6 June 2016
E&EO.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
First, a couple of issues I know get RN listeners hot under the collar – the nbn and arts funding. Senator Mitch Fifield is the Minister for Communications and the Arts. Welcome back to RN Drive.
MITCH FIFIELD:
Good to be with you.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
And its nice to have you in the studio. I can actually look at you.
MITCH FIFIELD:
It’s the best, Patricia.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
It is the best way. Firstly, are you a feminist?
MITCH FIFIELD:
Absolutely. If a bloke is allowed to be, count me in.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
I don’t think they are banned.
MITCH FIFIELD:
I’m there. Obviously we are all for equal rights and equal opportunity for women.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
Have you used the word before though?
MITCH FIFIELD:
It’s not common in my lexicon, it would be fair to say, but happy to be called one.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
Mitch Fifield is a feminist, put that out there. Now let’s get to some policy. Labor announced its arts policy this weekend on Saturday, in fact in Melbourne and promised to dump the Catalyst Fund. Is that fund now an election liability for the Coalition?
MITCH FIFIELD:
I’ve never approached the Catalyst fund as something that’s political. I’ve never viewed it through the spectrum of is this helpful to the Government or not helpful to the Government.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
It’s pretty toxic in the arts community, they are not fans.
MITCH FIFIELD:
It depends who you talk to. There are many recipients of Catalyst grants who understandably are happy that they’ve had this avenue to receive Commonwealth funding that they might not have had through previous arrangements. I think we should be prepared to try new things in the administration of arts in this country. I’ve already made some changes. Initially the National Program for Excellence in the Arts was to be a $20 million fund. I took a look at that and thought – hey, we should rebalance some of the funding back to the Australia Council. So $32 million was returned to the Australia Council. We changed the focus and the name to Catalyst to emphases that we want to encourage innovation, we want to encourage new and different ideas. And I’ve got to reject the characterisation that Mark Dreyfus has put on Catalyst saying that it’s in effect a ministerial slush fund. The truth is, there are a panel of assessors who have looked at each application. I have in every circumstance accepted the recommendation of the panel assessors. So no ministerial discretion has been exercised. But also, this is an interesting point Patricia, about 52% of Catalyst grants have gone to Labor seats, only about 30% have gone to Coalition seats. So if it was intended, which it wasn’t, to be something to the political benefit of the government, then the facts don’t bear that out.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
Ok, we saw 53 organisations were defunded by the Australia Council last month, now Labor will put any remaining Catalyst money back into the Australia Council they say, plus an extra $80 million over four years. Doesn’t there policy support the arts better than yours? Are you planning to match that funding? You haven’t made your announcement yet.
MITCH FIFIELD:
Just on the issue of the Australia Council, who recently announced their core funding grants for organisations. The Australia Council actually put in $28 million into that compared to $22 million for the previous key organisations fund. So the Australia Council is actually putting more money there. So to try and align any unsuccessful organisations with the fact that Catalyst exists, actually isn’t borne out by the dollar figures. But to your question, the Labor Party, as we have seen through the course of this campaign, have announced something like of the order of $12 billion of commitments, if you chuck in the lazy $3 billion for their unfunded childcare program, then that goes to $15 billion. In contrast, we’ve announced about $1 billion. So what we are doing is being responsible. We are only announcing funding that we can back up with savings. We don’t know where Labor will find the money from for the the childcare or for the arts.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
Ok, how much money is left in the Catalyst fund for Labor to return to the Australia Council if it wins?
MITCH FIFIELD:
Well the funding for the current financial year, which comes to a conclusion …
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
Any moment now …
MITCH FIFIELD:
… Any moment now, and shortly before the election, that has been fully allocated. I can’t give you a reconciliation for the subsequent years because of the 125 grants announced so far, some of them are multi-year funding. But there are significant funds available in each of the years in the forward estimates.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
Okay, you say that without being able to fund it, you won’t announce something and I understand that but might you find other cuts in other areas that give more money to the arts? Is that something you are looking at?
MITCH FIFIELD:
We’re always looking for ways we can enhance and improve the administration of the arts in Australia and also our support of the arts, so that’s an ongoing exercise.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
So are we going to get much more of your arts policy?
MITCH FIFIELD:
All I can say is, watch this space.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
Ok, when Tony Abbott announced his nbn policy, if we can move to the nbn, in April 2013, he said it would cost $29.5 billion and would reach all Australians by 2016. The latest forecast is $49 billion and possibly as much as $56 billion with a rollout till 2020. Very different. So how can you say the roll out of the nbn is on budget and on track, as you did in your statement on Friday? Because both of those statements don’t match up.
MITCH FIFIELD:
It is on budget and it is on track. I’ll explain it. When our 2013 election policy was announced, the Opposition, as we were then, was operating on the best information available. When we came into government, it was actually very difficult to find out from nbn how much the nbn was costing, because nbn themselves didn’t know. nbn thought that it was costing about $2,300 to connect each premise with fibre to the premise. After a change of board and a change of management, they actually discovered that it was costing double that. So not even the Government of the day knew what the full cost of the NBN was.
