7 June, 2012
Capital Hill ABC24
With Lyndal Curtis and Senator David Feeney
7 June 2012
5.30pm
E & OE
Subjects: Border protection, the economy, childcare
LYNDAL CURTIS:
Joining me to discuss the day are two frontbenchers, Liberal Shadow Minister Mitch Fifield and Labor Parliamentary Secretary David Feeney. Welcome to you both. We’ll start first with the news from this afternoon. A press conference by the Australian Federal Police Commissioner Tony Negus, who said the alleged people smugglers identified by Four Corners had been under investigation but there’s not enough evidence that prevented one of the alleged ringleaders from leaving the country on Tuesday night.
TONY NEGUS (file footage):
The AFP investigation into this alleged syndicate has been active for around two years. The person referred to in the Four Corners program as ‘Captain Emad’ left Australia on Tuesday night. When leaving Australia, the man triggered a long-standing alert at Melbourne airport, and at that time there was an operation-decision made by investigators that he could not be detained as the officers had no lawful basis to prevent him from departing Australia. It’s one thing to paint them in a damning light in a television program, but having enough admissible evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law in this country is a different thing.
LYNDAL CURTIS:
Mitch, your leader Tony Abbott said on Tuesday “the obvious question which occurs is if the TV stations can find them, why can’t the government stop them?” Has Tony Negus effectively answered that, saying the police have been investigating but essentially, the evidentiary bar is higher for the police to arrest someone then it is for a TV station to make allegations?
MITCH FIFIELD:
What Tony Negus has done is to confirm that there have been sufficient grounds to warrant federal police investigations. That the federal police took these investigations so seriously that the individual in question was actually on a watch list which was triggered by his departure from Australia. Now Four Corners is a very credible program and it does serious investigative work. Clearly the federal police agree that there were questions which needed to be examined. But I think the bigger issue here is that when you have literally thousands of people coming on people smuggler boats, that increases the likelihood that people who may not be genuine refugees who may not be bona fide refugees can slip through the system. People who have nefarious intentions can slip through. That really is the bigger picture here. When you have a Government that has essentially lost control of the borders and thousands of people are coming through, there is a much greater risk that people who are not coming for the right reasons will get through.
LYNDAL CURTIS:
But in the end to make an arrest the police need evidence that will stand up in court, don’t they?
MITCH FIFIELD:
Of course they do, but what the Four Corners investigation raised is the possibility that people who may in fact be people smugglers themselves could be coming through amongst the thousands of people who are coming on people smuggler boats. That is something that is of great concern.
LYNDAL CURTIS:
David is that essentially the political problem for the government? That questions about the process of processing refugee claims are raised and that confidence in that process is diminished as a result of the allegations that have been aired by Four Corners?
DAVID FEENEY:
Well I think all of us can be reassured by the fact that the Australian Federal Police have indicated that these people were known to police, that the allegations made in Four Corners, one of the revelations by the Australian Federal Police as was described the investigations had been under way for two years. So, I think that speaks well for a lot of the Australian Federal Police and the work they do.
LYNDAL CURTIS:
But isn’t the question actually before that police process begins at the point of which people are assessed for refugee claims?
DAVID FEENEY:
Sure of course it does. There has been debate at various moments in time about how long ASIO checks take, and I think we maintain that that system needs to be very robust and continues to be something that the government will focus on.
LYNDAL CURTIS:
David, Tony Negus also felt the need to reassure not only the public but international partners such as Indonesia that Australia is serious about people smuggling. Australia needs to work with Indonesia to tackle this problem on a regional basis, is it a problem if they don’t think we’re serious about it?
DAVID FEENEY:
Yeah well I mean I think Indonesia is clearly a key partner for any effective solution combating people smuggling. We’ve focussed very much on our relationship with Indonesia and we’ve of course made the point more recently that the Liberal Party’s slogan “Stop the Boats” has obviously evoked a reaction from Indonesia because they understand just how meaningless and divisive that can be. We maintain our position, the Government’s position that a regional solution is the only way forward, which in fact we need to make amendments to the Australian laws in this space. Laws that were essentially upset by the High Court decision a little while ago, and so I guess we remain locked in an impasse where the opposition are not willing to assist the government and make these law changes.
LYNDAL CURTIS:
Mitch, do you accept that whatever is done by Australia, whichever party is in power, that in the end the solution to people smuggling has to be a regionally-based one?
MITCH FIFIELD:
Of course there needs to be regional involvement but that’s not the complete solution. Essential to any workable and effective solution is the Australian Government taking the decision to bring back Temporary Protection Visas and the Australian Government taking the decision to resume viable offshore processing, such as in Nauru, which we know worked. The reason that we’re in the situation with these thousands of people coming, courtesy of people smugglers, is because before the 2007 election, the Government vowed that they would dismantle our effective border protection regime, abolish Temporary Protection Visas, soften their rhetoric and end offshore processing. Now I’ve got to hand it to the Government. They broke many promises but this is one they actually fulfilled. They said they would dismantle the border protection regime and they did.
LYNDAL CURTIS:
We might move on now to the latest economic news. The unemployment figures for May showed the jobless rate rising to 5.1% with jobs growth of almost 39,000. Here’s the reaction from the Employment Minister.
