Subjects: protests in Melbourne; racism in Australia; indigenous constitutional recognition; the Long Walk; Labor’s budget black hole; costings; Leader’s debate; Reachtel poll
E & OE……………………………………………………………………………………………………
JIM MIDDLETON:
Welcome back to PM Agenda. Let’s go straight to our political panel now, Skills Minister Scott Ryan here in Melbourne and his Labor opposite number Sharon Bird joins us from Sydney. Welcome to you both. I’ll go straight to you first of all Scott and this ugly contretemps rally, violence that we saw in Melbourne earlier on today – it does rather go to Bill Shorten ‘s point, does it not, that systemic racism is too prevalent within Australia at the moment?
SCOTT RYAN:
Well I’ve seen some footage of it and there have sadly been a couple of other incidents like this in recent months. I think it does the opposite. I think the very few number of people involved, a small fringe and extremist element, illustrates that it is entirely that, just a small number of people. This is not a country that –
JIM MIDDLETON:
(interrupts) We saw a news conference after it was all over, saying, the Victorian Police, Victoria Police, saying this is getting more and more prevalent. There is more and more of it. Doesn’t that rather go to the systemic nature of it?
SCOTT RYAN:
There a couple of fringe groups that have sadly decided to stoke tensions in a number of places around Victoria and Melbourne over recent months. I think the fact there’s only ever a small number of people it is quite easily managed – it’s not something I mean to dismiss, but the overwhelming number of Australians are welcoming, are not racist, and this is not a racist country because we wouldn’t have been the most successful multicultural country on earth, the most successful immigrant country on earth, if was anything more than a handful of these nutters.
JIM MIDDLETON:
Sharon I might bring you in here. There is a point there that Scott Ryan has. Very few people are very active, but very few of them, and Malcolm Turnbull making the point today that Bill Shorten’s promulgating a negative view of Australia – there is something in that, is there not?
SHARON BIRD:
I wouldn’t agree that Bill Shorten promulgated any sort of negative view of Australia. I think he was quite clear, and I agree with Scott, I think the vast majority of Australians are very welcoming and would be very horrified by those sorts of images you’ve just shown. But Bill made it clear that we think there are some systemic issues for indigenous Australians that we need to take up the challenge on in a very serious way, and I would think that’s a very strong bipartisan view.
JIM MIDDLETON:
Let’s go to a cheerier subject, which is the Long Walk that we are going to see here in Melbourne, not very far away in fact from this studio, from Federation Square to the MCG. Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten, shoulder to shoulder in support of recognition and reconciliation. Now it does seem though that as the symbols of reconciliation get ever more sophisticated, the statistics facing indigenous Australia, questions like infant mortality, life expectancy, education, jail, really don’t improve thought do they, Sharon Bird, and are both sides really paying lip-service to this rather than doing anything substantial?
SHARON BIRD:
Oh look it’s absolutely clear and we’ve made it very, very and clear and I think there’s indeed strong bipartisanship on the importance of the recognition campaign, of getting our constitution to recognise our first people, but coming out of that, to actually deliver on real outcomes for indigenous Australians. I spent some years before I entered parliament, working in the juvenile justice field and I’m very conscious of points, such as those made by Bill Shorten about the terrible fact that it’s more likely that an indigenous man will end up in jail rather than at university. So we have a lot of work to do in real delivery of outcomes for indigenous people, across a whole range of areas. The portfolios that Scott and I represent in vocational education, in higher education, are delivering those tools and resources our schools need to make sure that we’ve got indigenous targeted programs, making sure indigenous kids don’t fall through the gap. And across health, across justice, all over the areas in which we see persistently indigenous people not succeeding as well as non-indigenous Australians. I think they are real challenges and they do require a real commitment to change. I believe we’ve got a solid platform to deliver on that. Only yesterday Bill Shorten announcing the $200 million dollars towards indigenous rangers program, giving real job opportunities, pride and a great contribution, to be honest, to the local communities and economies. These are real outcomes, they’re real processes but I don’t believe anyone would kid themselves that we’ve got a lot of work to do on this.
JIM MIDDLETON:
I’ll give Scott Ryan a chance to come back on that in a moment, but first of all, Victorian Labor premier Daniel Andrews became, I’m pretty sure, the first leader of a major party in Australia to call for a treaty beyond the overenthusiasm of Bob Hawke back in 1988 – something that he immediately recanted – isn’t this the way to go and what on earth does Bill Shorten mean when he talks about a post-constitutional recognition settlement?
