Interview with Jim Ball, Radio 2GB, Sydney
Posted on Wednesday, 22 December 2010
Subjects: 2010 election result; Christmas Island tragedy; border protection policy; National Broadband Network; Green Start scheme; Murray-Darling Basin.
E&OE……………………….…………………………………………………………………
JIM BALL:
It’s been one hell of a year. No doubt 12 months ago you had absolutely no idea how things were going to pan out politically. You must be pretty pleased with how things have gone.
TONY ABBOTT:
Yes, at one level I am, Jim, but at another level it’s very disappointing that we’ve got a bad Government getting worse and I guess my frustration is that we did very well in the election but we didn’t quite win and to have a moral victory is not quite the same as having a victory. But, again, it’s not about me and it’s not about the Liberal Party. It’s got to be about our country, Jim, and we have a truly bad Government, I think quite possibly the worst Government in living memory and, until we have either another election or a change of mind by the independents, we’re stuck with this mob.
JIM BALL:
But you must be pleased, when you think back, where you were 12 months ago – unelectable. Kevin Rudd was riding high in the saddle and look what’s happened. Turnbull’s gone. Rudd’s gone. Gillard’s in a mess, the poll numbers are down where they were when he was rolled. I mean, things, you must be pleased with that.
TONY ABBOTT:
Look, of course I am...
JIM BALL:
I mean it’s very unusual for somebody to come from way back there to almost winning.
TONY ABBOTT:
Yeah, of course I am, Jim, but I’ve had a lot of support. The team’s gone very well. You know, I’ve got a great team: Julie Bishop, Warren Truss, Joe Hockey, Malcolm Turnbull, Chris Pyne, Scott Morrison, Greg Hunt – they’ve all worked incredibly well and I think a good team is normally rewarded with a good result and that’s what we’ve had.
JIM BALL:
Now, there have been some big issues, not just for the year but just this last week. We’ve had the tragedy on Christmas Island for starters. Does the Prime Minister have blood on her hands?
TONY ABBOTT:
I think that the people smugglers are really responsible but that the problem for the Government is that they put policies in place which gave the people smugglers a product to sell. So look, I blame the people smugglers for this terrible tragedy and…
JIM BALL:
But who created the policy? The Government.
TONY ABBOTT:
But I do think it’s very important that the Government change its policy urgently and the point I’ve been making, Jim, is we know the policies that work because the Howard Government put them there and they were tough policies and they didn’t work overnight but they did eventually stop the boats.
JIM BALL:
91 boats in eight years compared to 200 in two years.
TONY ABBOTT:
And in the last five years of the Howard Government we had three boats a year.
JIM BALL:
That’s right.
TONY ABBOTT:
Now we’re getting three boats a week and the tempo is increasing. So my point, Jim, is that I am very happy to work constructively with the Gillard Government if the Gillard Government is prepared to say, ‘yes, we do have to change policy and, yes, we do have to change policy back towards what it was in the Howard era.’ Now…
JIM BALL:
`Cause they were trying to rope you into that as they did with climate change.
TONY ABBOTT:
That’s right.
JIM BALL:
Hey, we’re all in this together, so you take part of the blame or what comes out of the room.
TONY ABBOTT:
And we don’t need another committee here. What we need is a new policy and it’s clear what the policy should be and if Julia Gillard is magnanimous enough to accept that for the last couple of years the Government has been on the wrong track, that the Government has lost its way, we will help to get the Government back on track and there will be no crowing from us because it’s in Australia’s best interests that we get policies in place that stop the boats.
JIM BALL:
Now, I know you’re not a Luddite, but I do recall you telling Kerry O’Brien on The 7.30 Report you’re not a tech-head either. There go all of us, I say. What are your main objections to the NBN and what is the alternative and how much is that going to cost?
TONY ABBOTT:
Well, during the election campaign we said that competitive markets are more likely to give us fast and effective and low cost broadband than a Government monopoly and that’s still our position. Now, what we proposed at the election was basically $4 billion to improve broadband services in country and regional areas, where the market doesn’t work that well, and about $2 billion to improve the services everywhere by creating a competitive backbone so that you don’t just have one monopoly or quasi-monopoly broadband supplier.
So, that was what we proposed at the election and that is still a good policy, Jim. The problem with what the Government is doing is that they are spending $50 billion plus to give us what we’ve already got. I mean, the business case said that for $58 a month – more than you’re already paying – the National Broadband Network will give you speeds of 12 megabits which is…
JIM BALL:
Which is what I’ve got now.
TONY ABBOTT:
Which in some cases is less than you’ve got now. So, we’re going to spend $55 billion to give people what they’ve already got. It is insane. That’s what it is, Jim.
JIM BALL:
And of course, the universities and the hospitals and big business…
TONY ABBOTT:
Are already wired up with fibre.
