19 April, 2012
E&OE…………………………………………………………………………………….
QUESTION:
Mr Abbott, you’ve stressed you don’t want to play politics with this but you did say that you would support funding in the Budget for the next stage as set down by the Productivity Commission. We do know that the Government is going to bring forward the trials from 2014 to 2013. Are you giving yourself a let out there or would you support that and secondly, would you be willing to actively lobby your state Premier colleagues to get them to support the scheme and put aside politics for this cause?
TONY ABBOTT:
Ok, Michelle. Look, fair questions and I’ll make a few points in response. First of all, I think it is important to stick to the Productivity Commission’s timetable. I think it would be a mistake to rush things forward. The Productivity Commission has given this an enormous amount of thought and analysis and the Productivity Commission does not underestimate just how complex a change this is. It is a very big change. It is a very complex change. It has got to be worked through with existing stakeholders of whom the states are the most significant, and it’s got to be, most importantly, worked through with the sector and with carers and people with disabilities, because they are the ones who will be living under the new system and it is more important to get it right than to rush it. It is more important to follow the Productivity Commission’s timetable than it is to follow an election timetable in this instance. That’s the first point I make.
The second point I make is that, look, I think the states fully support this in principle. I think they are concerned about just what might happen in practice if they are not fully engaged. We don’t want policy unilateralism here and Commonwealth governments of all persuasions have a tendency to policy unilateralism. I dare say when I was a Minister I was occasionally guilty of it myself and we don’t want unilateralism here; we want collegiality, we want consultation, we want this to go forward as something with the backing of the whole nation. We want this to be the property of the whole nation.
We want this to be a reform that lasts; that is a genuinely historic change, not something which is a political football. Latika?
QUESTION:
Mr Abbott, at the Press Club not that long ago you described an NDIS as an aspirational policy only. What has changed and can you start putting some parameters around what you define as a strong surplus and what Joe Hockey would describe as a significant surplus, because you still seem to be suggesting that NDIS could only be funded then?
TONY ABBOTT:
Well, I’ve always thought it was a very important national goal and what I’ve done today is talk about some practical steps that would have the strong support and the full involvement of the Coalition that can take it beyond being a goal and make it a reality. Now the Productivity Commission has said that this should be funded out of the ordinary revenue of government and I very much agree with the Productivity Commission on that. If we have good economic management without external shocks over the next seven or eight years, which is the timetable that the Productivity Commission envisages, the budget should be in strong surplus – no doubt about that. Now, the government’s own projections suggest that by 2020 there will be a surplus of some $24 billion in present terms, that’s about 1.5 percent of GDP. By any language that would be a strong surplus. The Howard Government was in strong surplus for most of its term and about 1 percent of GDP was the rough and ready definition that we used as a strong surplus in that time.
QUESTION:
Just on your bipartisan approach to this, the day you finished the Pollie Pedal you did a doorstop outside the Reps entrance and you said then it was a good idea, that its time as come, but you said only a Coalition government will be able to deliver this, the kind of strong surpluses to pay for an NDIS and only a Coalition government I believe will be able to put a major reform like this in this place. Now, that was a very partisan sort of approach 10 days ago. Have you had an epiphany in between, or…?
TONY ABBOTT:
Look, I was exhausted and emotional as you can imagine on the last day of Pollie Pedal. Look, if I can sort of step back from the company of Carers Australia for a moment and metaphorically become a standard politician for a moment, I do think just as a matter of practical politics, that the Coalition is better at delivering surpluses than the Labor Party and I think the historical record eminently justifies that claim. But for this to work, it does have to be something which has the strong support of both sides. It will be better implemented, it will be more accepted, the community will be more involved if it is something that goes forward on a bipartisan basis and that’s why I think this Joint Select Committee, co-chaired by the relevant disabilities frontbenchers, is the best way to ensure that we maintain strong bipartisan support for this throughout the lengthy period that will be needed to get it from the beginning to the full flowering of the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Laura?