SHARON BIRD:
Well the point that Bill’s made consistently is that we have to work in cooperation with indigenous communities. So for us, we’ve given a commitment that at the COAG meetings immediately after the election, if we’re given the privilege –
JIM MIDDLETON:
(interrupts) But Sharon Bird, wouldn’t a treaty be simple and straight-forward and give the indigenous community what they want at a time when all the life indicators are showing no sign of improvement whatsoever.
SHARON BIRD:
And Jim, the point I was making was that we have made it clear that we think the first step is to get recognition. We agree with what former prime minister, Tony Abbot said, that we should look to May next year as a good point at which to have a referendum and have that in place, and then to look at how you would actually enact that across a range of areas and I’ve outlined some of those across health and education, life expectancy, justice targets, those sorts of processes. So we do have a plan in place to take real action on those matters. We’ve outlined that and indicated that you know you have to have an ongoing conversation after process that with indigenous people about how you make those things realities for them.
JIM MIDDLETON:
Scott ah, treaty yeah or treaty n-yeah? (laughs)
SCOTT RYAN:
Just to go – you made a point there that there hadn’t been any real improvement. Now I think to be fair we have the annual Closing the Gap report to parliament, it’s a very important day that started, I believe in 2008, and that allows us to measure how we’re going against targets that were set to actually bring indigenous Australians measurements of quality of life, life expectancy and education and things up to the standard of other Australians. Now there are some targets we aren’t meeting, but there are some targets we are meeting. In some health areas, we are meeting the targets and in most areas there are some improvements, that doesn’t mean there’s not a long way to go. But I think it’s fair that both the processes the Parliament’s put in place, as well as the fact that we are making progress against a lot of targets, sometimes not fast enough, we all accept, but we have that annual report that allows us to measure and allows us to recommit. So I think it’s fair to say and important to note that that commitment’s there and some progress is being made, albeit not enough.
JIM MIDDLETON:
Now Labor, turning to another topic, had a pretty untidy week, one way or another, And yet the latest opinion poll, Reachtel, 52-48 to Labor. Does this suggest that there’s really more than one campaign going on? There’s the national campaign that we’re seeing, where that’s dominated and has in the last week with questions of costings, black holes of bent horizons, etcetera, etcetera. But it doesn’t seem to be having the effect that you would like?
SCOTT RYAN:
Well you said that there might be more than one campaign going on, what it means, Jim, is there’s more than one poll happening. I think we’re running one every two or three days. I’ve been sitting in this chair, asked when the numbers are in one direction and the other and my answer’s always been the same. It doesn’t impact the way the Government’s going about its job, which is explaining to people in the suburbs of Australia, in the regional towns, every opportunity we get, about the details of our economic plan, and how we believe that’s going to strengthen both the Australian economy and also their personal circumstances. And I might say, in the last three weeks when I’ve been talking to people during the campaign, I’m getting a very positive response to that. I think the economy and job security, managing the transition of the economy away from mining investment that was particularly strong in other states, not as strong here in Melbourne – that’s the response that I’ve been getting from members of the community. They are very concerned that going back to Labor will just lead to the chaos, the deficit, the debt and the constant changing of the guard, in terms of budget surpluses versus deficits that we saw over the five or six years of chaos under the budget.
JIM MIDDLETON:
Sharon, undoubtedly Reachtel will be regarded within the Labor camp as a bit of a morale booster, but if you look deeper into the poll numbers, and it’s not just Reachtel, although Reachtel has Labor’s primary vote at 33 with the Greens at 9. Now whichever poll you look at with Labor’s primary in the mid-thirties at best, you simply haven’t got a big enough vote, have you, to get those 21 seats that you need if you are to form majority government?
SHARON BIRD:
Well Jim we certainly don’t underestimate the task ahead of us. We are coming from, as has been described numerous times, an underdog position. But I would argue we are very match fit for this election campaign. And what you’re seeing is, I would argue, is two things happening. One is that we are clearly talking about the issues that are actually on the minds of Australians. Things like protecting Medicare and keeping our health system, determining your access by your need not by how much money you’ve got in your pocket; talking about education across all the levels, you know school, education and the Gonski commitment, people know what that means for their local school; TAFE and vocational education, backing a vocational system that has integrity at its heart, as a strong public provider in the TAFE system and where people can have faith, both the students and employers in the quality of the outcomes of that system; keeping university access affordable and reasonable based on your ability; we are talking about the issues that matter to voters and I think that’s what getting such a strong acknowledgement from people in communities.