JIM BALL:
That’s right, that’s right.
TONY ABBOTT:
I mean, this idea that we need the National Broadband Network so that the schools and the hospitals and the universities get fibre – wrong. They already have it. This isn’t about fibre to hospitals. This is about fibre to every home in the country, or 93 per cent of the homes in the country, and even their business case said that in ten years time only about a third of homes will actually be using this fibre to its maximum potential. And what will they be using it for? They’ll be using it for video entertainment, for downloads of movies and for gaming. Now, fine, let’s download movies and let’s do interactive gaming and all the rest, but when there are so many infrastructure problems in our country, Jim, is this really what we should be spending $50 billion on?
JIM BALL:
Well, that’s right. It’s a lot of money when we know we’ve got a hell of a lot of other problems to be spending that kind of money on.
TONY ABBOTT:
Anyone trying to get around Sydney at the moment knows that the traffic is gridlocked. Now, the state Labor government has been worse than useless. I mean, it’s almost criminal the neglect of infrastructure that we’ve had from the state Labor governments and you know the feds can’t fix all these problems. We need a change of government urgently here in New South Wales. But the idea that we should be blowing $50 billion plus on fibre when we’ve got roads, rail, ports, even the mobile phone system – these are all, in my judgment, much higher priorities.
JIM BALL:
Yeah, and I haven’t read one finance journalist who supports it and of course they will not come at a CBA, a cost benefit analysis, and you just wonder why. If they’re so, and they seem obsessed by it.
TONY ABBOTT:
And after all the other examples of waste from this Government. I mean whether it be the roof batts disaster, whether it be the school hall rip-offs – you just can’t trust this mob with money.
JIM BALL:
Well, I want to come to that now. Just about the green stuff, the green schemes or scams. It seems that when it comes to these green schemes that the Government is forever pulling the wrong rein. Whether it’s, as you say, pink batts and all the rorting and the 120 houses that have burnt down and the four deaths, four young Australians. Then there was the solar panel rebate debacle; the Green Loans scheme, and now we read today that the latest, the son of the Green Loans scheme, what’s it called, Green Start? That’s dead on arrival.
TONY ABBOTT:
That’s green stopped, that’s green stopped.
JIM BALL:
It’s strangled at birth. Why is this environmental stuff so damn hard?
TONY ABBOTT:
Well, probably because much of it is misconceived to start off with.
JIM BALL:
It’s feel good stuff that doesn’t work in the real world.
TONY ABBOTT:
Yeah but we have a Government which just does not know how to deliver a programme and that’s the difficulty. I mean, as has been said of the modern Labor Party, they can execute a prime minister but they can’t execute a programme. They can’t put a programme into execution, that’s the difficulty.
JIM BALL:
Not a bad line. Anyway look, we’ll come back, we’ve got to go to a break, it’s just gone a quarter past ten and those callers waiting on; we will get to you.
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JIM BALL:
19 past 10. We’ll grab a couple of calls off the board here. Ron, hello.
CALLER:
Good morning Tony. Just a quick one. How can any state or federal opposition release policies when they’ve got no idea what’s, how much money is in the tank, i.e. John Howard?
TONY ABBOTT:
Well, that’s a fair point, Ron. It is important to know what the fiscal position is. I mean, thanks to the charter of budget honesty and things like the Mid Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook and so on you normally have a reasonably good idea of where things are at the federal level. I’m not as familiar with how the states run their finances. But the important thing is that whatever promises and policies you’ve got they’ve got to be fiscally responsible and affordable, and one of the things that I was very proud of was that we managed to fund all of our commitments and still leave a significantly bigger surplus and still pay off debt significantly faster than the Government was intending. So very important that we are always fiscally responsible.
JIM BALL:
Now, thanks for that Ron. The Greens and Independents given their status in the Gillard minority Government, how long can this go on? How stable is the Government do you think and do you see yourself hosting Christmas drinks in The Lodge next year?
TONY ABBOTT:
Well look, if there were to be a change of government there’d be more important things to organise than Christmas drinks, Jim. But, look, the only way there can be a change of government is through an election and I can’t see the Prime Minister going to Yarralumla and calling for one because she’d lose at the moment. Or, second, if there’s a successful vote of no confidence in the parliament leading to a change of government. Now, I think we’re still a way off a situation where that could be considered. But, look, we will be holding the Government relentlessly to account over the coming 12 months and if there are programme stuff-ups on the scale of pink batts and school halls maybe it would be appropriate.
JIM BALL:
Now, the Rudd-Gillard Government I think they admitted, Julia Gillard admitted, they’d lost their way or lost the plot or lost the Navman. I don’t know who it was, it might have been you compared them to the Burke and Wills of Australian politics. Now on talk radio we get a good understanding, a good feel of what people want to see from their government. Right now they’re after, they’re craving leadership and they’re craving vision. For example, all the rain we’ve just seen and all of it has gone out to sea. If Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard are the Burke and Wills of Australian politics can you tell us in tangible terms – don’t want rhetoric, don’t want rhetoric – tell us in tangible terms about your vision. What do you see tangibly yourself doing?
