Transcript - Radio national - 14 April 2010

SUBJECTS: Health Reform; Asylum Seekers; BER Debacle

Fran Kelly: Our resident pollies Financial Services Minister Chris Bowen is in Sydney this morning and the Shadow Education Minister Christopher Pyne joins me here in the Adelaide studios. Welcome to both of you.

Christopher Pyne: Good morning Fran.

Kelly: Chris Bowen, let's start with you. The PM has hung his leadership on health reform. He clearly wants that to be the centrepiece of the election. If this deal goes down with the States goes down in a screaming heap, and you'd have to say Victorian Premier John Brumby is not sounding like a fan, what will be the political damage to the Government?

Chris Bowen: Well we're focused on getting a deal on Monday and beyond Fran. This is important; this is the biggest reform to the health system generations. And we didn't expect it to be uncontroversial. If it was uncontroversial somebody else would have done it in the past. You don't expect when you're announcing such a major reform the Premiers just to line up one by one and sign up. You expect tough negotiations and that's what we're having. But what we don't believe in is more resources without reform. The health system needs more resources, it needs reform as well. We're not just going to write a blank cheque and say, ""well here's a whole lot of resources for the States, but we're not interested in reform."" That was always going to make the process more difficult, but it's a process we're committed to.

Kelly: Sure, controversial is one thing. Whether it's right is another thing. And you may be committed, but if John Brumby doesn't come around, the PM has promised to take this referendum. Without a key state like Victoria supporting it and even worse criticising it from the sidelines you're not likely to get a referendum up either.

Bowen: Well we'll deal with that if and when we come to it. I've seen other Premiers overnight making quite strong comments in support; Mike Rann and Anna Bligh have been very supportive and the other Premiers have been (inaudible) quite constructively. But as I say we are not going to give a blank cheque and John Brumby has his plan out there, which calls for more resources; that's fine. We're putting more resources in, but we also need reform. And that will be difficult, but we are engaging with the states. We are engaging with all of them including John Brumby, including Western Australia, and we will be working very hard to try and get this deal up. If the deal doesn't get through the COAG, we've laid out that we will then need to seek a mandate and there will be more details about that.

Kelly: Christopher Pyne, let me bring you in here. If the State's support it in the end after COAG, will the Opposition then support it through the Senate or support it to a referendum if the States don't support it?

Pyne: Well Fran the problem with this-and I'll answer that question, I'm not trying to avoid it. The problem with this whole health reform is that basically Kevin Rudd was looking at the polls at the beginning of this year when things weren't travelling very well. He thought what I need is an enormous distraction; I'll propose a health reform and a health referendum, but he hadn't lined up the State Premiers.

Kelly: Well just as John Howard did when he needed a distraction in his first term and came up with a GST without telling his cabinet.

Pyne: Well that was 14 years ago Fran....

Kelly: It worked for John Howard.

Pyne: Well we lost 17 seats in the 1998 election and so if the Labor Party loses 17 seats we'll be in Government and I hope the same things happens. In terms of these health reforms the problem is they're not very good. And it's one thing to have this great media distraction, this spin cycle as Kevin Rudd has created, but if the health reforms aren't very good why should people sign up to them? John Brumby and Ken Baxter and Roger Corbett and John Debell who designed the Medicare system; they've all said it's a rubbish health reform, that's it's not going to do anything other than create more bureaucracy. Potentially cost more money. It's not putting any new money into beds. It's just essentially a political fix in an election year. And the referendum.......

Kelly: I'm a bit confused now though. Didn't your leader Tony Abbott recently seem to be going in the same direction as the Coalition's policy?

Pyne: We'll look at it. I'm just talking about the politics of it at the moment. The politics of it was Kevin Rudd essentially trying to create a distraction because this Government hasn't done anything and that has been the feedback over the summer is that it's a no action Government. In terms of the referendum; the Government doesn't need a referendum. This is just another distraction. Under Section 51 of the Constitution the Commonwealth has power over the funding of medical and dental services already. It doesn't need a referendum. And under section 96, which is the funding of the States power upon the Commonwealth it can basically do whatever it likes because the rulings in court cases over many decades. So that's just another way of Kevin Rudd trying to look like he's tough, because everyone knows that he's not.

Kelly: Ok, I'm sure we're going to be talking about this next Wednesday too so we'll move on because time is tight this morning. Chris Bowen the other big decision taken by the Federal Government in the past week was to suspend asylum claims by Afghanis and Sri Lankans arriving on Christmas Island. Yesterday on Breakfast we spoke with Afghan expert William Mailey who said there would not be one expert around the world who would think the security situation for Hazara's in Afghanistan has improved.  Why are you right and he's wrong?

Bowen: Well we think there are signs of improvement and we accept that the situation in Afghanistan is serious, but the situation for Hazara in particular like it has potential for improvement...

Kelly: Who have you talked to? Who has the Government talked to to get to that position? Not an expert like William Mailey; not the UN according to what I've read.