So with a new a new board, a new management, Malcolm Turnbull as Communications Minister gave the NBN a new mandate, which was, to rollout the NBN using the technology that can see it get out there fastest and at less cost. Now, as a result of that, the NBN will be completed nationwide by 2020 which is 6 to 8 years sooner than would have been the case under our predecessors and at $30 billion less cost. NBN has met every milestone over the last 8 quarters. NBN has already achieved its revenue targets for this financial year in the corporate plan. NBN for this financial year in the corporate plan is below cost. NBN has already achieved its corporate plan milestone for this financial year to have 1 million active connections.
PATRICIA KARVELAS
Let me get in here Mitch Fifield, I need some time here. Will there be any upgrade or expansion to your nbn policy before the election, including any changes to Fibre to the Node for instance Fibre to the Distribution Point? Is that something you’re considering?
MITCH FIFIELD:
Well Fibre to the Distribution Point is something that has been in contemplation for NBN as an organisation because the brief …
PATRICIA KARVELAS
But might it be something that you might put out during the election?
MITCH FIFIELD:
Well the brief to NBN is to be technology agnostic. Stephen Conroy took a theological approach to the NBN. He had this whole belief system, that he developed. We’ve said to the NBN use whatever sees the NBN rolled out fastest and at lowest cost.
So Fibre to the Distribution Point is something that is in the contemplation of NBN. But it still is more expensive than the approach that we are currently taking, that NBN is currently taking, but that’s not to say that as costs come down and as NBN does more work that that won’t be a feature of the NBN.
PATRICIA KARVELAS
And on the AFP raids relating to alleged NBN leaks last months, why did you not tell the Prime Minister or your fellow NBN Co Shareholder Mathias Cormann about the investigation?
MITCH FIFIELD:
Well the approach that I took was that when the police are involved in a matter the less said the better. Now there would have been absolutely nothing inappropriate if I had told the Prime Minister, but the approach that I took was that the best course of action is…
PATRICIA KARVELAS
Why though?
MITCH FIFIELD:
Well I just think that’s prudent and that’s good practice. When the Federal Police are involved in a matter, the less said to the fewer number of people the better. I just think that is a prudent approach.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
What’s inappropriate perhaps about telling them though, because if you think it’s the most prudent approach, what’s the down side of telling them?
MITCH FIFIELD:
Well as I said, there would have been nothing inappropriate if I had told the Prime Minister or if I had told the Finance Minister, but the approach that I took was the less said the better. And I stand by that.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
Alright. The Productivity Commission has recommended the scrapping of all restrictions on foreign book imports. Publishers and authors say it will cost Australian jobs damage our cultural standing. You know this is a red hot issue. I hear this a lot. And not even make books cheaper, necessarily. You’re the minister, what is your position?
MITCH FIFIELD:
Well the Harper Review into competition in Australia had I think it was 54 recommendations. The Government responded to each of those recommendations. One of those related to the removal of Parallel Import Restrictions on books. And what we said, at that time, was that we supported that proposition, but that it was important that there be a period of consultation before we determined how and when that would happen.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
So what does that mean? Do we need to protect Australian Publishers and Authors? Can you give me, you know, yeah there’s a review and you’re going to look at implementation but tell me, do you instinctively think we need to look after Australian publishers and authors given the threats they are under?
MITCH FIFIELD:
We have fantastic publishers and we have fantastic authors, it is the quality of their work that will ultimately carry the day I think in the sector.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
So you don’t think that they need protection?
MITCH FIFIELD:
But it’s important that we balance the obvious and understandable need for authors to get a return with the legitimate interest of consumers to be able to purchase books at the lowest possible prices. So they’re the two things that we balance. And I think I’ve demonstrated through my recent announcement in relation to copyright, where there was some concern about a recommendation, actually it wasn’t a recommendation of the Productivity Commission, it was reference that was made that perhaps the period of copyright should be reduced to 15-25 years rather than 70 years after death. I made clear that I thought the arrangement that we currently have is the appropriate one. So we’re trying to balance the rights of authors and people who are creative with the rights of consumers.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
So authors listening right now, creative people listening right now and publishers, should they, you know because I’m trying to read the tea leaves here Mitch Fifield, help me out. Should they read into that that you do understand their concerns and you’re looking at ways to protect them?
MITCH FIFIELD:
Obviously, change can be something that is unsettling for any sector. With my announcement in relation to the length of period of copyright I demonstrated that we do appreciate and understand the need for people to get a return on their creative endeavours. On the other hand with the Parallel Book Import restriction issue, we’re looking to see what we can do for consumers. So we’re trying to balance those two things.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
Many thanks for your time, we have to find out what’s going on with these very, very frighting storms I really appreciate your time and good luck in the election campaign.
MITCH FIFIELD:
Thanks Patricia. Good to see you.
[ends]