Topics: 2016 election result; Medicare; AAA credit rating.
E&OE…
JIM MIDDLETON:
Joining us now, on PM Agenda, Skills Minister Scott Ryan. Scott, first of all, congratulations to the Coalition on this victory, narrow though it was. The Labor Party certainly gave you a substantial scare, but also the point that Tom was making, the rising vote for the minor Parties does suggest that you can’t go through a similar situation to what we saw between 2010 to 2013 and expect to win the (inaudible) of the voters next time.
SCOTT RYAN:
Thanks Jim, it is great to be here. Look, I would say let’s put this election in context. It has been a close election in terms of the number of seats – and there are still a couple of seats in doubt, a handful of them – but if we look at the raw numbers, the Coalition has got around 42 per cent of the vote, just over. That is a greater percentage of the vote than John Howard got in 1998 and a substantial increase on what Bob Hawke got in 1990, and they were both successful Prime Ministers. Also, in terms of the Primary vote, more than 800,000 more people have voted for the Coalition than the Labor Party. We’re just under 5 million votes and Labor is just over 4.2 million votes. So, yes, it is close, obviously in a Parliamentary sense, but there has also been a pretty strong signal of support for the Coalition as well.
JIM MIDDLETON:
Do you think you need to think again about what was planned for Medicare and for the health sector in general? On questions like the freeze on bulk billing and increased expenses for some pathology services and imaging as well?
SCOTT RYAN:
That is well outside my portfolio, I am not going to comment publically on that. I know that my colleague Arthur Sinodinos said this morning that there was a bit of an itch around Medicare and Labor scratched it. I think that is a fair way to look at it. He also made the point, and this is something I entirely agree with as do all my colleagues, in order to keep these systems sustainable you do actually have to have a sustainable Budget. Because in the end, whether it was Victoria in the early 90s when I left school or South Australia at the same time, when the Budget breaks and government has run up too much debt for it to be sustainable it is those community services that tend to get hit hard. And we want to ensure that, in Arthur’s words and John Howard’s words, we are the best friend that Medicare ever had. To do that, we need to balance off the competing needs of today but also sustainability in coming years.
TOM CONNELL:
So, just to clarify then Scott Ryan – because we have heard the Prime Minister say today that that reassurance needs to happen – do you think, considering the Budget issues that could include more money in some form?
SCOTT RYAN:
Tom, to be honest it is not my place to say that and I think today is not the place to be commenting on specifics to that degree anyway. There will be plenty of time for reflecting upon the election. But the Government did take a very clear Budget plan to the election and that has been endorsed, albeit with a narrow electoral outcome, the Government has been re-elected. So, I think it is important to remember that that within itself is an important statement. But, the overall objective of making sure the Budget is sustainable is a critical one. We are being honest, and I am being honest as a member of the Coalition, saying there was a degree of public sensitivity around Medicare and we do need to consider how we address that. John Howard addressed that, Kevin Rudd could never campaign against John Howard on Medicare, instead he campaigned on public hospitals that state governments ran, usually Labor state governments at the time. So, I think we need to reflect upon that and develop the policies as well as the conversations that reinforces our support of that.
JIM MIDDLETON:
On the other side of the coin you have this situation where the Government is now on notice from the ratings agency about Australia’s AAA credit rating, and effectively demanding genuine structural reform of the Budget. Now, neither major Party took a platform of major structural reform to the election. You are really going to have to re-double your efforts as far as that is concerned, and does that means substantial cuts in certain areas of benefits for example?
SCOTT RYAN:
To be fair Jim, one side of politics did take a substantial plan of structural reform to the election. We did actually look at –
JIM MIDDLETON:
(interrupts) But you are going to have to do much more to satisfy the ratings agency, we are talking about 2021 for a return to surplus.
SCOTT RYAN:
But those comments were in the last week, I believe, so we did have substantial structural reform around superannuation tax concessions being one of the key ones. And there was a big difference between us and the opposition who proposed a substantial increasing and deepening of the deficit over the next four years. This just highlights what I mentioned earlier when we talked about Medicare, government is about competing priorities and competing challenges. And in this case, ensuring that services are delivered now to the satisfaction of the public as well as a sustainable Budget in future years to enable those services to continue to be delivered. I think that is the greatest challenge, because that will underpin strong economic growth, that will underpin strong public services and confidence in people investing and providing employment opportunities etc.
TOM CONNELL:
Scott Ryan, we are pretty close to a final election result, I think it is fair to say it is looking like 76 seats for the Coalition. When you were sitting back and a part of helping Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull get into that role, was this seen as a pass mark?
SCOTT RYAN:
I am not going to reflect on the difficult times of last year, I have been asked that a couple of times. I think, truth be told is that every government hopes to get re-elected with a strong majority, this is not as strong as some of us would have hoped. The important point is, again let’s put our primary vote in context. Yes, there is a close seat in terms of the Parliamentary outcome, but we have a higher percentage of the vote substantially than Bob Hawke in 1990, and substantially than John Howard in 1998. We have been re-elected, but yes it is a Parliament that is closer than we would have liked. I tell you what Tom, the job of every politician is to work with the Parliament that the people give us and that is our intention going forward. And it is one of the reasons that the Prime Minister reached out to the crossbenchers in the House of Representatives and the Senate in the course of the last week, because he wants to make this Parliament work.
JIM MIDDLETON:
Scott Ryan, we do appreciate your time on Weekend Agenda this Sunday afternoon. Congratulations once again on the Coalition being returned to government.
(ENDS)