TONY ABBOTT:
Well, part of good government is not doing damage, Jim, and not putting a carbon tax in place, not putting a mining tax in place, not wasting money on things like the $50 billion plus National Broadband Network. I think these are very important…
JIM BALL:
Certainly. But in your bottom drawer of grand plans and schemes and visions what have you got?
TONY ABBOTT:
Ok. Well, I’d like to see our schools and hospitals working better and I…
JIM BALL:
Yeah, we all would.
TONY ABBOTT:
And I think more people power, community boards running public hospitals. Parent…
JIM BALL:
Yes. Can I just cut in there? We saw that in action with the private schools and the BER. They made it on time, efficiently, under budget, on budget, whatever.
TONY ABBOTT:
Absolutely.
JIM BALL:
So that to me, I thought, well there you’ve got a local, right?
TONY ABBOTT:
People who have a stake in the outcomes and who are on the spot and who can see what’s working and what’s not working, they are nearly always going to deliver a better result than distant bureaucrats. That’s why school councils will do a better job than the bureaucrats at running schools and community boards will do a better job at running hospitals than the distant bureaucrats. People talk a lot about productivity, Jim. The best way to have a more productive society is to make more use of our people in the workforce. Now, a lot of people didn’t much like the Coalition’s paid parental leave scheme but if we want to give mothers a fair go in the workforce we’ve got to ensure that they get an income while they are having their children.
JIM BALL:
Agree with that. I am still not hearing or seeing stuff being built. Big infrastructure projects. Exciting, dynamic, visionary stuff. That’s what the people want to hear about.
TONY ABBOTT:
Yeah, and one of the things that the former Government did which didn’t get much talked about at the time was put aside roughly $25 billion every five years to assist the states with their infrastructure projects. Now, that money is still available. It’s an ongoing programme and certainly once we have got debt and deficit under control we’ll be able to do more in that area. You see, every time you are in a traffic jam at the moment, every time you are in a crumbling hospital at the moment, think this could all be better if the Government wasn’t wasting 50 billion bucks on the National Broadband Network.
JIM BALL:
Most definitely. But obviously you’re not going to commit to a dam or a big railway project. I know the previous Government completed the Alice Springs to Darwin.
TONY ABBOTT:
And we have committed to the so-called ‘steel Mississippi’, that’s the Melbourne to Brisbane railway line via the inland route through Parkes and Dubbo and Moree and those places.
JIM BALL:
Why can’t you come out and just say, you know, dams, whatever. You know, the stuff that people want to see. Why can’t, why the reticence?
TONY ABBOTT:
And one of the things, Jim, that we did commit to during the election was putting $500 million aside out of the money that had been allocated to the Murray-Darling Basin for the possible construction of a new dam. So, I mean, we haven’t ruled these things out. We don’t need the dam phobia, as it were.
JIM BALL:
I’m just using that as a big visionary statement.
TONY ABBOTT:
Look, I agree. I mean, we’ve had this dam phobia for the last 20 years and…
JIM BALL:
Look at Gippsland in Victoria. It’s a national park.
TONY ABBOTT:
And, sure, you’ve got to be environmentally responsible about all of this, but I don’t believe for a second that there are no environmentally responsible dams that we can still build in this country.
JIM BALL:
Now look, I’ll get to a couple more callers. Tony is on a tight timeline here. We’ve had the resignation of the Secretary of the Treasury Ken Henry in the last 24 hours and only a few weeks ago he said at a Treasury function that 2011 is shaping up as an awful year and the workload for Treasury has increased because of the demands coming from the Greens and the Independents.
TONY ABBOTT:
And the incompetence of the Government.
JIM BALL:
All of that. So just with all that pressure on Treasury and the Greens and the Independents having all that access, stuff that even members of the Government don’t have, it surely can’t last?
TONY ABBOTT:
The whole thing is paralytic, that’s the problem. I mean, we went from Kevin Rudd who was a complete control freak who tried to do everything himself and failed. Now we’ve got a situation where everything is apparently completely log-jammed in these endless Cabinet subcommittees, because the pendulum has gone from one extreme to the complete opposite. But what you can be confident is that this Government can’t be trusted with money and it can’t deliver a programme.
JIM BALL:
Marie, hello.
CALLER:
Oh, good morning Jim. Good morning Tony.
TONY ABBOTT:
G’day Marie.
CALLER:
Bill Moss had an article in The Australian on the weekend about the National Disability Insurance Scheme. It appears he is of the opinion that the Gillard Government will not have the political courage to legislate for an NDIS, regardless of the Productivity Commission’s findings. Assuming they recommend an NDIS, will you, if you win government, have the courage to do what is right regardless of political consequences?