Secondly I think, and hear this like I’m sure many of my colleagues do, that people are massively disappointed in Malcolm Turnbull. They thought they would get somebody who would lead a government and now an election campaign with serious debates, dumping the old slogans and the fear campaigns. They haven’t seen that. They’ve just seen a Malcolm Turnbull who is just a new version of Tony Abbott and I do think they are very, very disappointed in that. So I quite strongly believe those two things are playing out and that’s why we are match fit, but we certainly don’t estimate the task of defeating a first-term Government and winning back 21 seats
JIM MIDDLETON:
A further question on that, Sharon Bird, talking about Malcolm Turnbull – one of the interesting things that emerges from all the polls is that while what you say about disappointment may be reflected among Liberal and Labor voters, but the one group of voters who still think that Malcolm Turnbull would be Australia’s best Prime Minister is the Greens. How do you explain that?
SHARON BIRD:
Ah well you’d have to ask the Greens about that I suspect, Jim. Look at the end of the day –
JIM MIDDLETON:
(interrupts) Well no it’s got to be a concern for you?
SHARON BIRD:
I just think that we have a job and that job is to explain our position, to put our case – we are asking people to vote one Labor, we’re asking them to back our agenda. We believe it is a program for the future that will deliver on growth, certainly will deliver not only on jobs but making sure that Australians are fit and ready to take up those jobs, have the education they need. We are asking people to look at our agenda and back us number one. Now I think it’s quite clear that people are taking a serious look at Malcolm Turnbull and are expressing disappointment about that, but at the end of the day in this election campaign, our job is to put the case to them that they need to vote one Labor and that’s certainly what I’ll be doing, every day up to the election and I know my colleagues are doing the same.
JIM MIDDLETON:
It is a worry, isn’t it for you, that Malcolm Turnbull’s rating has continued to decline and slide and there is that element of disappointment and concern among voters that rather than getting a new Prime Minister, that they’re getting Tony Abbott without the ears.
SCOTT RYAN:
I think the people that follow polls tend to be in studios like this. I don’t – I’ve never had a voter ask me about a poll, I’ve never had people in the community ask me about polls. They ask me about the transition of the economy, they talk about the new wave economy, they talk about a confidence that Malcolm Turnbull can actually take the country, with all his experience in business, into that challenging era with all the opportunities that Asia provides. They talk to me about the fear of Labor, the talk to me about my own portfolio, the disastrous VET FEE-HELP scheme that’s seen thousands of students rorted and court actions, because of the way Labor set up the vocational training system in 2012. People talk to politicians and political candidates about the issues that affect their lives and that’s what we’re talking to them about with our jobs and growth plan over the last three weeks and over the next 35 days until polling day.
JIM MIDDLETON:
Sharon Bird, Bill Shorten said today that the decision to backflip on the question of the schoolkids bonus and on more generous provisions, pension provisions, had been taken on Thursday, that it was not a consequence of that car-crash interview of David Feeney’s with David Speers, here on Sky News, but a consequence of the findings that emerged from the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Outlook document produced by Treasury and Finance. That happened the Friday before, if that’s the case, why didn’t you act before David Feeney’s interview, rather than after?
SHARON BIRD:
Ah well Jim, the really interesting thing out of the PEFO coming out was the fact that it confirmed for us what had come through the Budget, that there had been a tripling of the deficit. Now that does mean that we have to make some hard but responsible decisions. The decision was made to –
JIM MIDDLETON:
(interrupts) But why not act immediately, rather than wait to be belted around the ears by Scott Morrison and Mathias Cormann and have that interview, whereas it wasn’t just David Feeney, because we also saw Jenny Macklin still campaigning the day before – Wednesday I think it was – on the question of the schoolkids bonus and the pensions. It didn’t seem like well thought out political strategy at the very least.
