Topics: Swearing in of new ministers, Government achievements for women, welfare spending, NSW Opposition Leader John Robertson.

E&OE…

DAVID LIPSON

You’re watching AM Agenda, thanks for your company. With me now Brendan O’Connor and Senator Scott Ryan – thank you both very much for your company this morning. Scott Ryan, you are among those being sworn-in today – not a promotion, not a demotion, just a title change.

SCOTT RYAN

Well, look, it’s always a privilege to be asked to serve by the Prime Minister. The Department of Education has had responsibility for training added to it, and my Senate colleague Simon Birmingham has been made the Assistant Minister with special responsibility for training, and I look forward to continuing my work with Christopher Pyne and now with my old friend Simon Birmingham.

LIPSON

Is this a better team than we saw throughout 2014?

RYAN

Well I think, as the Prime Minister said, it’s about resetting and refocussing. Next year is about consolidating and about focussing on our priorities, balancing the Budget and supporting families and creating jobs. And this is the team that I believe will be able to deliver on that next year.

LIPSON

But the policies aren’t really changing, are they? And Josh Frydenberg confirmed that one of his jobs will be getting the remainder of the 2014 Budget through, but also looking towards new savings in 2015.

RYAN

Well, with Labor’s destructive behaviour, David, we still have a challenge balancing the Budget and cleaning up the mess that Labor left us. The Prime Minister has, however – particularly with the task he’s given the new Minister for Social Services, Scott Morrison – the Prime Minister has outlined that there will be a families’ package early in the new year that deals with one of the greatest challenges, which is that of child care. And every young parent across Australia deals with the challenges of child care on a daily basis.

LIPSON

Brendan O’Connor, with the reshuffle, Labor would welcome the elevation of another woman, for example, Sussan Ley, into cabinet and also Karen Andrews coming into the fold as a Parliamentary Secretary as well.

BRENDAN O’CONNOR

Well Sussan Ley entered Parliament the same time I did so I congratulate her, but it’s a sad day for modern politics, David, when a government can boast that it’s doubled women representation in cabinet by adding just one. So I think we shouldn’t get too carried away. And also we’ve got to spare a thought for David Johnston – he was only being spoken highly of a few weeks ago by the Prime Minister – he’s been dumped entirely from the executive. So, there are of course a number of changes here.

Most importantly, though, David, I mean this is just the shuffling of deck chairs on the good ship Abbott. The real need here is to change course and that means changing the provisions that are in the Budget to ensure that they’re not unfair and they are consistent with the commitments made by the Prime Minister before the election.

LIPSON

With the reshuffle, though, the reshuffles are a good opportunity to reset. All governments really do them and Labor certainly had its fair share of reshuffles. Is the reshuffle itself – any issues with the fact that this is happening at this time?

O’CONNOR

No, no, I think it’s understandable. I think in government you tend to look to change things going into Christmas. It provides new position holders the opportunities to read briefs and absorb that over the course of the summer. So that itself is fine. I think it provides a great opportunity, David, for example, Scott Morrison in his new role to repudiate the proposals by Minister Andrews. For example, suspending or abolishing any support for jobseekers under the age of 30 for six months. Remembering that Kevin Andrews said that was being introduced because it was similar to the policies of New Zealand. Now, that was found to be a lie. That is really just one example where I think the new minister in the portfolio of Social Services can say ‘we will not deprive young people with support for six months when they’re looking for work’. Also, cuts to homeless services just before Christmas, I think, is particularly cruel – something that Minister Morrison could turn his mind to once he’s sworn-in this morning.

There is a bunch of things that could happen by this Government – they’ve got opportunities so they are holding the reins, but let’s be honest, this year they’ve been dishonest, incompetent and chaotic and let’s hope things change for the better for the country. But we have not seen, sufficiently, the Prime Minister admit the mistakes he’s made and repair some of the policies that are cruel and dishonest.

LIPSON

Scott Ryan, Mr Morrison does have a difficult portfolio, you touched on it before. Social services will be a key battleground in 2015. We’ve seen in The Australian newspaper, though, today he doesn’t have a whole lot to work with – 2.4% growth for that portfolio area, which when you account for inflation and then population growth, the ageing population, that’s essentially a cut in real terms, isn’t it?

RYAN

Well, what it says, David, is that we’re keen to get people off welfare and into work. Brendan there continued Labor’s litany of whinging, but they don’t have a plan. Or, if they do have a plan to balance the Budget, it’s to adopt the European plan, which is to pretend the Budget deficit doesn’t matter and keep borrowing until it’s too late.

Now, the point you made there about the growth in welfare spending, that’s assuming our policy changes get through and that’s an objective we have. But Labor’s destructive behaviour in the Senate, which is to block not only the measures we’ve proposed to balance the Budget, but the measures that Labor and Brendan O’Connor took to the people before the last election, shows that they simply don’t care about the legacy of debt that they want to leave for future Australians.

LIPSON

Brendan O’Connor, will Labor block these further measures, or attempt to do so in the Senate, if indeed that’s a possibility?

