ABC 891

E&OE TRANSCRIPT Interview - ABC 891 Adelaide with Spence Denny and Mark Butler 16 April 2014 SUBJECTS: 2014 Budget; Aged pension; Political Superannuation; Royal visit. COMPERE: Labor MP for Port Adelaide, environment and climate change spokesperson, Mark Butler good morning to you. MARK BUTLER: Good morning Spence. COMPERE: I’ll just turn the right microphone on. Is that the right one? That’s the right one. And on the phone, Christopher Pyne, Liberal MP for Sturt, Education Minister and Leader of the House. Hello Christopher Pyne. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Good morning Spence and good morning Mr Butler. COMPERE: So, we are less than a month away from Budget Day and Jamie Briggs is in our news today, won’t be drawn on whether there will be tax increases in the May budget. We are being told to steal ourselves for a pretty harsh budget, Christopher Pyne. How much are you actually looking to save? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, we have a very tough financial situation in the national budget because when we took over in September last year, we inherited $127 billion of accumulated deficits and debt rising to $667 billion. Now they are enormous figures, they are very hard for people to really comprehend they’re so gigantic but what it means for the new Coalition Government is we want to build a prosperous Australia and a strong and safe country. And that means that we have to repair the financial situation of the Commonwealth and if Labor had been re-elected I am sure they would have tried to do the same thing. But, we have that responsibility and we will keep all of our election commitments. But we will also need to make sure that everybody is tightening their belts across the Government through savings measures that deliver surplus budgets down the track, when that can be achieved. COMPERE: So how much are you looking to save? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well I can’t put a figure on that, Spence. Because one, we haven’t ever said one and number two we can’t speculate about what the budget will say a month out from the date. COMPERE: But surely there have been multiple submissions, budget submissions, that there has to be some sort of figure in the Federal Government’s mind as to what sort of savings you are looking at trying to achieve? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well I am part of all those deliberations, as a member of the Cabinet. And obviously I am part of the Expenditure Review Committee for education and higher education in my portfolio. But it is not the role of Cabinet Ministers to speculate on the figures in the budget before they’re delivered and Mark Butler wouldn’t have when he was a Cabinet Minister and I am sure that he wouldn’t expect me to do it now. But we will keep all of our election commitments, we will have a major investment in infrastructure, and those announcements have started being made and we will keep the promises that we made during the election campaign. But obviously we have to get the nation’s finances back on track so that we can grow the economy, create the jobs that are necessary in the economy and return Australia to prosperity. COMPERE: One of those promises, Mark Butler, was there wouldn’t be, wouldn’t touch the pension. MARK BUTLER: That’s right. COMPERE: A lot of speculation this week about the effect on pension rates, and on the age on which you can actually draw a pension. There has been some backpedalling in the last twenty four hours on that. MARK BUTLER: Well, not clear backpedalling. I mean, to be clear the speculation has been created by the Treasurer. This will be a budget of broken promises. There is very little doubt about this now. And the major focus of the Treasurer for some weeks now has been on the aged pension. And despite of the fact that perhaps one of the most important and solemn promises that Tony Abbott made to the Australian people, only the day before the election in September, was that there would be no change to the pension. No change to the pension and yet over the last several weeks we have seen Joe Hockey talk about the age of eligibility, we have seen him talk about the assets test, the income test, the rate of which the pension is increased to keep pace with the cost of living pressures that pensioners face. All of it is now on the table and it is all a product of the creation of this sense of budget emergency that Joe Hockey has been on about now for some weeks. The figure that Christopher talked about, $120 something dollars, billion dollars, in deficits, we heard in the last week of sitting when we were there in Canberra a couple of weeks ago, that fully $68 billion of that, so more than half, is a product of decisions that Joe Hockey has made in only the last seven months. So other decisions to spend money on certain things, or to change economic assumptions like the rate of corporate tax and things like that, to create this idea of a budget emergency that will legitimatise Tony Abbott walking away from his promises. COMPERE: Christopher Pyne, if there was nothing in the budget, in the pension speculation, why did it take until yesterday to potentially rule it out? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well people always speculate about budges, Spence, I mean that is part of the political process. Before every federal budget, and even state budgets, there is always rampant speculation and none of it usually comes true in the budget. And that’s what the media try and whip up, it’s not a, it isn’t of course a crime, it is just part of the political process but people will see on May 13 what the budget actually says. Can I say, being lectured by the Labor Party on financial management is rather ironic, given that there was promises being made like confetti by the Labor Party before the election. All of which they knew they wouldn’t ever be able to keep because they didn’t have any money. And I think the public understand that, I think they elected the Coalition Government to get the books back on track to restore the economy. I think they knew that Labor had no idea when it came to finances and budgets and that’s one of the reasons we won the election. And for the Labor Party to now be lecturing us about that, I think most people will find it is a bitter pill. COMPERE: Right, we just have to wear the budget. MARK BUTLER: Frankly, that is our job Christopher as much as you don’t like it, is to hold the Government to account… CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Yes, of course it is. MAKR BUTLER: …about the speculation that the Treasurer has created and t be clear, the Prime Minister Tony Abbott did not, did not rule out any change to pensions yesterday. He introduced some weasel words about keeping commitments around carbon tax compensation and such like, but he very clearly did not rule out any change to the pension. COMPERE: You’re listening to Mark Butler and Christopher Pyne. You are listening to 891 ABC Adelaide. Eight minutes away from nine is the time. And I might just squeeze in a call if we can. I don’t know if Matthew and David normally do this but it is just me so I am allowed. MARK BUTLER: They talk too much to allow time for calls, I think. COMPERE: Hello Sarah. CALLER SARAH: Hi. Look everyone I speak to is sick and tired of the fact that politicians are entitled to a defined benefits superannuation scheme. When will that age of entitlement end? COMPERE: Who wants to go first on that? MARK BUTLER: Well, it did end in 2004, Sarah. All MPs elected after 2004 which includes me are not entitled to a defined benefits scheme. That was a decision taken by John Howard after some pressure I think that was put on him by Mark Latham who was then Labor leader. COMPERE: Christopher Pyne? Are you, you’d fall within the defined benefit category, wouldn’t you? