ABC 774

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
774 ABC Melbourne with Sally Warhaft
20 May 2014

SUBJECT/S:  Budget 2014

SALLY WARHAFT:  At 12 minutes past 5, Sally Warhaft with you, filling in for Raf. We're going to talk now to Christopher Pyne, the Education Minister, he's joining us on the line and he will take some talkback calls this afternoon as well - 1300-222-774 is the number, if you'd like to join in the conversation.

Good Afternoon, Christopher Pyne, and thank you for joining us.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE:        Good afternoon, Sally, good to be with you.

SALLY WARHAFT:  It's been a tough week for your Government; do you think that you have failed to sell an overarching, coherent message to the Australian people about the national economy?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE:        Well, no, I don't, but I also think it's very early days in the post-Budget process. I think the Australian public elected us last year to make the tough decisions, to ensure that the debt and deficit disaster left to us by Labor was addressed by an adult government. I think they knew that we'd have to make decisions that wouldn't be popular, and I think in the short term, political unpopularity might come to us with this Budget, but I think in the long term we'll be given credit for not squibbing it in the way that Labor did for six years.

SALLY WARHAFT:  Your big gamble, and you've just referred to it then, in your opening line, is the idea of the Labor deficit disaster, or the Budget emergency, or the financial situation/crisis - however many ways you want to put it. This was the big gamble that your entire Budget rested on, that I don't get the sense that the public has bought. I think that people are wondering... many people are confused about whether there really is a Budget emergency. Do you think that that message has not been sold succinctly?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE:        Well, I mean if you put your trust in polls, there was an Essential Media Poll released today, which showed well over 50 per cent of Australians do believe that there is a Budget emergency. I think that most people believe that $667 billion of debt, $123 billion of deficits, when Labor started with a $22 billion surplus of money in the bank and no debt, is certainly a very serious situation. I think that they also know that the interest repayments on Labor's debt are running at $1 billion a month, and so that we are effectively paying our mortgage by putting the mortgage repayments on the credit card. As everyone knows, in their own household, that isn't sustainable. So I do think the public, even if they don't believe that there's a Budget emergency, certainly believe that we are faced with very serious financial challenges, and it's just Government's job to address them, and that's what we're doing in the Budget.

SALLY WARHAFT:  Well, you'd want to be hoping that the accuracy of polls is not quite there. You've just chosen one that I suppose assists your arguments. But yesterday they were pretty devastating for the Government, and a sense, I think of confusion, with people. So, for example, you have a $20 billion research fund to try and find a cure for cancer, but cutting the CSIRO. How are we meant to understand that?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE:        Well, we said that there'd be no cuts to health, and there won't be any cuts to health, because over the course of the next four years, we will be putting the savings from the Medicare co-payment, and any other health savings into the Medical Research Future Fund, a $20 billion fund that will deliver a billion dollars a year within six years of medical research funding, I think that will...

SALLY WARHAFT:  Yeah but I think that's some of the confusion, isn't it? That if that $7 payment to go to the doctor was going to be used to pay off the debt disaster that you've spoken of, or the emergency, perhaps people would understand. But to then put it into a new spending research - however well intentioned and wonderful it would be, if Australians could be the curers of cancer - don't you think that that is confusing for people?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE:        No, I don't think so, because one of the reasons for the Medicare co-payment is so that people value going to the doctor. Now, when Bob Hawke's government proposed a Medicare co-payment, people were going to the GP, on average, four times a year. They're now going to the GP, on average, 11 times a year. So, one of the purposes of the co-payment is not just to make the health system sustainable, it's also so that people who attend to the doctor on a regular basis actually attach some value to that.

SALLY WARHAFT:  Yeah, I think - I mean, do you have any substantial research though, that of those 11 average visits - I mean, of course, as you have drummed into people, it's an ageing population, and the idea that people regularly visit their doctor - do you have evidence that people are wasting, really wasting visits to GPs?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE:        Well, I don't think anybody believes, Sally, that either the welfare system or the health system is sustainable with the open spending approach that Labor's taken for the last six years, and I think that they elected us last year to get the Budget under control. I don't think it would be a valid argument to say that the population has aged so much since Bob Hawke was Prime Minister that somehow average visits to the GP would have almost tripled in that time. I don't think that is a sensible argument.

            But the point of the whole Budget is that we inherited a mess from Labor, there was never going to be an easy way out from the debt and deficit disaster that we were left, and I think the measure of the Budget's success is: is this a reasonable response to the challenges that we face? And I think that over time, people will think, yes this is a reasonable response. They won't like certain elements of it. There might be particular elements that individually impact on them, but overall, I think we've tried to be fair, and we've tried to do the right thing by the country. And Labor's approach, which is to be the champion of complaint, I think people will see through that as well.