O’CONNOR

We’ll examine each bill as it comes up. I mean, let’s be honest, why should we be complicit in the Prime Minister’s dishonesty and pass provisions that were completely inconsistent with his commitments made prior to the election? I mean, this is a Prime Minister that presumably placed a great deal of stock in the word ‘honesty’ and yet has done everything to contradict that value as prime minister. So, we’ll assess what is right, but let’s be fair here, I mean Scott mentions that we’re taking the European road. No, this Government, with a contractionary austere Budget, which has actually hit consumer confidence and business confidence, led to a decline in employment growth, led to the rise in unemployment. I mean, these things have happened because of the failure of this Government to actually have a jobs plan for Australians, and that’s why we have almost 800,000 Australians looking for work today and it’s something the Government has to turn its mind to.

Now, I heard as a result of this reshuffle, it’s going to focus on jobs and families, but I haven’t seen one policy prescription that is going to alter the course of this Government and see opportunities for people in manufacturing and other sectors of our economy that are losing their jobs right now on top of the 800,000 people who are looking for work. So, we’ll assess them on the merits of the policies. To date, I think they’ve taken the wrong approach and that’s why consumer and business confidence has been down, and unemployment has been up.

LIPSON

Well speaking of families, yesterday, Scott Ryan, the Prime Minister was asked what the biggest achievement for women was in 2014, as the Prime Minister for Women. He nominated the carbon tax and the impact that’s having on family budgets. Well the Coalition has done a lot more than just the carbon tax. Is it an issue, though, that the Prime Minister wasn’t able to bring that to mind when asked about it?

RYAN

Well, let’s look at what the Prime Minister said in the two sentences in which he answered that question. He also talked about child care, he also talked parental leave. I mean, I really would’ve thought that the mock outrage brigade in the Twittersphere might have taken the week off for Christmas, but they managed not to. But I can tell you that everyone understands – everyone understands – that cost of living pressures are real in every family household around the country. And removing the carbon tax, that Labor wants to bring back, actually made that life a little bit easier.

That’s the point the Prime Minister was making, along with making the points about child care and parental leave. But all I’d say is if Brendan and his friends in the Twittersphere want to take the week off for Christmas and make Twitter slow down…

O’CONNOR

[Interrupts] [Laughs] Who says they’re my friends?

RYAN

… and the mock outrage ends, then I’m sure we’ll all be happier.

LIPSON

Brendan, they’re not your friends, you say?

O’CONNOR

Well, I don’t know who they are, but I guess the problem for the Prime Minister is he does put his foot in it when it comes to women. I mean, he talks about them doing the ironing and I guess that’s why they’re worried about carbon emissions because, you know, ironing takes up so much electricity, right.

I think the problem is he’s not a modern Prime Minister. He doesn’t get it, that’s why he’s had to correct the fact that he had one woman in cabinet. You know, ‘good morning lady and gentlemen’, you know, that’s what he had to say every time he entered the cabinet room and, I mean, he always puts his foot in it.

But let’s talk about the carbon tax, okay? It’s a repeal, but it is of little significance compared with the greater problems this Budget has provided and the problem for carbon emissions is we now do not have an effective means to reduce emissions and that’s something the Government has to turn its mind to. And that’s why the President of the United States had to sort of, if you like, highlight the problems that a high-emitting country like ours has no plan and the Prime Minister should rethink his position on that. The carbon science is not crap – he should follow the science, not the mythology of the carbon denialists.

LIPSON

I want to just, before we finish, touch on New South Wales politics. John Robertson, the New South Wales Labor leader is under significant pressure today after it emerged yesterday that he had signed a letter on behalf of Man Monis, the Lindt Café gunman. Brendan O’Connor, can the New South Wales opposition leader survive this?

O’CONNOR

Look, I haven’t seen the reference. Obviously, parliamentarians often refer matters to ministers for consideration. Quite often, they may be for perfunctory referrals. But with this awful tragedy that occurred in Sydney, I think it’s clear that the Prime Minister and indeed the leader of the opposition agree that there should be a full examination of these circumstances of how this person could be where he was at that time to create havoc and create such tragedy.

And, David, I think that goes right back to why, for example, he was allowed in the country in 1996, why we were not able to extradite him to Iran, even though there were fraud charges and there’s an issue about that – I’m not saying that in a partisan way, I think it needs an examination – the fact that he was made a citizen in 2004, the fact that a magistrate released him on bail just recently. All of those matters need to be examined fully because there were decision makers – where the person’s full character has been presented to these decision makers, whether it was in immigration or before a court, or whether it was before other bodies, and I think it’s important now that we examine whether we could have prevented this happening, and therefore [inaudible]…

LIPSON

[Interrupts] Scott Ryan, just to bring it back to John Robertson, the letter was signed in 2011, a long time before we’d heard of Man Monis. Is it a sackable offence?

RYAN

Well, I agree with the points the Prime Minister outlined that Brendan repeated there regarding the need for an inquiry, but look the leadership of the New South Wales Labor Party is a matter for the New South Wales Labor Party. I’m a member of the Victorian division of the Liberal Party, so I can’t imagine that there’s much that has less to do with me than a New South Wales Labor Party matter.

LIPSON

[Laughs] But just in terms of the letter itself, I’m asking, I suppose, for your political judgement. It’s obviously damaging politically; is it a sackable offence?

RYAN

One of the things I’ve learned, David, over many years in Victoria is that federal politicians can let state politicians handle matters that are their responsibility, so I’m not going to comment on a matter that is really one for the New South Wales Labor Party.

LIPSON

Fair enough. Senator Scott Ryan and Brendan O’Connor, thank you both very much for your company. Thanks for your company throughout the year as well. Have a Merry Christmas.

(Ends)