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Yes, I am under the old old scheme because I have been in parliament for twenty-one years. But I don’t set my remuneration, I don’t set my superannuation, that is decided by the Remuneration Tribunal. And I didn’t go into politics for the money. I don’t think anybody actually does. I went in to serve and if they hadn’t pay me anything I probably would have gone into politics because I wanted to be part of the political process and to serve the electors of the eastern and north eastern suburbs but I don’t make those decisions, they are made by other people a long time before I came on the scene. COMPERE: And Christopher Pyne, can you absolutely rule out changes to the pension and also a question via text in reference to including the family home as an asset when it comes to calculating the pension, can you rule that out? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well it is not our job to rule anything in or rule anything out, Spence. This is the whole point of a month before the budget. Lots of people make lots of claims that, there is lots of speculation and if Cabinet Ministers start ruling things in or out, it only feeds the speculation. What I can say though is that we will keep all of our election commitments, we will try and restore the budget to good health, to grow the economy that will continue to try and abolish the carbon tax, which Labor continues to keep in place with their friends the Greens. These are the things that we promised that we would do, and we will do them. MARK BUTLER: Well this is one of the more disappointing parts about the commentary I think we have seen over the last couple of weeks. I mean pensioners have been made to feel guilty by a whole range of commentators in the media about having a house, or having some assets in addition to the pension that they draw from the Commonwealth budget. Now that is always been the position here in Australia. The pension that we give to people over the age of 65, is not a particularly high pension by international standards. And the understanding is that that relatively modest pension will still allow people to accumulate assets to have their family home, and not to have that means tested when they are been considered for the aged pension. So I think this whole commentary that we have seen frankly stoked by Joe Hockey over the last couple of weeks has placed a whole lot of pressure on pensioners that is completely unfair. COMPERE: Five to nine, 891 ABC Adelaide. And we are speaking to Mark Butler and Christopher Pyne. Mark Butler, it is reported in the paper this morning with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge arriving in Sydney this afternoon and they are in Adelaide next week for Elizabeth that Jay Weatherill won’t be there. He is on holidays. Should the Premier be obliged during the Royal Visit to make himself available? MARK BUTLER: Well I thought this was a pretty petty and personal and pretty low attack by the Opposition Leader Steven Marshall. At the end of the day, there is no perfect time for a Premier or a Prime Minister to go on holidays. But, you know Jay has been going (inaudible) going for several months in an election campaign and he has been over in China with the Prime Minister and all of the other Premiers trying to drum up business for South Australia. He has got a young family, his kids are on school holidays and I think it is entirely reasonable for people to see him go away on a very short break to recharge the batteries and come back after it well positioned to do the best for South Australia. And frankly I was pretty surprised and disappointed that Steven Marshall tried to make a cheap political point about one of our leaders taking time for holidays. At the end of the day, there is no perfect time for a Premier or a Prime Minister to take leave. But they have to do it. COMPERE: Christopher Pyne, what is your take on it? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well I think the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are pretty significant visitors to our city and our state. The Duke of Cambridge is a future King of Great Britain and that means he is our head of state when he becomes the King down the track. It is a pretty significant visit and it is disappointing I am sure Jay Weatherill is disappointed too that he won’t be there but that is really a matter for him. That’s a decision, a judgement call that he has made and of course people will make their own assessment about whether it is appropriate or not. COMPERE: We are three minute away from the news, and we might, there is lot of interest in superannuation, in politician’s pensions I have to say. Elizabeth just wants to make a quick comment, I think you are actually a constituent of Christopher Pyne, aren’t you Elizabeth? CALLER ELIZABETH: Yes, yes, I am. I get emails from him. I just, I think it is disgusting this what they are doing to the pensioners, we get a rise in March and in September. And this March we got a rise of $6.73 and that is for a fortnight. So that comes down to $36.65 a week. COMPERE: Right. CALLER ELIZABETH: So you know I mean what is that, that is nothing to put the prescriptions up, and everything. Prices of everything are going up and we get a lousy $3 a week more. COMPERE: Yeah, I think Christopher Pyne and Mark Butler you can hear that this is adding to the stress for pensioners that there is speculation around their future entitlements. And the fact that they are already doing it pretty tough. Chris Pyne? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well nobody would suggest that the pension was a generous payment from the Commonwealth. It is an income support, and whether Labor was in power or Liberals in power, we have the same attitude, we would all like the pension to be as high as the budget can afford and that the rest of the taxpayer’s can afford and I am sorry that it isn’t higher but the reality of the situation is that whether either Labor or Liberal are in power, the pension goes up incrementally twice a year and we would always like it to be more generous but we also have to balance that with what we can afford and happily the Coalition wants to abolish the carbon tax which would reduce energy and electricity prices. It would reduce the pressure on pensioners and Labor wants to keep the carbon tax and their voting with their Green friends in the Senate to keep the carbon tax. COMPERE: That’s only three times, you’ve made reference to that in the last fifteen minutes. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well Spence, you can interrupt if you like, but the truth is that it is true. COMPERE: I have to interrupt because we are a minute away from the news. And I have got Ian Henschke looking at me, saying ‘Spence, we need to talk about stuff’. COMPERE: We are thirty seconds now, Spence, and counting. COMPERE: Christopher Pyne, thank you so much and Mark Butler thank you indeed. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Pleasure. [ends]