Topics: Australian Submarine Corporation, same-sex marriage, the Government’s standing in the opinion polls, Victorian election.
E&OE…
CHRIS HAMMER
We’re joined now by Senator Scott Ryan, Victorian Liberal Party Senator. Good morning, Senator.
SCOTT RYAN
Good morning, Chris.
HAMMER
Now, you would have been in Question Time on Tuesday when David Johnston let fly at the Australian Submarine Corporation, saying he wouldn’t trust them to build a canoe. What went through your mind when you heard him say that?
RYAN
Well, it was towards the end of Question Time. I mean, if you put Labor’s confected outrage to one side, one can’t dismiss that there have been issues with ASC, and the Minister was pointing out some of those issues with respect to the cost and delivery of the Air Warfare Destroyers.
HAMMER
That’s true – over time, over budget – he said maybe $350 million with the Air Warfare Destroyers. Even so, to accept for a Minister to so publicly use Parliament to bag a major Australian company – a major defence contractor?
RYAN
Well, he also said it could be up to $600 million and he wasn’t quite sure because data was lacking. So I don’t think we can just dismiss the issue of cost overruns and delivery of projects, and I think that’s the point the Minister was making.
The Prime Minister also made clear that ASC is an important part of our defence infrastructure – it has an important role to play. So I don’t think it’s particularly helpful to get hung up on one word here. The point is that there are some challenges with this particular project – the Air Warfare Destroyers the Minister was outlining – but ASC has a role going forward.
HAMMER
This is a corporation set up by the Government. It’s an integral part of our defence capability – isn’t the Government, therefore, partly responsible for how it performs? I mean…
RYAN
[Interrupts] And that’s exactly what the Minister was saying. I mean, I think, to be fair, we’ve been in office…HAMMER
[Interrupts] Well, if it’s [inaudible]…RYAN
[Interrupts] We’ve been in office for 15 months, and the Government and the Minister have commissioned reports into the performance of ASC. We’re doing exactly that. The Government is taking responsibility for ASC, but being a government-owned corporation doesn’t exempt one from criticism either.HAMMER
But 15 months into Government and you still don’t know what the cost overrun, whether it’s $350 million or $600 million? That’s a…
RYAN
[Interrupts] I think, to be fair, if we look at the history of defence procurement all around the world, it’s a very challenging area. There were issues with the Collins Class submarines that the Howard government was dealing with years after their commissioning. So, without trying to imitate the confected outrage of Labor on this, as they sort of seek to make political mileage, there is an issue with this project – the Minister was outlining how he was handling it, and some of the challenges that remain.HAMMER
So we’ve had this debate unfolding over the last few months about where the next generation of Australian submarines should be built and it’s been flagged that we may buy submarines, say, from Japan. There’s a lot of people coming out and saying ‘hey, no, we can do it better, cheaper in South Australia’. Has the Minister, in a sense, done us a favour by blowing the lid off of what’s been happening with the Submarine Corporation? And this more or less explains why the Government has been looking overseas for the next generation of submarines.
RYAN
Oh no, I think the point is that we have to ensure that they are affordable, that the project is delivered on time. Promises matter, but so does track record. And importantly it’s a defence project – it’s not an employment project. Now, that isn’t meant to rule anything in or out, it simply says ‘we’re going to commission what is in Australia’s national interest’, from the point of view of our overall defence strategy. That includes capability in Australia but it also includes cost, reliability and considering track record, as well as promises.
HAMMER
Does the Minister, though, you think need to, if not back away from his criticism of the corporation, maybe apologise for his choice of words?
RYAN
Well, I think in this building people get hung up on a word or two as Labor is trying to confect outrage and make political mileage. No one can deny that there have been issues with the delivery of the Air Warfare Destroyer project. No one can deny that Labor stripped more than $10 billion out of defence. This Government has taken responsibility for it but particularly with defence procurement, these are not issues that can be turned around in a matter of months.
HAMMER
Moving on, independent Senator David Leyonhjelm is going to introduce a private member’s bill to legalise same-sex marriage. Is it time for the Liberal Party to have allow a conscience vote on this issue?
RYAN
Well, let’s get this point clear, which the media often forget – every single vote for every member of the Liberal Party is a conscience vote. There is no rule in the Liberal Party that someone cannot cross the floor. It’s not like Labor where you’re bound by caucus and the minute you disagree with caucus publicly in a parliamentary vote you’re expelled from the Labor Party. The only rule in the Liberal Party is that members of the frontbench – the ministry or the shadow ministry – are required to support party decisions. So, every vote is a conscience vote.
HAMMER
So, that doesn’t quite ring true to me. Why would you have a policy and go to the public and say ‘we have a policy’ if you can’t guarantee that the members of your party are going to support it?
RYAN
Well, it is a founding tenant of the Liberal Party that members of the parliamentary party are free to vote their conscience – that’s an important point. What you’re asking, I think, is the Liberal Party has a policy to support marriage as it currently stands, and that remains party policy.
HAMMER
So if this is voted on in the Senate, you would expect some of your colleagues in the Liberal Party to support David Leyonhjelm’s bill to go to legalise same-sex marriage?
RYAN
I can’t speak on behalf of any of my colleagues. If the Liberal Party was to change its policy, and there is a party room process for dealing with that – it’s not on the agenda at the moment. There are a lot of private senator’s bills introduced into the Senate, and very few of them actually reach a vote because there is a limited amount of private senators’ time.
