Sky News AM Agenda
With Kieran Gilbert and Andrew Leigh MP
30 June 2014
8:45am
E & OE
Subjects: RET, McClure report, payments, aged care changes
?
GILBERT:
Joining me now on the program is Assistant Social Services Minister Mitch Fifield and Shadow Assistant Treasurer Mitch Fifield. Good morning to you both. Mitch Fifield first to you, 25 of your colleagues, backbench members of your Government speaking out against the Renewable Energy Target, are saying it should be scaled back and aluminium should be excluded from it, the aluminium industry. This is much more than a ginger group as Graham Richardson pointed out there, this is well half your backbench in the lower house of the Parliament.
MITCH FIFIELD:
Kieran it’s a great thing that colleagues in the party room take a great and serious interest in policy. I think it’s well known that there is a report on the RET that is coming to Government. We’ll receive that, we’ll consider its recommendations. But I think it’s a good thing when colleagues seek to make a contribution to public policy debate.
GILBERT:
But if you look at what they’re arguing its basically in direct contradiction of what your colleague Greg Hunt has supported as recently as a couple of days ago saying that this is an important and working response to climate change that being the Renewable Energy Target as is stands right now.
FIFIELD:
Look I don’t think those colleagues are at all at odds with Greg Hunt. They’ve simply made a suggestion in relation to altering it, so I don’t think that there’s a contradiction at all. As I say I think it’s a good thing that colleagues take an interest in policy debate, that they want to put their views forward. We’re not a Stalinist sort of operation like the ALP, whereas as soon as anyone expresses a view they’re stomped on. It’s a good thing; it’s a sign that our Party Room is very healthy.
GILBERT:
Okay Andrew Leigh what do you say in response to that? Because it’s certainly a healthy discussion they’re having?
LEIGH:
Well I certainly welcome conversations within the Liberal Party Kieran. But it does trouble me that in an environment in which we know that the renewable energy target is reducing power bills. In which millions of Australians now live or work under roofs with solar panels that people want get rid of the renewable energy target. Let’s face it, it’s already being reviewed by a person that is a climate sceptic. And we have a Prime Minister, who thinks that climate change is absolute crap, despite the fact that we’ve got climate records being broken across the board, hottest summer on record, hottest winter on record, hottest year on record. I mean how much more evidence of climate change do these people want? And how much more evidence that our policies are working do these people want? Than the fact that we’ve just had the biggest one year drop in emissions in a quarter of a century.
GILBERT:
This is not saying the policy should be scrapped, but that it should be reined in when it applies to the aluminium industry which these MPs argue is adversely affecting that industry. What do you say to that specific economic argument that they’re making?
LEIGH:
Well the basic principle of economics Kieran is that taxes and charges should apply across the board and that the more you try and carve out exemptions for particular sections, the more you increase the impact on other sectors. Scrapping or scaling back the RET would drive up power prices, we know that already and so this is a very strange call being made by the next generation of Liberal Party leaders.
GILBERT:
Senator Fifield I want to turn our attention now to this interim report released by the Government yesterday on the welfare system. This is your area of responsibility as well when it comes to those with disabilities, I want you to respond to the concerns of those who are currently on the DSP, the Disability Support Pension what do you say to those who are uncertain this morning about whether they are going to remain. This is obviously going to create a great deal of concern for many Australians and many disabled Australians. What do you say to this?
FIFIELD:
Well Kieran the background to Mr McClure’s work is that we want to look at what are the impediments to people who want to work, getting into employment. We want to make sure that there is a good safety net there, that there is income support there for people who aren’t working. But we also want to do whatever we possibly can for people who’ve got their hands up and say we want to work. No one should see the work of Mr McClure as a pre-curser to any form of anything punitive by the Government. It is a discussion paper. It’s an interim report. We’re going to have a period of consultation. Mr McClure will be leading discussion groups in each capital city. We encourage people to make submissions to the work of Mr McClure. Kieran what this exercise is about is doing whatever we can to help people into work. And I know as the Minister for Disabilities that there are thousands of Australians with disability who want to work. And if I can quote a prominent disability activist who says that one of the great impediments to more Australians with disabilities working is the soft bigotry of low expectations. We don’t have low expectations about people with disability. We know that they have a contribution to make. And we want to do whatever we can to help people with disability into work.
GILBERT:
One of the things which the McClure report is streamlining the number of payments from 20 plus 50 various different supplements down to 4 core payments. What do you say to the suggestion that the reason there are so many payments is because you can’t have a oize fits all for not just disability but welfare more generally.
FIFIELD:
Obviously you do need a system that’s tailored and that has the flexibility to meet individual circumstances. But if you pull out the Australian Government Guide to Payments, Kieran, which I know Andrew would know well. It’s 44 pages long and that’s meant to be the summary, that’s meant to be the easily accessible guide to Australian Government Payments. It’s very complex. We can do better. We can simplify. Mr McClure has put forward a proposition about how to do that. Kieran, the starting point here is, do we really think that our system of income support in Australia today is the best that it can be? That it’s not possible to improve it? Do we really think as a nation we are doing all we can to get people into work? I don’t think we are. I think we can do better. And something that really disappoints me is the scaremongering that we’re seeing from Jenny Macklin. I mean, we supported Jenny Macklin when she sought to change the impairment tables for the Disability Support Pension. You probably don’t even know that the impairment tables were changed. Why? Because we supported her, I hope that Jenny Macklin can rise above partisanship and work with us to seek to make our system of support better. So we can help people into work.