SALLY WARHAFT:  Well, I think let's move on now to your portfolio, and Christopher Pyne, you were asked last year, on 17 November on Sky News, if there was any possibility that you would raise university fees. You promised that you wouldn't. You said that that was a promise, and that the one thing that Tony Abbott wants to be remembered for, besides being an infrastructure Prime Minister, is that he keeps his promises. And when you were pushed on it, you said this was a no surprises government, there will be no surprises. What is your definition of surprise?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE:        Well, what we've done in higher education and education is we're increasing spending, as I promised that we would, in fact we're spending more on school funding than Labor would have if they'd been re-elected. And we are not increasing fees...

SALLY WARHAFT:  [Interrupting] I'm asking you about being... Well, you're allowing universities to do it.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE:        Well, we are not increasing fees. We are not introducing up-front fees for domestic students, as I've promised, and we will not be increasing fees. We are de-regulating the university higher education system, in order to spread more opportunity to 80,000 more young people to get a university degree, so they can have the same benefits of other people with degrees, which is to earn 75 per cent more over their lifetime than people without a university degree. So we're spreading opportunity. And we're also allowing the university sector to thrive and compete with our Asian competitors.

            Now, standing still is not an option. Otherwise the higher education system will go the same way as the Australian manufacturing sector, and as the Minister for Education, I'm not prepared to preside over that, knowing that's the case. It's not possible for us to be the champion of complacency that Labor wants to be; we do need to make reforms and spread opportunity at the same time, and that's what I'm achieving.

SALLY WARHAFT:  But you know that that reform is going to lead to an increase in fees for university courses.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE:        Well, some fees may well drop. Some fees may rise. Overall, we are establishing the largest Commonwealth Scholarships Fund in Australian history. We're extending the demand-driven system to sub-bachelor courses, so that people from low socio-economic status background can get into university and make something more of their lives, and we're also, of course, extending the Commonwealth Grant Scheme to private providers so there are more opportunities for people to go on to higher education. So this is a very equitable measure, knowing of course that every student can borrow every single dollar from the Australian taxpayer and not start paying it back until they earn over $50,000 a year.

SALLY WARHAFT:  Well, that's been true for quite a long time, hasn't it?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE:        It's a very good system. It's a system that I strongly endorse.

SALLY WARHAFT:  Now, this system. Do you think that the days of people studying for reasons other than simply getting a better job to make money - so the idea of learning for learning's sake - is that sort of over, with this kind of system now so entrenched and being further entrenched with your policies?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE:        No. In fact, I think that there are now more opportunities under this policy for people to do learning for learning's sake. In fact, I think the universities - particularly, the group of eight universities who offer courses that don't necessarily lead to jobs but are good for society as a whole, especially in the humanities, will now be able to afford to do so, whereas under the previous Labor system, many of those courses were being squeezed or closed because universities didn't have the revenue that they needed to be able to maintain courses that weren't financially viable for them.

SALLY WARHAFT:  What about the response of students? You've made comments, obviously, about Julie Bishop, the Foreign Affairs Minister, and Sophie Mirabella, of course, the former MP, being caught up in a fracas. This sort of protest we haven't seen for quite some time, and students are genuinely concerned that they're going to be left behind, and it doesn't seem, once again, that your message is getting across - the message that you want - is reaching people.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE:        Well, Sally, I don't agree with that. The Socialist Alternative, who disrupted Q&A a couple of weeks ago and jostled and assaulted Sophie Mirabella and Julie Bishop have been waiting for six years to oppose a Coalition government. I noticed that when Labor announced $2.5 billion worth of cuts to higher education a year ago, the Socialist Alternative didn't protest against those cuts at all. So what that indicates is that far from being genuinely concerned about students, they'd simply been waiting to return to the normal state of affairs where the Socialist Alternative protests against the Coalition Government.

SALLY WARHAFT:  Although, on that same episode of Q&A, there were genuine questions there from young people. There was a young man who I think his name was Riley who stood up and asked you a question about his life and about an education program I think in Geelong that he was concerned about, that it was going to close, and there was nothing in your response that reached out to him as a human being. That said, you know what, Riley, obviously, you've had problems in your life. Obviously, you're not the typical Australian with this land of opportunities, and we won't leave you behind. We won't ignore you. There was nothing like that. You responded by talking about the Budget emergency.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE:        Well, Sally, that's a value judgment and opinion that you're entitled to express, of course, and as you are the political reporter or the commentator, I guess that's your judgement of my response, but…

SALLY WARHAFT:  Well, I'm an anthropologist. I'm an anthropologist, and I'm interested in how, you know, connections are made.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE:        Yeah, well. You've expressed your opinion, and now perhaps you'll give me the opportunity to express mine. And that is that that night on Q&A, the questions were largely from people from what they described themselves as being from the Socialist Alternative. Riley asked a question about a youth connections program, which is not a higher education program. And I said to Riley that in the Budget, there would be measures to support people like those in his situation who need extra help to reconnect with the job market.