SHARON BIRD:
Well I’d argue quite the opposite. I think that we dealt with that in a way that was responsible. We looked at the figures; we had to make some hard decisions. It was quite clear that we had not agreed with the Government with the priorities that they’d put in place, but we do want to make sure that we’re in a position to back families in ways that will make real differences to them, in particular that means funding our school systems through the full Gonski commitment, it means making sure that we are able to deliver on Medicare to ensure it is protected both from the Medical Benefits Scheme and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. We had to make a call on those matters. Now at the end of the day, making sure that the education system and the health system are delivering for people, are important priorities and commitments. We’ve seen from the Government exactly what their priorities are in the budget. They are about looking after the big end of town with some sort of fairly discredited trickle-down theory that everyone will benefit from that. We now know that that’s about 0.1 of GDP growth per year for that very large outlay. We believe investing in people, investing in their education and investing in infrastructure such as the announcements that have been made by –
JIM MIDDLETON:
(interrupts) Sharon Bird I might just interrupt there if you don’t mind, particularly because we now do have pictures from the Long Walk, from Federation Square to the MCG. There we see pictures of Malcolm Turnbull, joined by Michael Long, the Essendon great and Norm Smith medallist if that means anything to people in the northern states. One of the great indigenous footballers, one of the great footballers of any colour in fact, and it was a consequence of a walk that he did from his home here in Melbourne to Canberra I think in 2005, to appeal for indigenous reconciliation – ended up meeting with then-prime minister John Howard to push the case and as a consequence of that, every year, at the beginning of Reconciliation Week with the indigenous round of AFL football, we have a situation where they have this march. Ten thousand people, quite often, whether there’s that many this time round – very bad weather here in Melbourne, cold like much of the rest of eastern Australia, but a lot of people there braving the weather to join Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten walking to the MCG for the traditional indigenous round game between Essendon and Richmond.
Might turn to you now Scott Ryan if I can, just on this question of costings and so on and so forth, black hole, as it seems to me in terms of politics, the only one that I can recall which had a real impact goes back to 1987 when poor old Jim Carlton, the shadow treasurer got some tax figuring wrong, John Howard had to deal with it and it did have a real impact. But I don’t recall any other election campaign where the numbers themselves have had any impact on the result.
SCOTT RYAN:
Well you know I do remember 1987, I’m a bit younger than you, and I think what ’87 showed is that oppositions in particular need to get their numbers right. And if I go back through my involvement in politics, I remember the Kim Beazley black hole of $8 billion was important in framing the 1998 election – people didn’t trust Labor. In 2004 when Mark Lathan had the Medicare Gold program, that was going to cost unfunded billions of dollars and now –
JIM MIDDLETON:
(interrupts) But what about the fact that over time if you look at the figures, and I think I’m right here, that in terms of tax to GDP and spending to GDP, Labor governments actually spend less than Coalition governments through time, and at this moment you’re higher than your predecessors.
SCOTT RYAN:
There was a temporary spike in corporate tax revenue, particularly in the last phase of the mining boom which happened after 2006, but I might also say that, remember that over the last three years a number of spending reductions that we tried to put in place were blocked by the Labor Party in the Senate, including commitments the Labor Party had promised to implement themselves. We had some changes to higher education funding that we actually wanted to implement, we agreed that these were good funding changes, but Labor blocked their own policy in the Senate in order to create a worse budgetary situation. There’s been no lack of willingness on behalf of the Coalition Government to address the budget deficit, but at every single step of the way we’ve been blocked by the Labor Party and that’s reflected in the fact that their only response to $67 billion dollars in unfunded promises was to say it’s only $32 billion dollars. That was the best that the Labor Party could come up with.
JIM MIDDLETON:
Sharon Bird, your response to that? It is the case, is it not, that Labor in reality always have to look better in terms of economic responsibility than the Coalition, whatever the numbers show?
SHARON BIRD:
Well I think it goes further than that Jim. I think not only do we have to appear better, we actually are better. If you look at the way that the Labor government handled the global financial crisis, internationally recognised, the strength of that response –
JIM MIDDLETON:
(interrupts) But it was pretty messy look this week with what went on, wasn’t it really? With this David Feeney and then the backflips, something that you’ve been campaigning for and repeatedly in terms of the return of the schoolkids bonus and also these pension measures?
SHARON BIRD:
Not at all. Look, I think that the extraordinary thing that Labor has done, which has been unprecedented for quite a long time, is we actually laid out $100 billion worth of savings. Then in the budget reply speech, Bill Shorten outlined another $70 billion in savings. We have put upfront our hard decisions about where we were going to get our revenue and savings from in order to be able to deliver on the programs that we think need to be a priority in the interests of the nation. We have done that in a way that no opposition has done beforehand. I take great pride in the whole team, in the work that they have done to achieve that. Now we are obviously putting our policies through the Parliamentary Budget Office, getting full and independent costings, we are putting forward a very responsible agenda, and that is actually off the back of the fact that we have been very responsible economic managers. We had the triple A credit rating even though we encountered some of the most difficult economic times that a government can encounter.
