Topics: Prime Minister’s National Press Club address, Australia Day honours, RBA interest rate decision, Australian economy
E&OE…
EPSTEIN: Let’s ask Senator Scott Ryan, he’s a Liberal Senator in Victoria, he’s also Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education and part of Tony Abbott’s federal team. Scott Ryan, good afternoon.
SENATOR RYAN: Good afternoon Raf.
EPSTEIN: So it’s all kind of over? Leadership speculation, Julie Bishop’s put out a statement, it’s all going to go away.
SENATOR RYAN: I think Julie’s statement stands for itself. She made it very clear, ‘I will not challenge’ and I think that, hopefully, will ensure that the commentators take it at face value.
EPSTEIN: Do you think the Prime Minister could have said anything different? He had two opportunities this morning to kill off speculation, and he didn’t appear to take the opportunity.
SENATOR RYAN: Well, I think the Prime Minister wanted to talk about the reason he was holding a press conference and was there with some colleagues and it was about childcare and about some of the plans he announced yesterday to make that a focus of the Government’s plans this year. Knowing, as I do, as a parent of a young child, that it is a bug bear, it is something that every young family finds challenging. That’s something that is of real concern to Australian families.
EPSTEIN: Does it concern you someone gave that story to Sky? Whoever gave that story to Sky knew it would set off a little bonfire in Canberra.
SENATOR RYAN: Look the Prime Minister, yesterday at the press club, made the point that there were plenty of people there, and there were plenty of people, other journalists too, who are paid well to commentate on politics. I’m not going to join them. Look the Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop, has been a loyal deputy to three leaders while I’ve been in Parliament. She’s doing a fantastic job and she put out a statement to put the issue to bed and it was black and white.
EPSTEIN: Do you concede, though, that some of this damage is self-inflicted? There are people talking to the media, adding fuel to the fire, or not?
SENATOR RYAN: Look, I agree entirely with the Prime Minister in my other comment, that the last month hasn’t been the best for the Government. You know, we have spent too much time answering questions about ourselves. The Prime Minister today, as well as the rest of us, is keen to get back to work and deal with the policy issue, the problems that we can address that really annoy Australians or make their life that little bit difficult. So, that’s what he was doing today, that’s what we’re doing, trying to focus on those issues.
EPSTEIN: Anyone canvassing you for votes?
SENATOR RYAN: No.
EPSTEIN: A question, before we get onto the interest rates, some of those fuelling the fire, include Andrew Lamming, who wants to have this private member’s bill to get rid of knighthoods and knights and dames; that’s seen as a challenge to the Prime Minister’s authority. Is that a bad idea for him to propose that? Does he fuel the instability?
SENATOR RYAN: One of the great things about the Liberal Party is every Liberal MP’s free to vote as they see on any piece of legislation and they’re free to bring private members bills to the party room. You know, there are mixed views on knights and dames and that was clear even, I think, when the Prime Minister announced it last year. He’s exercising the right that we think, in the Liberal Party, every Member of Parliament should be able to.
EPSTEIN: He knows exactly the effect it’s going to produce, doesn’t he?
SENATOR RYAN: Well he obviously feels very strongly about the issue and I think he came out and said that he wanted to go further than the Prime Minister announced yesterday, and he’s using the appropriate process to do so.
EPSTEIN: Just let me read a few texts, Scott Ryan is with us, he’s part of Tony Abbott’s team, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education.
Just three texts: “The LNP phone and email metadata would be pretty interesting” that’s from Steve.
“It’s time for Tony to go”, that’s from Erin and “She won’t challenge, but will she be drafted”.
I won’t ask Scott Ryan to answer that question.
Scott Ryan, I do want to ask you though, about the interest rate cut today from the RBA: first cut in 18 months. Last time there was an interest rate cut, our unemployment rate was significantly lower and Joe Hockey saw it actually as a scathing verdict on Labor’s management of the economy. This is what he said, actually just a month before you won that election in September 2013. Have a listen:
Treasurer Hockey: and if anyone things that the Reserve Bank acted today because the economy is doing really well and Labor is doing a terrific job running the economy, they’d be deluding themselves.
EPSTEIN: So is the RBA’s decision today a verdict on your mismanagement of the economy?