QUESTION:
Just on the new flowering of collegiality, I understand what you’re saying about the Productivity Commission’s timeline – there’s give and take in all these things and we haven’t seen what the federal government is actually going to announce in the budget – but say they say to you we understand what the timeline is, but we actually think that there will be experience gained by running a few trial sites which might help inform the process. Have you got room for some flexibility on that?
TONY ABBOTT:
Well, if they were to come up with something like that I would look at it in a spirit of goodwill, but I would caution them against being too immediately ambitious for this. Again – and I say this not trying to make a party political point, but just as a statement of observed reality – we have seen in recent times and going back examples of federal government programmes that don’t work because they’re pushed through too quickly without as much consultation with people who are actually experienced in these matters as would have prevented many of those problems. So, look, let’s see what they come up with and see whether we think that those sorts of pitfalls can be avoided. I mean, the fundamental point I’m trying to make here is that this is an objective on which we all enthusiastically agree. The Productivity Commission is a body that is almost universally respected. They’ve given it a great deal of thought and they’ve given us a very well argued blueprint for the future and I think as far as is possible, we would be well advised to stick to that blueprint.
QUESTION:
On the Select Committee idea, have you written to Labor to get that through and have you received any response at all?
TONY ABBOTT:
Look, the Prime Minister has had a lot on her plate over the last couple of days so I haven’t been pestering her with phone calls, but there is a letter that’s on the way to her now and I will obviously seek to speak with her when she has time.
QUESTION:
What would the committee’s first work be, do you think? What would it do?
TONY ABBOTT:
Well, I think the first thing the committee would want to do is to ensure itself that the relevant consultations were taking place; that the work with the states, with the sector, with people with disabilities was progressing. Look, I know from experience in government that it’s very easy to come up with a proposal and you think you’ve thought of everything, you think you’ve dotted the Is and crossed the Ts, but then you start doing it and you discover that that’s not how the world really works and if you’d spent more time talking to the people who do know how the world really works, you could have avoided some of these things. I’m not saying that we can wait for universal agreement on everything – nothing tough normally can proceed wholly by consensus – but I think we can avoid a lot of difficulties if we try to take people fully into our confidence rather than saying we know everything or one side of politics knows everything and it’s got to happen in accordance with our unilateral, imperial will. I don’t think that’s a good way to proceed on something like this.
QUESTION:
Mr Abbott, if you became Prime Minister, would you commit to keeping a bipartisan approach and keeping a Labor opposition involved in a Coalition Government’s development of the scheme?
TONY ABBOTT:
Well, yes I would, Michelle because, as I said, I don’t want this to be something which is, you know, established by one side, radically changed by another side, then radically changed by yet a further term of government. It’s something that as far as is humanly possible we should try to get as right as we can and as agreed as we can. Now, that’s not to say that the scheme as it unfolds should never be changed – because everything under the sun is, in a sense, a work in progress – but the more we can anticipate, the more we can agree on the better and given the universal goodwill, the universal desire to do something significant here, I think this is practically the best way forward.
QUESTION:
Can I just interrupt, the Greens have just put out a press release saying Bob Brown has resigned as leader of the Greens and is going to be leaving the Senate in June….
TONY ABBOTT:
Why don’t we deal with NDIS issues, Phil, and then we’ll come back and I’ll excuse Ara and Carers Australia and then we’ll deal with other issues. Any other NDIS questions? Mitch, would you like to add something?
SENATOR MITCH FIFIELD:
Sure, thanks. Just a couple of points, Tony. There are two profound changes which an NDIS would bring in. The first is that an NDIS would see proper support for people with disabilities become what it should be, which is core government business. The other profound change an NDIS would introduce is that it would place people with disabilities and their families at the centre and in charge of their own lives. I have very much in this portfolio sought to bring a non-partisan approach, not because I shy from constructively critiquing the Government, but because people with disabilities and their families have a very low threshold for partisan point-scoring for the simple reason that they just want things fixed. I want to see things fixed. Tony wants to see things fixed. The Productivity Commission has provided a road map for that to happen and we should get on with it.