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LYNDAL CURTIS
Amanda, if I can start with you. The announcement on teenage mothers, getting them reconnected with education and training, this is presumably a sign of what’s to come in the budget.
AMANDA RISHWORTH
Well look, I think it’s no surprise. I think the Prime Minister has made it very clear over the last number of months – as the other ministers – that this budget is about making sure that people, every Australian, has the opportunity if they can work to get into work. There will be jobs available as our economy grows, and connecting them with work, bridging that gap between those that maybe don’t have the skills to get into employment to do that. One of the critical ways to do that is to get Year 12. It’s often been said that Year 12 or the equivalent is a passport to your working future, so this announcement fits very much into the priorities that the government has set and that is about ensuring that we do have people in Australia, that every Australian if they’re able to work does get the opportunity to share in a prosperous economy.
LYNDAL CURTIS
Scott Ryan, it’s a small spend in terms of the budget – $47 million over four years – but does it have the potential to have some long-term benefits down the track, getting not only teenage mothers potentially into work, but stopping a cycle of both mothers and children moving into welfare?
SCOTT RYAN
Well I think, Lyndal, the aspirations that Amanda just outlined about giving every Australian the opportunity for work, and some of the things the Prime Minister said, they’re fine aspirations, but aspirations are the easy part. The implementation of the policy when the rubber hits the road is the hard part. What we’ve said about policies like this is that one of the most important things for getting women with children into the workforce is childcare. On every front, this government has actually sent the wrong signals on childcare. It’s restricted access to the benefit, it’s threatening to restrict access to the rebate, and its policies are forcing up the cost of childcare. That is not going to help getting women into the workforce.
AMANDA RISHWORTH
Scott, well that’s simply not true. We’ve increased the childcare rebate to 50% from 30%…
SCOTT RYAN
And you’re threatening to restrict access to it for some women. It’s currently available to all women…
AMANDA RISHWORTH
… absolutely. And we made it available to all women. We increased, up to $7,000, that you can access, and we increased the 50% from 30%. So if you want to talk about childcare, Scott…
SCOTT RYAN
… you’ve restricted access to the benefit – you means tested that, and now you’re threatening the universal access to the rebate. That does not help women get into the workforce.
AMANDA RISHWORTH
That is not true. We have done more on childcare than the previous government did. We’re proud of our record on childcare. Let’s talk about opportunity to work. As the Prime Minister outlined, there will be support for these teenage mums, about getting into work, including 100% of their childcare costs paid in many cases. So there will be the support and we think it’s a good policy…
LYNDAL CURTIS
Is that the reason though, Amanda, why you would have a trial and not move to applying this to all teenage mothers – to make sure you get the implementation right because there have been problems in the past with implementation in programs, but to also make sure that the childcare is available?
AMANDA RISHWORTH
Well look, I think we’ve seen in a number of areas where we roll out programs which does have a limited area of implementation to make sure we get the services right, to evaluate how well it works, but I think it’s the responsible thing to do and we’ll continue to do that. I think the essence of it is that it will affect, in the first ten trial sites, it will affect up to 4,000 young mums – teenage mums. So we think this is a good start. We then are in a position to see what works and then potentially roll it out into the future.
LYNDAL CURTIS
Scott, should the trial go ahead? Should the government at least be given a chance to let this go ahead and see if it works?
SCOTT RYAN
I’m not opposing the trial here Lyndal, I was making the point that a couple of weeks ago, and in the lead up to this budget, we’ve seen stories and leaks out of the government threatening universal access to the childcare rebate. No one in the government is actually rejecting those stories, so women can legitimately be concerned – those who access the childcare rebate – whether or not they’ll be able to access it after next Tuesday.
AMANDA RISHWORTH
Well that’s not true. There’s been a lot of discussion…
SCOTT RYAN
Can you rule it out?
AMANDA RISHWORTH
There’s been a lot of discussion…
SCOTT RYAN
You can’t rule it out, can you Amanda?
AMANDA RISHWORTH
You know very well Scott that there’s been a lot of discussion about the budget and Wayne Swan has said he will not be playing a game of ‘rule in, rule out’. I know you’ll enjoy the budget, Scott, on budget night, and you’ll just have to watch. We’re not going to play a game of ruling in and ruling out, you know very well that that’s not how it’s done.
LYNDAL CURTIS
Amanda, the economics firm Deloitte Access Economics has predicted that the deficits for this year and for next year could be about $10 billion above the forecast. Can the government, with potential deficits of that size, really be expected to move back into surplus in 2012-13?
AMANDA RISHWORTH
Well I think that what’s been very clear is that we’ve been upfront about this as a government that there has been some short term problems with a downgrading in revenue because of natural disasters, because of the Queensland floods, earthquake in Japan and also a patchwork economy. What we’ve also said is that we are committed, as the economy grows, we will return the budget to surplus in 2012-13. That’s what we’ve committed to do. This will be a tough budget because of that, but the underlying fundamentals of our economy are strong and we will build up from that. It’s no surprise that there have been downgrades in revenue as a result of those natural disasters, but the long-term and medium-term fundamentals of our economy are strong. But that means that it makes it harder to do a budget. That’s why Penny Wong, Wayne Swan and a whole range of ministers including the Prime Minister have been working very hard on this, but we will commit to getting the budget to surplus in 2012-13.