SENATOR RYAN: I think the context of these decisions is both very different and also critical and I haven’t had time to read the full statement, but there are a couple of major differences now. We’ve got massive quantitative easing going on around the world. Some commentators describe it as ‘the currency wars’. We have had the dollar drop which does improve our international competitiveness, which is very important, not only for manufacturing but for tourism and other export industries. But the key difference is that if we compare last year, 2014 to 2013 – we had 200,000 jobs created last year, we’ve got the fastest job growth happening now than we’ve had in three and a half years. So the last cut in interest rates occurred during a period of much slower job growth. Our economy …
EPSTEIN: Our unemployment rate was lower, our unemployment rate is now at a 12-year high (inaudible)important isn’t it?
SENATOR RYAN: The unemployment rate is a lagging indicator. You can’t fix an unemployment rate overnight, you need to generate jobs growth. We’ve got jobs growth faster now than any time in the last three and a half years so the context of this interest rate cut is very different. If you’ve got international events very different to where they were, with Europe now engaging in quantitative easing and more aggressive currency policy and you’ve got, domestically, faster job growth so I think when you look at just those two factors alone, you’ll see the context of this interest rate cut is very different.
EPSTEIN: I suppose in this conversation a lot of us lose perspective on which statistic is more important and of course you know everyone uses statistics selectively, but I mention unemployment at a 12-year low, business confidence is low. I think wages growth is also a lot slower than it has been for a long time, but the thing that the Reserve Bank mentioned in their statement is that domestic demand is overall quite weak. They want to support further demand, so if there’s no demand, if we don’t want to buy more stuff, effectively, that’s what the demand is. That was something that was going to change under a Coalition Government, you know, the country would be open for business. That is a judgement on the poor performance of the economy isn’t it?
SENATOR RYAN: Well, confidence doesn’t change overnight and you know, I’ll be first to accept, along with my colleagues, that last year was a very difficult year, we had to address a difficult budgetary situation, we haven’t been as successful as we’d like in getting those measures through the Senate. And I’m conscious those sort of things have an impact on confidence, but if you look at that key metric of jobs growth being the fastest it’s been in three and a half years. That’s a sign that our policies have worked and that the economy is turning the corner.
EPSTEIN: 1300 222 774 is the phone number. The Federal Cabinet is meeting in Canberra as we speak. One of those in the outer ministry is Senator Scott Ryan, who’s with us, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education. You can hear what the Government is saying about the economy, I wonder if you agree?
1300 222 774.
Scott Ryan, if I can take you back to what Joe Hockey said, not so much the substance, but in Opposition, being opportunistic; saying it was all an indicator of the Government’s failings.
That’s actually, isn’t that part of your strategic problem? You pounced on everything, you were opportunistic, you were negative; isn’t that what has set you up for the trouble you are now in?
SENATOR RYAN: I don’t think so. I mean the job of an Opposition is to hold the Government to account, and you know it won’t surprise your listeners to hear me say I think there was a lot we could be critical of in the last Government. I mean every single promise about the Budget deficit was broken, every single Budget blew out. Yet, (inaudible)
EPSTEIN: You promised everything to everyone …
SENATOR RYAN: Sorry?
EPSTEIN: You promised everything to everyone in Opposition that’s the reason (inaudible) …
SENATOR RYAN: Oh no, we made some distinct promises in Opposition, we did try to get (inaudible). We committed to removing the School Kids’ Bonus, and that’s not an insignificant payment and we had to compromise on that to get the mining tax repealed through the Senate. We wanted to remove some of the measures that were associated with the mining tax because it didn’t collect the revenue, like some tax measures for small business. We did actually say that when we brought the Budget back into balance, in order to do so, there would need to be sacrifice. So I wouldn’t describe it in the way you had. I’ll let other people commentate, but we were critical of the previous Government and their record speaks for itself. In only one year in Wayne Swan’s six budgets did revenue decline, yet every single year expenditure blew out, so we’re left with this unsustainable Budget position we’re in, where we’re accumulating debt at one of the fastest rates in the developed world.
EPSTEIN: Senator Scott Ryan, thanks for your time.
SENATOR RYAN: Thanks Raf.
*Ends*