that we’ve seen in the community, is seeking to balance prime agricultural land – that important interest – and also accessing and exploiting mineral resources. I also think it’s important that these issues are handled in a civil and constructive way. So between land holders and between those who are exploring, that there is courtesy. I think part of this actually comes down to good manners and courtesy.

GILBERT:

Andrew Leigh, that all sounds fairly reasonable from the Liberal Senator this morning.

ANDREW LEIGH:

It is all very reasonable, the trouble is it’s not what Tony Abbott was saying last week. Last week he was saying if you don’t want something to happen on your land, you ought to have the right to say no. And of course, this is a pattern we see constantly from Mr Abbott. He speaks only to hand-picked audiences, he’s very reluctant to take tough questions. On the weekend we saw him running away from journalists’ questions, literally. By contrast, we’ve got the Prime Minister out there, through a series of major reforms – health, aged care, national disability insurance scheme – willing to engage with broad audiences, willing to take the tough questions … 

GILBERT:

But on this issue, explain to us the contradiction between what Mr Abbott said last week and what Senator Fifield has said this morning.

LEIGH:

Well last week Mr Abbott made an unequivocal statement to Alan Jones. He said that if you don’t want something to happen on your land, you ought to have the right to say no. Today, he’s saying, no that’s not what I meant, really what I meant was that the miners ought to have stronger powers. What he wants when he’s speaking to farm audiences, he wants to make a message that is said to all the farmers. When he’s speaking to mining audiences, he’ll send a different message again. But Mr Abbott is walking away from any sort of semblance of policy. He’s attacking scientists, he’s attacking economists, he’s ending up on that real far radical fringe. I mean this is – you see the Tea Party coming to Australia. A Coalition colleague of Senator Fifield’s has actually called for an Australian Tea Party…
 

GILBERT:

Let’s hear Senator Fifield on this.

FIFIELD:

Well Andrew’s talking about being on the fringe of politics. It’s the Government that is in a formal governing alliance with the Australian Greens. So if we’re going to talk about fringe operations, we need to start there.

GILBERT:

But when we’re talking about that, on that Greens issue, Mr Abbott’s position as articulated last week on Sydney radio is more in line with what the Greens are saying on this – that farm land should be locked up.

FIFIELD:

I don’t think so. The Greens have never been a great friend of the Australian farmer. I don’t think that the Australian farmer is looking to the Greens on this issue.

GILBERT:

Should the farmer of prime agricultural land have veto over the right of the mining company to look for coal seam gas? This is the Private Members’ Bill that they’re looking to push.

FIFIELD:

Access to land is a function of two things – the title that the individual holds on their property, and the licence that’s issued by the state government. So the circumstances of access to land are governed by existing law, and it’s a matter for the state governments to determine which agricultural land should be licensed for exploration.

GILBERT:

What do you say to Andrew Leigh’s argument that Tony Abbott is simply putting messages out that will satisfy one audience, then clarifying them on another occasion? We did see him on the weekend not willing to elaborate before the journalists. Today he has seemingly put some nuance to those comments.

FIFIELD:

I don’t think anyone could ever doubt or question Tony Abbott’s support of the mining industry. We’re the ones who are fighting the mining tax, we’re the ones who are arguing on behalf of the mining sector. Tony was also saying that he thinks it’s important that prime agricultural land is protected. Now that’s a matter for the states – it’s for them to balance.

GILBERT:

Let’s look at a few other issues. There are a lot to get across as Parliament returns this week. I want to look at the broad budgetary situation at the moment. The Government seems to be softening the expectation, Andrew Leigh, on the return to surplus. Again yesterday, a number of Ministers were changing the language – that it’s the objective to return to surplus. It’s just a matter of commonsense, is it not, amid a faltering global economy, that you need to change the parameters of that commitment. It can’t be locked in stone. You’re an economist, you know that.

LEIGH:

Well Kieran, it’s important to start with the broad economic parameters that Australia is in. We have one of the lowest unemployment rates in the developed world – with an unemployment rate of 5%. Plenty of other countries have 7, 8, 9% in the US. We’ve got a debt level that’s around a tenth of most of the developed economies. So we’re in very strong economic circumstances. That’s largely thanks to the timely, targeted, temporary fiscal stimulus that Labor put in place during the global economic downturn. It’s true that some of these international events will affect Australia. That’s inevitable, even though we have a strong trading relationship with some countries like China, a lot of our trade goes to Asia, but invariably major international events will affect Australia. Our objective is certainly to return the budget to surplus.

GILBERT:

Objective – objective. You do need to be flexible, don’t you, given the uncertainty that exists internationally? It would be stupid not to be.

LEIGH:

Kieran we certainly expect to get the budget back into surplus next year. That’s what we’ve been very clear in stating.

FIFIELD:

That’s a stronger statement than your Treasurer.

LEIGH:

This is very clearly stated. And let’s remember what we’re talking about here. We have a whole lot of developed countries that have debt levels equal to their entire national GDP. Australia has a very small level of debt – the government debt is a small fraction of the typical household’s….

GILBERT:

That’s largely due to the savings undertaken by the Coalition Government, as I’m sure Senator Fifield will interject very quickly about.

LEIGH:

But Labor’s plan during the global financial crisis saved jobs. It was absolutely important to put in place….