BILL SHORTEN (file footage):
The results are well above market expectations and show that Australia continues to lead the world strongly in terms of jobs. Full-time employment lifted by 46,000 last month to over 8.1 million Australians, which is the highest number ever on record for Australians working full-time.
LYNDAL CURTIS:
Mitch, while the GDP figures yesterday were looking back to the three months to March, these figures look back at the month May. Doesn’t the employment growth tend to confirm what we saw with the GDP figures that the economy is actually growing?
MITCH FIFIELD:
More Australians in work is a good thing but what the unemployment figure indicated is that there are now more Australians who want work but can’t find work. You’ve got to look behind these numbers. You’ve got to look behind the GDP figures.
LYNDAL CURTIS:
But don’t people begin the search for work or take up the search for work again when they think there is a possibility of getting jobs? So it’s usually seen as a sign of a healthier economy.
MITCH FIFIELD:
It’s a good thing that Australians are keen to find work and that the participation rate is rising. That is a good thing, but there is still an issue of confidence business confidence and consumer confidence. I know Wayne Swan yesterday was jumping up citing the GDP figures as a “stunning” set of numbers, but if you talk to manufacturers in the south east of Melbourne, or if you talk to people who run businesses in the hospitality and tourism sectors, they don’t share the same degree of optimism that you might see in the resources states. But this Government’s got a solution for that. They want to bring the resource states down to the level of the rest of Australia. They want to impose a mining tax. They want to impose a carbon tax. Yes it is good that there are some flickers of positive news in the Australian economy, but this Government actually has a policy to make sure that we don’t see more of those flickers: the carbon tax and the mining tax. The biggest issue behind the lack of consumer confidence and business confidence is the fact that Australians no longer trust this Government to make the right calls when we face external shocks. They made the wrong calls in the Global Financial Crisis, and Australians don’t have confidence that if we do have further external shocks, that this Government will make the right calls.
LYNDAL CURTIS:
David, while we’re seeing the evidence from the figures that the economy is growing strongly, that the jobs particularly full-time jobs are growing, confidence is an important factor to keep that growth growing?
DAVID FEENEY:
Well it is, and this is why it’s always so disheartening to see the Liberal Party leave no stone unturned in their search for bad news. I mean while the rest of the developed world has shed 25 million jobs, there are now 800,000 new jobs as the Global Financial Crisis hits the Australian economy. The reason, as you say participation is going up, is that people are feeling confident about the economy and going back into the workforce. We now have GDP growth figures which are quite literally the envy of the world. Now Mitch alluded to the fact that we have a two-speed economy and of course we do, but let’s remember the fundamentals here. While the rest of the global economy is looking fragile in places, our numbers and our growth and confidence in the economy continues to be very strong. I think the Liberal Party really need to start thinking about whether their language and their determination to talk down the Australian economy is in fact becoming counterproductive, not just for the national interest, but indeed to their own
LYNDAL CURTIS:
But people still seem to be feeling cost of living pressures and that’s something that the Government seems to have been wanting to actively address, particularly before the carbon price comes in. The Prime Minister held a meeting today and is looking at the pressure on childcare costs. But should you be wary of raising hopes that you can fix a problem at the same time as you want to raise standards and raise pay rates for childcare workers?
DAVID FEENEY:
Well I think the Prime Minister was very careful today about how she calibrated her message. Of course we can point to the fact that the rebate under Labor, the childcare rebate, has grown from 30 percent to 50 percent. That’s a real tangible improvement for the people, but we are now in a process of listening to communities, listening to solutions and not raising expectations
LYNDAL CURTIS:
But aren’t you raising hopes that the Government will eventually do something about it?
DAVID FEENEY:
Yes but we’re not talking about raising expectations to the point that the Government is going to start directly funding solutions when if fact we’re going to look for market solutions, whether there are other tiers of government that can play an expanded role here as well.
LYNDAL CURTIS:
Mitch, it’s easy to make an argument about higher costs of living pressures and the need to tackle them. On the issue of childcare, is there an easy solution?
MITCH FIFIELD:
I’m sure there are solutions but this Government certainly hasn’t found them. Since the last election the increase in the cost of childcare has been about 17 percent. The Prime Minister has admitted that her own quality framework has led to an increase in the cost of childcare. She does need to look at that quality framework to see if it can be implemented in a way that doesn’t exacerbate the cost of childcare quite so much. The Opposition are keen to have a Productivity Commission inquiry into the childcare industry and childcare costs. We think it’s important to look at all the options. The Prime Minister had a meeting today that’s nice. We don’t want to see the Prime Minister looking at this on a piecemeal basis. What we need is a good, serious review of the sector.
LYNDAL CURTIS:
But a childcare system where the quality is high and the staff are well paid does come at a cost, doesn’t it?
MITCH FIFIELD:
There is a cost, and the Government should have been aware of what the impact on the cost of childcare would have been as a result of those changes. The Prime Minister said that the costs are “modest”. I think parents with kids at childcare centres would beg to differ.
LYNDAL CURTIS:
One final point David.
DAVID FEENEY:
Well this is not an opposition that’s about to make any announcements or make any difficult choices. Once again, rather than a policy they are promising another review.
LYNDAL CURTIS
We’ll have to leave it; we’ve run out of time. Mitch Fifield and David Feeney, thank you very much for your time today.