Bowen: Well, when you look at the situation of Hazara's; it has been the case that up until now that they have almost automatic rights to asylum wherever they apply because the situation has been so dire. Now the advice that we have from our officials when you look at the UNHGR review of the Afghanistan situation; you look at numerous state department reports. The advice that we have is that that situation is improving and that the proportion of Hazara's that would receive asylum may fall. Now the appropriate and prudent thing to do is wait until you have all the information before you to enable that to take place. And that's what we're doing both in Afghanistan and Sri Lanka. It's a prudent sensible measure.

Kelly: Christopher Pyne I'm not sure why the Coalition would support this given that you have been saying that the processing of Asylum seekers has been too quick and too many people are getting in too quickly without proper checks and certainly under the Coalition they were held longer in detention.

Pyne: Well Fran all we're getting from Chris Bowen this morning on asylum seekers is words, words and words...

Kelly: Yeah, but why don't you support the Government's plan?

Pyne: Well we think the Government has made a complete hash of our border protection. We don't believe they have a solution. They've come up last Friday with a plan to delay processing. It's not a plan to stop asylum seekers getting to Australia. It's simply a plan to push of processing asylum seekers until after the next election.

Kelly: But you've been calling on the Government to introduce deterrents to make it less speedy to get processed and given status here Australia. Doesn't that do that?

Pyne: No, we've been asking the Government to introduce temporary protection visas, which the Howard Government had.....

Kelly: Which didn't work particularly well.

Pyne: Well I tell you what; between 2002 and 2007 there were virtually no asylum seekers arriving and no boats arriving. And since August 2008 there have been 110 (boats) and over 5000 people. Now which policy works; the Howard Government's policies or the Rudd Government's policies?

Bowen: Well Chris can claim TPV's worked of course. They came in substantially before then and when they came in the number of refugees seeking asylum in Australia went up. And Christopher can argue if he wishes that we should place people in limbo, that we shouldn't have permanent refugee status. He can also argue if he wishes that we should push people off to far flung Pacific Islands and we should have children under detention. He can make that argument as a small-l Liberal if he wishes. We don't think that works, but we have adopted a prudent, sensible approach. Now he can, like is colleagues, politicise this issue, play dog whistle politics if he wishes. But we'll just get on with the job of treating people in accordance with their rights, but doing it prudently and appropriately and ensuring that we have all the information available to us as we process them and....

Kelly: Ok let's move onto another issue that the Government's moved on to try and get it off the agenda for awhile and that's the Building the Education Revolution. The minister has pushed that off to an investigation, a taskforce. Chris Pyne, we've had some response to the interview you did with Geraldine Doogue on Breakfast yesterday where you said as much as half of the 16 billion dollars could have been wasted. You said eight billion dollars of value for 16 billion dollars of spending. Some listeners are wondering where you get that figure, how'd you come up with that?

Pyne: Well we would actually like to know the figure exactly and that's why we are concerned that the auditor general's inquiry is not inquiring into value for money. We're concerned that this task force is not investigating value for money. The New South Wales audits are not looking at value for money. Where we get that figure from though is that almost every example we've seen, the inflated price is at least 50 to 100 per cent. For example the Berridale Primary School went from 285 thousand (dollars) to 908 thousand (dollars).

Kelly: So you've extrapolated from a few examples?

Pyne: Well we have to because the Government won't give anybody any figures. It's like Chris Bowen's claims this morning about all these documents that say Hazara's are apparently living on a beach in Afghanistan and enjoying themselves; an inland beach obviously. Where are the documents? Why doesn't the Government give us the figures about how much money's been wasted?

Kelly: Ok, we're in a bit of timing jam now because Christopher Pyne is supposed to get the last word this week, but I'm going to have to give him two in a row next time. We'll just give Chris Bowen an answer to that, briefly Chris.

Bowen: Of course there are 24,000 projects across the country in this program Fran. Every example that Christopher Pyne has raised, and the Australian Newspaper has raised; if every example was true, which I don accept because clearly some of them have been proven to be untrue, that would be less than one per cent of the projects.....

Pyne: So it's going really well?

Bowen: And Christopher you couldn't even name one problem in your electorate....

Pyne: So it's going really well is it?

Kelly: Can you name one problem in your electorate?

Pyne: I can name three schools, but they are too intimidated into allowing their names to be put forward because of the bullying that's gone on from state education departments in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. And I'm not as a local member going to damage those schools or those principals.

Bowen: He cannot name one school.....

Pyne: So you think I should damage the schools do you Chris Bowen as a local member of Parliament?

Bowen: I was talking to a local principal in my electorate who was raving about the BER and what a boost....

Pyne: Yet there's no problems with it at all are there?

Bowen: If you look at the vast majority, the vast majority of principals and PNC's across the county they'll tell you the same thing.

Kelly: Ok, we've got to leave it there Chris Bowen; we're out of time.....

Pyne: Blah, blah, blah.

Kelly: Ah, Chris Bowen and Christopher Pyne thank you for joining us on "Polls Apart".

Ends