GILBERT:
Well, Andrew Leigh is it time for reform when you’ve got 20 different sorts of payments plus 50 supplements, it does seem to be a little out of control in terms of the number of payments that the welfare system operates?
LEIGH:
Kieran, the basic picture here is that Australia has not seen a larger increase in disability support recipients than the rise in population. What I worry about when I hear the Coalition talking about this, and Mitch just quotes the soft bigotry of low expectations which is a George W. Bush quote, is that they want to take us down the US road towards smaller government and cutbacks. Every time you see the Government doing a report, whether its commission of audit, whether it’s the Federalism review, whether it’s in disability, it’s like reading a Stephen King novel, it might be entertaining in parts but you know things are going to end badly in the end. Fundamentally this is not a Government that wants to improve supports for people with disabilities, people who are only getting around $20,000 who have to pass very rigorous tests to show that they’re not able to work. They have to search for work for 18 months to be eligible, this is a hard payment to get onto Kieran and not a generous payment once you get it. Let’s put ourselves into the shoes of people with disabilities. Let’s think about what it is like for them to be opening the front pages of the paper today and see this talk of their payments being cut back. Because I don’t think anybody believes that when the Coalition says simplification, that means more generous payments. I think everyone recognises it means cuts to the vulnerable, while they’re giving $50,000 to millionaire families to have a baby.
GILBERT:
We’ve got to take a quick break, but we’ll be back in just a moment with Andrew Leigh and Senator Mitch Fifield.
Commercial**
GILBERT:
Thanks for your company this is AM Agenda, with me this morning Andrew Leigh, the Shadow Assistant Treasurer and also the Assistant Minister for Social Services, Senator Mitch Fifield. Senator Fifield before we move on from the welfare review I want to just take you back to that and ask you the definition of a permanent disability. How would the Government go about defining that, because I know yesterday the Minister concerned Kevin Andrews said that Mental Illness for example, can be episodic, but it also can be permanent. How do you go about, I suppose, draw the line on who should qualify for more payments over others? It’s pretty tough.
FIFIELD:
Kieran, the McClure report really didn’t have a definitive position on how to define eligibility for particular payments. But, you’re right. We need to take the approach of looking at what someone’s capacity is. So the changes to the DSP impairment tables that occurred under the previous Government moved from a medical or diagnostic approach to more of a functional approach. So looking at what the actual effect was on someone’s functionality of their impairment. I think that’s got to be the approach, is looking at what someone’s capacity actually is. Stella Young, who’s a well-known disability activist, she has a permanent disability and she works. A lot of people with permanent disabilities, can work, should work, want to work. But obviously there are also people whose disability is such that they will never be in a position where they can work. So someone with a very severe intellectual impairment for instance, may be in a position where they don’t have a capacity to work. So what we should do, in any system, is focus on what someone’s capacity is.
GILBERT:
Andrew Leigh, that all seems to make sense. I guess is in line what you argue, the former Labor Government did when in office as well under Jenny Macklin as the Minister.
LEIGH:
That’s right Kieran and look Mitch is right to acknowledge that, that was a bi-partisan change. That there was an agreement between major political party’s that was appropriate to look at functionality, what people are able to do. But, what troubles me here is the cutbacks on some of the most vulnerable in Australian society. At the same time as the Government is prioritising give-aways to some of the most affluent. So I mentioned before the parental leave, $50,000 for millionaires, but there is also changed the Government’s put in place of superannuation, which will benefit people on multi-million dollar incomes, putting more than $150,000 into superannuation. And you’ve got changes being made in tax policy which will see $1.1 billion given back to multinationals in profit shifting. So you’ve got to see what the Government’s doing on a whole package, cuts at the bottom, increased give-aways at the top. After a generation of rising inequality needs this like a hole in the head.
GILBERT:
Senator Fifield, there are number of changes coming into force on another area of your responsibility in aged care, as of July 1 tomorrow. Can you talk us through exactly what the Government is implementing in that sector?
FIFIELD:
Kieran, I think the most important change is the My Aged Care website, where aged care providers will have to publish their products and their prices. There’ll be a lot more information for consumers. It’ll be easier for them to consider and compare the offerings of different service providers. But also coming into effect is the elimination of the distinction between high care and low care. That’ll mean greater choice for individuals, also, in terms of how they pay. Individuals will now be able to pay for a bond or a daily fee, or a combination of the two. There’s also new means testing arrangements coming into place. And there is a fee estimator on the website where people will be able to put in their assets, their income and get a good indication of the payments that they’re likely to be liable for. So more information and more choice.
GILBERT:
That all seems to be common sense there Andrew Leigh from the Government?
LEIGH:
It’s terrific yes. When I did a forum in my electorate with Mark Butler announcing what his movements in the aged care area, there really was a recognition in the area that this was long overdue. And so, Mark Butler’s package of getting more information to people I think is vital, because you make decisions about aged care at sometimes crisis points where often mum or dad has had a fall and you’re considering your options, and better streamlining those options is great so the Butler/Fifield package I think is a good one.
GILBERT:
Bit of bipartisanship there to finish Senator Fifield thank you for that, appreciate it. Andrew Leigh thank you for joining us here in Canberra.
ENDS
Media contact: Lydia Bevege | 0409 792 081 | Lydia.bevege@dss.gov.au