LYNDAL CURTIS
Scott, if the deficits are of that size, does it make Joe Hockey’s claim yesterday, that a Coalition Government could possibly have had the budget in surplus even faster than the government’s predicting, perhaps really not achievable?
SCOTT RYAN
Well Lyndal, past form is the best predictor of future success. The Coalition has the runs on the board about delivering surplus after surplus. The last five Coalition budgets were in structural surplus. Amanda there sounds particularly defensive because with Labor, there is always an excuse.
AMANDA RISHWORTH
That’s not true…
SCOTT RYAN
There have been very few Treasurers in Australian history that could have formed a deficit budget under these circumstances, with terms of trade that were taught to be impossible at universities when I was there around the same time as you Amanda. We’ve got record terms of trade. We’ve got the Reserve Bank threatening to increase interest rates to slow down the economy, yet this is the only Treasurer in history who complains about the level of investment, because that apparently reduces his tax receipts. The real problem here is the spending…
LYNDAL CURTIS
Didn’t Joe Hockey’s statement yesterday put some weight on the Opposition in the budget reply which will come next Thursday to say how you might achieve that?
SCOTT RYAN
Labor will do anything in the lead up to this budget to talk about anything other than what this budget is going to produce which is a $50 billion deficit in a year that you promised much less.
AMANDA RISHWORTH
Joe Hockey cannot go out and say ‘ we’ll have the budget back in surplus faster than Labor’ without any plan, without anything. Let’s look at past history, you said past history, we saw that Tony Abbott in his election commitments had an $11 billion black hole.
SCOTT RYAN
You can make up all the numbers you want, Amanda.
AMANDA RISHWORTH
That wasn’t us, that was Treasury…
SCOTT RYAN
You can make up the numbers you want, the Coalition has ten years of surpluses and the Labor Party is going to produce a fourth year record deficit. They’re the runs on the board that you cannot run away from.
LYNDAL CURTIS
Amanda, if we can move to what this budget will mean for the government. You’re having what one Labor MP described to me yesterday as an annus horribilus. You’ve got a lot of work ahead of you. Will this budget be the start of stitching together a narrative, a coherent message for the public, or will it just maybe be a break in what will be a very difficult year?
AMANDA RISHWORTH
Well look, I think this budget, in terms of our narrative about ensuring people take up the opportunity of work, has been something that we’ve been talking about for some time. The importance of education and importance of training, the importance of skills. We have done a lot of ground work on that as a government. We moved in to protect jobs during the Global Financial Crisis because we believed in the dignity of work. This budget will build on that. It will also build on our narrative that when there was a Global Financial Crisis, we moved to protect jobs. Now as investment increases from the private sector, the government will bring the budget back to surplus. So I think this budget, it being tough, it being difficult, but it does fit in with our broader narrative as a government.
LYNDAL CURTIS
Scott, there’s also been some talk from people who know the Coalition well that this is a test for the Coalition as well because you’ve talked a lot about wanting to see the budget return to surplus. Does Tony Abbott have to start saying ‘yes’ to some things in the budget?
SCOTT RYAN
A budget is about a government’s agenda…
LYNDAL CURTIS
But it has to go through the Parliament.
SCOTT RYAN
It does, and other than 1975, Senates haven’t blocked budgets, Lyndal..
LYNDAL CURTIS
But you can amend programs…
SCOTT RYAN
Well we’ll wait to see what the government says. We’ve consistently opposed attacks on support for Australian families and when the government says it wants to remove support for Australian families like the private health insurance rebate, our view is that the government is only doing that because it can’t restrain its own spending. Amanda there talked about this budget building on the government’s narrative, and she’s right. It’s going to build on the narrative of four years of record debt, deficit and waste and at the same time punishing Australian families and increasing the cost of living.
AMANDA RISHWORTH
You can’t keep spinning out that line…
SCOTT RYAN
It’s a statement of fact, Amanda. Every day, you borrow $100 million dollars which is taxes that future Australians will have to pay back. Debt is deferred taxation plus interest and you can’t run away from that record.
LYNDAL CURTIS
Amanda, there is a lot of weight which the Treasurer and the Prime Minister have put on to make sure you deliver that surplus, isn’t there? It’s a political goal as much as an economic one.
AMANDA RISHWORTH
Well I think both Wayne Swan and Penny Wong have both outlined why economically it’s the right thing to do and look there has been a commitment that when we did have to step in, when people’s jobs were on the line during the Global Financial Crisis, we made the commitment then that as times got better, as our economy strengthened, we would then get the budget back into surplus. We have made that commitment from the time of the Global Financial Crisis and we intend to deliver on it. So look, I think it is the right thing to do. As our economy strengthens, it is important that the budget does get back into surplus and we’re committed to doing that.
LYNDAL CURTIS
And that’s where we’ll have to leave it, Amanda Rishworth and Scott Ryan, thank you very much for your time today.
(ENDS)