HAMMER
I mean, I would find it myself, if I were a Liberal Party senator, that if my conscience told me to, okay maybe I might vote for a bill like this. But if I was equivocating a bit I would think ‘look, no I don’t want to embarrass the party leadership, I don’t want to embarrass the Prime Minister. That’s different from the Prime Minister saying ‘look everyone, this is a conscience vote, vote how your conscience dictates’.
RYAN
If the Liberal Party was to change its position and effectively allow a free vote, there’s a party room process for dealing with that. But we tend to deal with that when issues are going to come to a vote in Parliament and there’s no indication as yet as to when this bill will come to a vote.
HAMMER
Okay, now if we move on – just an overview, if you like, of how you think the Government is travelling. Now, it has been behind in the polls for some time, and it has this continuing problem with the budget. By one calculation, there may only be as little as five weeks of parliamentary sitting before the next budget in May next year. Now, I’m not sure if that’s right or not because you can schedule additional weeks. Is it time, really, to put the Budget to rest? At least before the end of this parliamentary year to accept that some things simply won’t get passed to modify others so that they will be passed?
RYAN
Well, media in this building tends to focus a bit on the negative – let’s have a look at what has happened over the course of the year. Since the Senate changed in July – before that, remember, Labor and the Greens could and did block everything, they thought they were still in Government and they weren’t helping us fix the problem they created. Since July, we’ve abolished the Carbon Tax, we’ve abolished the Mining Tax – two explicit promises, two of the highest priorities of this Government – our border protection policies have proven to be successful and stopped the flow of illegal immigration.
So in my view, the Government has had a successful year. But let’s also be honest and say ‘we’ve got a budget challenge’. Now, when you say there’s a problem with the budget, I’ll agree with you because there’s actually a budget deficit that’s been left.
Not only are Labor and the Greens stopping us from fixing the budget deficit that they left us, they’re actually stopping us implementing the announcements that the Labor Party made themselves before the election. So Labor’s stopping us implementing their promises that would’ve helped a little bit in terms of balancing the budget. The challenge is in addressing the deficit, and that’s a challenge to which the Government remains committed.
HAMMER
The Government, though, is, according to the opinion polls, struggling. What do you think it needs to do to get back on track? What does it need to say to the Australian people to convince them that you’re governing well? Because that doesn’t seem to be cutting through at the moment.
RYAN
Less than halfway through term of office, I’m not going to be looking over my shoulder at opinion polls. We’re going to actually do what we said we would do, and particularly key to that is to bring the budget back into a sustainable situation. We never said that would be easy, we knew there would be very difficult situations that needed to be taken.
We’re committed to prosecuting the case publicly for everyone to actually take a small hit; for everyone to make a sacrifice because the budget in the form inherited from the Labor Party is unsustainable. And that isn’t always going to be popular, but we’re not going to judge the success of our measures solely by how it’s reflected in the poll. We’re going to judge them by the success of how they achieve our objectives – in this case, making the budget sustainable.
HAMMER
So, in your opinion, policies like, say the GP co-payment, or the Paid Parental Leave scheme shouldn’t be taken off the table – that the Government should press ahead with them into the new year?
RYAN
Well, while I think there’s always a judgement to be made about – you seek public support for measures, you seek parliamentary support for measures – at some point, you may have to compromise on those and we’ve shown a willingness to do that. For example, on the Mining Tax repeal, we had to compromise on some of the things we initially stated.
So we’re still in discussions with all of the crossbenchers about our priorities, and we have indicated that we are willing to negotiate because the core of our agenda is to bring the budget back into a sustainable situation to grow the economy. And we’ll continue to talk to the crossbenchers about that as long as Labor and the Greens continue to be belligerent.
HAMMER
That budget task does seem to be getting more difficult because of things like falling iron ore prices, etc. Are you expecting that MYEFO might be a bit of a political train wreck, or on the other hand do you think it might, in fact, strengthen the Government’s arm? You know, make your arguments all the more compelling?
RYAN
I actually think when people see the truth of the budget situation as they do every six months under us when we have reliable forecasts – and MYEFO will come out likely in December. That actually generates support for our agenda because the Australian people know they cannot keep borrowing tens of billions of dollars a year, which effectively their children are going to have to pay back in higher taxes or lower services. They know that that is not sustainable, so I think the publication of the changes, and the impact of Labor blocking budget-balancing efforts will actually generate support for the Government.
HAMMER
Okay, now you’re a Victorian Senator – you know Victorian politics much better than I do, or most people in this building. There’s a state election this weekend. What messages should federal politics and federal politicians take out of this election in Victoria?
RYAN
Well, two out of the last four Victorian elections have been decided by one seat – 1999 and 2010. Every election is a fresh contest for public support. The key thing in Victoria this weekend is – the people of Victoria have a choice, which is to continue with the government that has the single biggest infrastructure investment plan in the history of the state of Victoria – or the very least since the 1950s – or to go back to a government made up of the same personnel as the Bracks and Brumby era, that has no plan, that has strong links to organisations like the CFMEU, who are under constant prosecutorial action in our courts, and the risk that poses for Victoria.
HAMMER
So what lessons should we take if the people of Victoria choose that second option – the Labor Party that you portray as being so unattractive?
RYAN
Well, I think every election is a fresh contest. Every election, particularly in the modern era, is about seeking the public support for your agenda, and seeking a mandate to implement it. I don’t think there’s any particular lesson other than that. But politics these days is about seeking that support from the people for your agenda. Other than that I don’t think there’s a particular lesson.
HAMMER
Okay, Senator Scott Ryan, thanks for your time today.
RYAN
Thanks Chris.
(Ends)