            Now, they aren't university degrees or courses. They are a range of programs, and one of those, of course, is the massive expansion of the Trade Support Loan program, so that apprentices will be able to borrow $20,000 just like higher education students and then pay that back themselves after they are earning $50,000 a year or more. They'll be able to use those for living expenses or for vehicles to travel to apprenticeships so that they are earning and learning at the same time.

            That's just one of the massive expansions that people like Riley will be able to take and find a job, as well as the extension of the demand-driven system to diplomas and associate degrees that people like Riley typically use in order to break into the university system by doing a course that sometimes has lower ATAR scores. And that prepares them to do an undergraduate degree so they can earn 75 per cent more than those people without a university degree over a lifetime. So, far from being lacking in empathy on Q&A, which was before the Budget, I couldn't reveal some of those measures. But I'm very pleased to be able to reveal them now since the Budget's been handed down.

SALLY WARHAFT:  I wasn't suggesting a lack of empathy, Christopher Pyne, but more about…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE:        [Indistinct] sounded like.

SALLY WARHAFT:  …about the way your Government is connecting to people that are trying to understand the very, very big changes that you're making. Let's go to some talkback callers now. Robyn has phoned in from Greensborough to ask the Education Minister a question.

            Hello, Robyn. Have we got you there, Robyn? No.

            Let's go to Jo in Werribee. Hello, Jo.

CALLER JO:  I'd - Mr Pyne, I'd like to ask you a question in relation to statements you made in opposition and that you didn't follow it up with once you'd been elected and given the education portfolio in relation to the recognition of dyslexia as a learning disability. As you know, at the moment it's not, and there's no funding or assistance for someone whose child does have dyslexia. And in opposition, you said that you'd be making moves to recognise it, and there's been nothing said on it since, or done.

SALLY WARHAFT:  Alright, Jo. Let's hear the Minister's response.

            Christopher Pyne.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE:        Well, Jo, I'm glad you've raised that issue because of course, I have a particular personal passion about dyslexia. My father founded the Specific Education Learning Difficulties Association in South Australia in the early 1970s and was made father of the year for his work with dyslexic children back in the mid-1970s. I have two dyslexic children myself, and my brother is also dyslexic. So I have a very particular personal understanding of the issue.

            I didn't say in opposition that we would make dyslexia a specific - a disability. In fact, I don't support making dyslexia a disability, because I think that has all sorts of connotations that I don't necessarily believe go with dyslexia. Dyslexia is a learning difficulty, and I'm having a round table here in Adelaide in a month or two of dyslexia experts, academics, those people active in the area to talk about how to get more support up through the school system and the non-school education system for children with dyslexia and, indeed, adults with dyslexia.

            But I'm not convinced that making dyslexia a disability would necessarily be a good thing for people with dyslexia, because it would stigmatise them instantaneously as being disabled rather than having a learning difficulty.

SALLY WARHAFT:  Jo, I hope that clarifies your question.

            Let's go to Robyn in Greensborough, who I think we've got now. Hello, Robyn.

CALLER ROBYN:     Yes, hello. Ah, yes, Christopher. What I'd like to do is just ask you a little bit about the change that you've made to the Student Welfare and Chaplaincy Program. I work as a student welfare worker in two Victorian schools and I have post-graduate qualifications in Psychology and experience in counselling.

            Look, I'm absolutely appalled by the decision to exclude secular, qualified mental health professionals from the program in favour of retaining chaplains. And chaplains basically only have a Cert IV, which is a minimal qualification. They're, as you're aware - and you had Jeff Kennett on earlier, from the Liberals, talking about the increasing mental health problems that we have, and I see them every day in this school. The chaplains are underqualified to actually address and to run mental health programs. Now, we also have educational psychologists in the state system, but what I see day to day is they're so far stretched [indistinct]…

SALLY WARHAFT:  [Interrupting] Robyn, we need to let the Minister respond.

CALLER ROBYN:     Sure.