GILBERT:

OK, we’ve had that debate…

LEIGH:

But it’s important context, Kieran. If you forget that we saved 200,000 jobs in the GFC, then you start having this silly debate over very small levels…

GILBERT:

OK, let’s look at the Liberal side of things now. There are numbers floating around, some enormous numbers floating around, Joe Hockey confirmed at the weekend that the running number was $70 billion in savings. Now, I suppose the flipside of the question put to Andrew Leigh can be put to you and your colleagues. In the context of an economy which is facing a global uncertainty, it might not necessarily be the time to be slashing tens of billions of dollars in public spending. Would you concede that?

FIFIELD:

It depends – if you assume that there’s absolutely no government waste and no mismanagement, then who knows…

GILBERT:

But as the Prime Minister said, Medicare spending over four years – it’s a lot of money.

FIFIELD:

Kieran, we have a range of commitments which we want to give effect to. And we also want to cut out government waste. So we are going to cut our cloth accordingly. Had we been in government, as I have said many times before, we would have had a very different starting point. There would not be the level of debt that there currently is. We would have faced a very different set of fiscal circumstances. But we have to deal with the cards that we’re dealt.

GILBERT:

But you can’t lock in figures like this, can you? You know the way the economy works as well – if it’s a sluggish time, it’s not the time to be pulling money out, is it?

FIFIELD:

Well you’ll have to wait and see when we release our costings before the next election. But the issue of the moment really is this Government running away at a million miles an hour from their commitment to get the budget into surplus by 2012-13. It was an absolute promise. No qualifications. No equivocations.

GILBERT:

Gents, I’ve got to interrupt, because we’ve got Tony Abbott’s doorstop has just come in.

[BREAK]

GILBERT:

Welcome back to AM Agenda, with me Andrew Leigh, Labor MP, and Liberal frontbencher Senator Mitch Fifield. Andrew Leigh, as you heard there, Tony Abbott was strong on a couple of points, including the balance when it comes to prime agricultural land. That’s a fair enough argument – something being articulated by Senator Fifield earlier. And also on workplace relations, saying they will have a policy well in time for the next election.

LEIGH:

Well Mr Abbott has clearly changed his position since last week. He was saying that farmers should have the right to say no. Now he’s saying they should be respected. Those are very different positions that Mr Abbott’s taken. One of the other things that struck me as interesting was too that Mr Abbott didn’t reject the call by John Alexander, the Member for Bennelong, to abolish penalty rates. Mr Alexander is a prominent Liberal Party backbencher, he wants penalty rates scrapped, and Mr Abbott seems open to the idea that you might do that. I think any Australian who’s earning penalty rates should be deeply concerned about the impact that would have on their living standard.

GILBERT:

Should he have knocked that on the head, do you think?

FIFIELD:

What we’ve said is that the important thing is productivity and the capacity of business to employ people. That should be the guiding principle in any consideration of workplace relations law. We will have a workplace relations policy before the next election. We have, however, said that we think that the government’s own review of the Fair Work Act should be brought forward so that we can see where things are working and where they’re not. And there’s a fair bit of anecdotal evidence from business that they are finding that particular aspects of it are difficult and a disincentive to employ people.

GILBERT:

OK, a couple of quick issues to finish on. John Kerin, former Labor Treasurer, has quit the ALP. He says factional players have got too much power. That’s concerning – one of these respected elder statesmen of the ALP leaving?

LEIGH:

Kieran, it’s up to him, but I would say that certainly no Labor Prime Minister has left the Party, unlike Malcolm Fraser who has quit the Liberal Party because in his view it’s become far too extreme, he’s concerned about the strong ideological polarisation of the Liberal Party, the move to the right, the move to this sort of Tea Party constant nay saying. And you see…

GILBERT:

But John Kerin says that good candidates are not being encouraged, in fact they’re being discouraged by factional players.

LEIGH:

Kieran I’m not in a faction. I’m certainly testament to the fact that non-factional people are welcomed in the Labor Party and elsewhere.

FIFIELD:

Congratulations!

LEIGH:

The Labor Party is focussed on ideas, we’re focussed on reforms – aged care, national disability insurance scheme, historical health agreement, all these things are very important for the living standards of Australians. And all Tony Abbott can do is go out and say no.

GILBERT:

Let’s look at one last issue we’ve got time for, and that is the disability insurance scheme that you referred to. Senator Fifield, this has been something you’ve been a strong advocate of for a long time. What’s the next step here? It’s obviously important to keep this disability insurance scheme front and centre of people’s minds.

FIFIELD:

Absolutely. The system is bust. The Productivity Commission has made that clear. I think the momentum for change is irresistible. There does need to be a new national arrangement for people with disabilities and their families. The next step is the COAG meeting. And I think it’s really important for people like Bill Shorten to stop having pot shots at the states. The states are critical to getting a new national deal up, and there needs to be cooperation between the Commonwealth and the states.

GILBERT:

Are you worried that comments from Colin Barnett of WA were lukewarm on this?

FIFIELD:

Colin Barnett said that there was some merit in a new national arrangement. He did express some concern about the capacity of the current Federal Government to deal with complex change. I think that’s an understandable concern. What we need is for there to be cooperation. There’s certainly goodwill on the part of the states.

GILBERT:

OK, Senator Fifield, Andrew Leigh, great to see you both. It’s a busy week ahead. And that’s all for AM Agenda. I’m Kieran Gilbert, I’ll see you next time.

ENDS