ABC 891

E&OE TRANSCRIPT 891 ABC Adelaide – Matthew Abraham and David Bevan 13 August 2014 SUBJECTS:  Higher education reforms, negotiations with Clive Palmer, Budget negotiations, penalty rates MATTHEW ABRAHAM: In our studio, Mark Butler, welcome to the programme. MARK BUTLER: Good morning, both of you. DAVID BEVAN: You’re looking a little bit cranky, Matt. MATTHEW ABRAHAM: No, no. DAVID BEVAN: You haven’t eaten enough. MATTHEW ABRAHAM: I know that. DAVID BEVAN: It’s scary. It’s scary to be in the same room as you. MARK BUTLER: I think he’s wasting away. He’s a positive waif. MATTHEW ABRAHAM: The kilograms are just falling off me. Mark Butler’s Labor MP for Port Adelaide. Chris Pyne, he’s at Adelaide Airport. He’s the Liberal MP for Sturt, he’s the Education Minister, and he’s on his way to the Gold Coast to talk to Clive Palmer. Chris Pyne, welcome to the programme. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Good morning Matthew and David and Mark. MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Chris Pyne, we’re seeing the Government making lots of compromise noises now on GP co-payment and maybe even the gold-plated PPL, paid parental leave scheme. What are you prepared to trade with Clive Palmer? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, Matt, since 1980 only one government for three years has had a majority of the Upper House, so everyone knows in Australia, from the voter right through to Paul Kelly at The Australian, that when legislation goes into the Senate, the Government needs to negotiate with whoever is on the crossbenches or the Greens or the Opposition. And that doesn’t matter whether you’re the Labor Government, or a Liberal Government, so… MATTHEW ABRAHAM: So what are you prepared to trade off with Clive Palmer? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, I think it would be a very foolish negotiating position to be flagging in the press my negotiating position. What I have said, and I’m very happy to continue to repeat, is that I am very passionate about higher education reform. It’s vital for our universities, it’s vital to spread more opportunities to our students and make the higher education system sustainable, and I want to bring about a reform. I’m fully prepared for the fact that the Senate will want to have its say on my reforms, and there’ll be aspects of it that they will want to amend, and I’m prepared to negotiate with them over those things. DAVID BEVAN: Are you aware of any particular sticking points that Clive Palmer has with your reforms? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, Clive Palmer was on Fran Kelly’s programme this morning, in fact, on Radio National, saying that he’s in favour of free education. Now, free education would mean a massive hit to revenues for universities every year. Students are paying 40 per cent at the moment of the costs of their education. That would cost billions and billions of dollars but, more importantly, it’s a reserve Robin Hood. All the evidence indicates what when education was supposedly or so-called free, it was a transfer of funds from the poorest Australians to the wealthiest Australians, and what happened was that Australians who didn’t go to university from low socio-economic status background effectively paid the fees of the wealthiest Australians who kept going to university for nothing. DAVID BEVAN: Well, it’s not a good omen, is it, if he wants free education, you want people to pay more? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, it’s an opening position and the point of negotiation… DAVID BEVAN: Well, it’s… CHRISTOPHER PYNE: …is you start in a position and you end up hopefully in broad agreement around major principles. That’s what I intend to do. DAVID BEVAN: But haven’t we seen it played out over the last few months that, for all of the criticisms that were made of the Gillard and Rudd – the Gillard team and then Rudd in his last few weeks when he became Prime Minister, they were actually very good negotiators. They got their agenda through the Parliament. You, for all the trumpeting about how you wanted to bring in an adult government, you haven’t been able to do that. They were better negotiators than you. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, they had the Greens and the Greens are part of the Labor alliance, so an entirely different situation. Labor and the Greens were in alliance during the Gillard period, and… DAVID BEVAN: But they also had to rely on Independents – conservative Independents in the Lower House. Now, they got them onside. They were better negotiators than you have proven to be in the last 10 months. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, that’s your assertion… DAVID BEVAN: Well, I’m asking you to explain how you are better than they were? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, you’re not really asking a question, actually, David. You’re simply making a bold assertion and then demanding I respond to it [indistinct]… DAVID BEVAN: [Talks over] I’m asking you to explain how you’re better than them. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: …interviewing style. Well, we’ve only just begun the process. We’ve only been in government for 11 months. Our Budget is going through the Senate. Most of it has passed already. Now, much of it has passed. Some of the sticking points are open to negotiation. Higher education hasn’t even been introduced into the House of Representatives yet because budgets take often years to process. Labor, in fact, didn’t pass most of their saving measures when they were in government, and they’re refusing to vote in favour of the ones that they put in the year or two before they lost, then they’re refusing to vote in favour of their own saving measures. DAVID BEVAN: Mark Butler, do you… CHRISTOPHER PYNE: So your schedule, your threshold of achievement is not one that any government has met in the last 40 years. DAVID BEVAN: Mark Butler, do you concede that the Government looks like it’s going to, you know, wind its way through the Senate? It’s a torturous process. It doesn’t have control of the Upper House. MARK BUTLER: Well, I think finally the Government is starting to realise that it’s – one: it’s not going to get its Budget through the Senate in its current form and two: that the Budget has some fundamental flaws. But notwithstanding Christopher’s history lesson about the Senate being a – other than a majority government Senate for most of the last three or four decades, it’s taken the Government three months now to realise that this Budget simply won’t fly, and in those three months we’ve seen consumer confidence utterly dashed, very serious fears arising in pensioner communities, young people who want to get a start in life by getting a job or by going to university. It’s taken three months for them to realise this, and still we have games being played. It’s all well and good for Christopher to say he’s not going to show his cards before meeting with Clive Palmer in the Gold Coast, but we’ve seen now over the last several days the newspapers filled with speculation, presumably strategic leaks from the Government, about what it is that Christopher will give way on and what he won’t. But, at the end of the day, whether it’s Peter Dutton talking about exempting some people from this GP co-payment, whether it’s Christopher talking about reducing the interest rate for the increased university fees, this is all a case of putting lipstick on a pig. And you can put lipstick on it, you can put some mascara on it, but at the end of the day this Budget is a pig of a Budget and they should start again. DAVID BEVAN: Christopher Pyne, do you still defend the retrospective element of the higher education increase? That is that students who signed up expecting that their interest rate would be fixed should pay a much more commercial rate. Do you still maintain that should apply to students who took out their loans before the last Budget? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, I think that the students should repay the loan that the taxpayer generously makes to them at the same rate the taxpayer paid. At the moment, CPI is about three per cent, just less than three. The 10-year Government bond rate is 3.4, around that figure and, therefore, the difference is not very much. DAVID BEVAN: Yeah, but should that apply to just new students or should it apply to the old students? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, I think it should apply to the current debt that is held by the Commonwealth on behalf of the students, which is about $30 billion. It’s a very generous debt that the taxpayers of Australia give to the students who are currently only paying 40 per cent of the cost of their higher education. The taxpayer pays [indistinct]… DAVID BEVAN: [Interrupts] Right. So that’s not a point that you’re prepared to compromise on. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, I didn’t say that. I simply said that this – I want the whole package to pass as it is, but you don’t start a negotiation, in my view, saying that we will absolutely refuse to discuss any matter. That is a foolish position to start with. My position is I’m happy to talk about all aspects of the higher education reform because I want there to be a reform. DAVID BEVAN: You say you… CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I’m sorry, fellas, but I’m just going to walk down the ramp [indistinct]… MATTHEW ABRAHAM: You do that. DAVID BEVAN: Well, you… CHRISTOPHER PYNE: …on my way to this plane, but I can keep talking about another 30 seconds. MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Well, we don’t want you to miss your meeting with Clive Palmer. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No, I’m sure you don’t. MATTHEW ABRAHAM: We wouldn’t want to derail that. Well, we’ll let you go, Chris Pyne, otherwise I think we’ll have a rather fraught discussion. But look, thank you for talking to us. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, thanks for your tolerance. I appreciate it. DAVID BEVAN: Well, thank you for yours. Chris Pyne… CHRISTOPHER PYNE: It’s all very sweet and lovely [indistinct]… MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Sounds like a Chip and Dale cartoon here. DAVID BEVAN: No, after you. MATTHEW ABRAHAM: I insist. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No, after you. MATTHEW ABRAHAM: I wonder whether it’ll be so polite with Clive Palmer. Maybe not. CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I’m not hanging up until you do. MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Mark Butler can start talking. Chris Pyne [indistinct]… MARK BUTLER: I’m feeling like a fifth leg, I have to say. MATTHEW ABRAHAM: He’s the liberal MP for Sturt and Education Minister, Leader of the House, and he’s up to Gold Coast land to the crocodile theme park – no, it’s a dinosaur theme park up there that is also a resort at Coolum, no doubt. DAVID BEVAN: Now, South Australian MP Jamie Briggs flagged in the Financial Review yesterday, there was a report at a – that he’d flagged at a business meeting that maybe the country needs to look at penalty rates. It’s very much a state jurisdiction but he says this is something that the country needs to look at. Now, he’s been pulled into line by his colleagues. MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Eric Abetz has chopped that one off at the knees. DAVID BEVAN: He said I don’t think we’ll be talking about that again, thank you, Jamie. It’s clear though that some people think this is the way to go. Bob Day thinks it’s the way to go. At least they’re coming up with ideas. Mark Butler, apart from saying let’s all put on happy face and guarantee some loans, which is what Jay Weatherill is suggesting, how are we going to overcome a seven per cent unemployment rate and massive underemployment in this state? MARK BUTLER: Well, with respect, we’re not going to overcome any of the job difficulties, which I think South Australia is going to face now given the changes in the industry profile of the state, simply by cutting the pay of some of the lowest paid workers in the state or in the country, because Jamie was not talking about South Australia, he was talking about millions of workers across the country. And again, with respect, this isn’t just floating good ideas, this is casting very serious doubt again on some clear commitments made by Tony Abbott in the lead in to the election about penalty rates and about industrial relations. And yes, Eric Abetz had to come in and provide some discipline, but given his performance over the last several weeks when he is the paragon of virtue and discipline, you really have to wonder what’s happening with this government. I mean, they are week in and week out starting to put out these thought bubbles that again create greater uncertainty out in the economy, greater uncertainty among households about the security of their incomes. MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Is it at least a strategy? Is it – you might call it a thought bubble, it’s something practical, is it not? We had a major – what was meant to be an economic statement from the Premier, and apart from going guarantor for certain business loans up to a $50 million ceiling all up from Premier Jay Weatherill, the overall message from him is that we need to be positive, quietly confident in South Australia. People are too negative about the state government. MARK BUTLER: Well, I think there was more than that in the statement and… MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Not a lot more if you go through it. MARK BUTLER: Well, I mean, the very significant emphasis on the resources sector, particularly the gas sector, and it’s all well and good to say [indistinct]… MATTHEW ABRAHAM: [Interrupts] Well, there’s no surprises there. MARK BUTLER: ...guarantor, but if you look at the commentary from the finance sector about the guarantor commitment that Jay made, that the Premier made, it is very timely, because one of the things that small or medium enterprises have been talking to me about and talking to everyone about is that it’s taken a very, very long time for credit to recover from the global financial crisis. This is a critical… MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Sure, and do any of them talk to you and Jay Weatherill, and when they did they got shot down at the CEDA lunch about the cost of doing business in South Australia, do any of them talk to you about that? MARK BUTLER: Well, in my experience across the country, businesses talk about the cost of doing business. I mean, it is in their interest always to have an eye on reducing the cost of business. It’s in the interests of government, it’s the job of government to make sure that the broader community interest is considered in making this balance. Now, not just the interests of business, but also the interests of households, of consumers, of young people who are working in this sector trying to get a start in life in the sectors that seem to be the focus of Jamie Briggs’s commentary. These are the balances that governments need to try and make. MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Mark Butler, thank you for coming into the studio. You’re not on a plane visiting Clive Palmer, but we appreciate you being here. Opposition Environment and Climate Change spokesman joins us on Wednesday with Chris Pyne. [ends]