SALLY WARHAFT:  So, let's - Christopher Pyne, I think the funding for the Chaplaincy Program was increased - one of the few things that was singled out for an increase?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE:        Well, thank you, Robyn, for calling in. The truth is that the Chaplaincy Program was coming to an end because Labor left it as another one of the funding cliffs that they left us in the Budget. There were many programs coming to an end. Several research programs and Chaplaincy Program, which Labor funded for another 12 months to make sure that they came to an end in our first year of government. And what I've done is move to fund the Chaplaincy Program to the tune of $246 million over the next four years. That will mean that there can be chaplains in 2900 schools across Australia.

            The Chaplaincy Program was initially begun under the Howard government as a Chaplaincy Program, not a School Counsellors Program, and the Labor Party under Julia Gillard expanded it to school counsellors. The view that I've taken and the Government's taken is that we should return that to its original intention as a Chaplaincy Program, and that school counsellors or school psychologists or whatever each state and territory decide to fund is a matter for the state and territory governments, who of course run the public school system in each state and territory.

SALLY WARHAFT:  Let's go to Thomas quickly in Port Melbourne. We are running out of time, Christopher Pyne, but I think we've got time for one more.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE:        Pleasure.

CALLER THOMAS:  Good afternoon Mr Pyne. I'm a doctor in the public hospital system, and I think your Government's approach to trying to get people to so-called value their doctors is completely mishandled. Paying $7 for the GP is only going to discourage poor, sick people from going to the doctor. And it will make them unhealthier and it will put a strain on the public hospital system, which you politically seem to have tried to cleverly fix by just cutting - or reducing the growth of funding for the states. That was my first point.

            The second point was the school chaplaincy program. I think if you as Education Minister are talking about cutting growth in funding to the states, and you're paying for school chaplains to go to schools, you should have been strong enough to say we don't need that program, we will keep that money in teaching.

SALLY WARHAFT:  Alright, Thomas, we'll let the Minister respond. Christopher Pyne, a lot of people are really confused about why that chaplaincy program would get such a priority when so many other things have to go.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE:        Well, I think describing it as such a priority is misunderstanding the situation. Over the next four years on schools alone, we will spend upwards of 70 to $80 billion on schools from the Commonwealth Government, and we'll spend $246 million on chaplaincies. So I wouldn't describe that as such a priority.

            In 2017, for example, we're spending $18.1 billion on schools from the Commonwealth Government, which is more than Labor would have spent if they'd been re-elected, because I've brought New South Wa- Queensland, the Northern Territory, and Western Australia into the new school funding model and found the $1.2 billion to fund them. And then found an extra $300 million to make sure that they were funded for the school year and not just the financial year.

            So in fact, we are spending more on school education over the next four years than Labor would have. What we have done, of course, is ensure that the health and education budgets are sustainable into the future. And Labor made a whole lot of blue-sky promises, which they put no funding around, which they tried to convince people were actually funding commitments but were not. They were simply blue sky promises which were unsustainable into the future.

SALLY WARHAFT:  Your funding's going to depend on the states playing ball about increasing the education and health budgets that all the discussion around the GST today is about.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE:        Not really, Sally. What the states do about their funding of public hospitals and public schools is really a matter for them. What we're doing now is…

SALLY WARHAFT:              [Interrupts] Yeah, but it's a matter that you've dumped on them, unsuspecting.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE:        Well, in your opinion you can use those phrases…

SALLY WARHAFT:  [Talks over] Well, no, that's the fact, I mean they…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE:        …using a lot of your own opinions…

SALLY WARHAFT:  No, I'm sorry. Christopher Pyne, if you don't like it, it doesn't necessarily mean it's an opinion. The fact is that you were with - the Government was with the state Premiers - was it weeks before? Just a couple of weeks before the Budget was announced, and they had no idea that that cut was going to be made…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE:        There hasn't been a cut. The funding for schools and for hospitals increases every year, and from 2018 onwards, after this forward estimate, the funding for schools and hospitals and health increases every year. In my portfolio the money in 2018 will be more than the money in 2017. In universities the increase is $900 million alone. In schools it's 3.5 billion over the next four years, and every year after that it goes up. So  people talking about a cut need to actually look at the facts.

SALLY WARHAFT:  Well, those people are conservative Premiers.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE:        Well the money goes up every year.

SALLY WARHAFT:  Alright. Well, I think it's the Premiers that you're disagreeing with rather than my opinions. But we do appreciate your time this afternoon, and for taking calls. It's been good to have you take some talkback, thank you.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE:        It's a great pleasure, thank you.

SALLY WARHAFT:  Christopher Pyne is the Education Minister.

[ends]