Scott is running the usual line, you know, start with ‘it’s all Labor’s fault’ and then run a scare campaign subsequent to that. Well you know, I think the Australian people are better than that. I think they see through that, I think they do expect governments and oppositions in a campaign to be responsible, that is exactly what we are being and we are making it very clear what we would prioritise in a program to deliver national growth and I think that is well regarded and it is a conversation we should be having instead of the ‘it’s the other side’s fault and let’s run a scare campaign’ which sadly, even under Malcolm Turnbull, rolled out again.
JIM MIDDLETON:
Just going further on the economic questions, we saw Scott Morrison and Chris Bowen at the Press Club on Friday. Is it good enough simply to say that because something is in the Budget it’s fully-costed as Scott Morrison was suggesting? Don’t we need deeper reckoning and deeper accounting than that?
SCOTT RYAN:
Something doesn’t get into the Budget without going through the departments of Treasury and Finance. To get into the Budget it goes through an incredibly rigorous process, if it’s from a line area like Education it gets assessed by that department, then the costs get worked out by Finance and overseen by Treasury, so if something is in the Budget, it’s actually been through the processes of government to make sure it’s feasible and can be delivered within those numbers. The problem that we’ve seen over and over again when Labor have been in office is that they’ve actually overspent year after year, and every single promise they’ve made – and Sharon just referred to their commitments – and the problem is, let’s look at their record: every single promise Wayne Swan made about the budget deficit and the budget surplus was broken. Every single one.
JIM MIDDLETON:
Okay, back with more from our panel, Scott Ryan and Sharon Bird in a moment. Stay with us, plenty more to talk about.
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JIM MIDDLETON:
Welcome back to PM Agenda. We’ve already had one People’s Forum here on Sky News between Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten. Tomorrow at the National Press Club in Canberra, a debate – journalists get to ask the questions rather than ordinary people, voters in fact. But still with us here in the studio with me, Scott Ryan and in Sydney Sky News Centre, his opposite number Sharon Bird from the Labor Party. Talking about the debate, we’ve had two already, or we will have had two by tomorrow night, that’s ah, the Prime Minister’s allowing a lot opportunities for Bill Shorten to appear on a level playing field with him isn’t he?
SCOTT RYAN:
Well I think when the Prime Minister was first asked about this before the first Sky People’s Forum he indicated there would be multiple, and I think that indicates Malcolm Turnbull’s confidence that he wants as many opportunities as he can to actually explain our plan to the people of Australia through as many fora as possible. Every microphone is an opportunity, every camera is an opportunity to do that, and that he is confident that putting forward his plan, people will see the weakness of Bill Shorten, they’ll see the weakness of Labor and it will remind them –
JIM MIDDLETON:
(interrupts) That didn’t really last time according to the people in the room at the People’s Forum, the vote went overwhelmingly to Bill Shorten.
SCOTT RYAN:
Over the years, I do remember that when one measures these debates by whatever, a worm device that might exist, or sometimes polls, is that they tend to favour the person from the Labor Party generally, that’s a reflection of some of the – the way that the debates may be run, or issues raised. But what you’re seeing from Malcolm Turnbull is a confidence that he’s quite happy to debate Bill Shorten, he’s quite happy to use every opportunity that he can to explain the contrast between stability and an economic plan under the Coalition, and chaos under Labor with all their record of dysfunction, particularly when it comes to the budget and the economy while in office.
JIM MIDDLETON:
There is some truth in what Scott Ryan’s saying, Sharon Bird. I do recall debates in past years where John Howard, not noted as being the greatest political debater certainly as far as the worm was concerned in encounters with various opposition leaders – a bit of a false dawn perhaps, for the Labor Party and yes, quickly, might you be getting a bit overconfident?
SHARON BIRD:
Look I think the debates are important opportunities for leaders to engage and talk to people about what their priorities are. I think it’s an interesting exclusive Jim, that you’ve outed your colleagues as not ordinary people, but the reality is that a lot of people engage with debates in order to see what the agenda is, that governments and oppositions are putting forward. We just welcome the opportunity for Bill to get out there as he has been doing day after day after day, for many, many weeks and as whole team we’ve been doing during our time in opposition, to actually hear what people are saying about the issues that matter to them, and then to outline what your agenda is on those issues and so we welcome the opportunity –
JIM MIDDLETON:
(interrupts) Sharon Bird, I’m afraid I have to interrupt you again but we do have to go. Thank you very much for joining us in Sydney, Sharon Bird, and here in Melbourne, Scott Ryan.
SCOTT RYAN:
Thank you.
(ENDS)