TONY ABBOTT:
Well, you can never ask a democratic government to be completely heedless of consequences. I mean, government has always got to be conscious of the consequences of what it does, but I’ve said that we will take the recommendations of the Productivity Commission very, very seriously and I absolutely accept that a country as rich as Australia does need to do a better deal for people with disabilities. At the moment it is a lottery if you’ve got a serious disability. It’s a lottery depending upon whether you got your disability in a way which attracts some form of compensation or which doesn’t, and that’s not right. It’s not fair. So, look, we do need to do something better here and the Coalition will take the Productivity Commission’s recommendations very seriously.
JIM BALL:
Thank you for that. Michael, hello.
CALLER:
Good morning Jim and Mr Abbott. Tony, is there any chance of the Government or the Opposition when they become government, hopefully, moving a policy where they will guarantee water to the inland communities to our rural sector and move people away from the coast? Allow these communities to grow, guarantee that they’re going to have water. Not just dams, necessary water from the coast, whatever it takes. A policy of bringing assured water to the rural areas.
TONY ABBOTT:
Well Michael, we can’t guarantee water because in the end water depends upon mother nature not the politicians. But certainly what we won’t do is change the policy in ways which destroys the economic base of inland Australia and that’s the problem that we’ve got at the moment – a Government which seems to be completely impervious to the economic consequences of its policies for inland Australia and you just can’t have the farming economy of the Murray-Darling Basin without water. And, sure, we’ve got to try to look after the environment and we’ve got to look after the flows of the river. But we’ve got to do it in ways which keep the economy strong.
JIM BALL:
Thank you so much for that, Michael. I know you’re on that tight timeline. It’s 10:30. When the journalists write about your first 100 days what would you like to see them – you know, assuming that the cards fall your way – what would you like to see them writing about? What can they point to you and say gee, they’ve done this, they’ve done this, they’ve done this.
TONY ABBOTT:
Well, I don’t want to get ahead of myself, Jim.
JIM BALL:
Just for once. Get ahead of yourself.
TONY ABBOTT:
Well look, we did announce during the election campaign a hundred day plan and some of the more tangible things were for instance the reopening of the Nauru detention centre because if there is one policy that would send the loudest possible signal to the people smugglers and their potential customers it is that even if you get to Australia you won’t stay in Australia, and if you’re going to be in Nauru that’s a pretty powerful signal.
JIM BALL:
Of course, if you’re spending whatever it is, $10,000 or $12,000 on, you’re not going to take that gamble, you won’t be prepared to take that gamble.
TONY ABBOTT:
Exactly right. I mean, and look these are in many cases pretty desperate people. I mean, US$10,000 is an enormous amount of money to these people. Now, it’s the life savings to many of them. Now, they are not going to blow their life savings on a gamble if the chances of the jackpot are as remote as they would be.
JIM BALL:
Some people have suggested, just while I’ve been filling in for Ray and it came up on overnights some while ago, that for every person that arrives in Australia illegally we take them put them in a camp, proper refugee camps, and take somebody out of there that’s been doing the right thing and bring them.
TONY ABBOTT:
Well, certainly what I’ve always said is that we could look at a modest expansion of our refugee intake provided…
JIM BALL:
What do you call modest? It’s 13,500 now.
TONY ABBOTT:
Well, in the election we said move it up to 15,000 provided people are coming through the front door properly, not improperly through the back door. So that’s the key. We’ve got to have people coming the right way not the wrong way. They’ve got to go through the proper procedures. They’ve got to be properly vetted.
JIM BALL:
To do that you’ve got to send the right signals.
TONY ABBOTT:
Absolutely right. If people think they can pay a people smuggler $10,000, make it to Christmas Island and more or less have a guarantee of permanent residency the boats will keep coming; the tragedies will keep happening.
JIM BALL:
And of course we’re into cyclone season so that’s a distinct possibility. Wilkie the other day said that you said that, or there was some arrangement, deal, whatever. He was verballing you about that, about doubling the refugee intake?
TONY ABBOTT:
We had a very wide-ranging discussion and we canvassed all sorts of things, but one thing we certainly didn’t talk about was doubling the intake. We talked about a modest increase in the intake, coupled with a very tough implementation of border protection policies.
JIM BALL:
So you were being verballed.
TONY ABBOTT:
Well, I don’t want to be critical of a man whose vote I might want in the parliament one day, Jim.
JIM BALL:
Alright. Look, thank you so much for making time to come in.
TONY ABBOTT:
Thanks Jim.
JIM BALL:
And for all those callers that were waiting, it’s not the way I planned it but that’s the way it works out sometimes. You work without a net in this business and you can’t predict just how things are going to go. But yeah, thank you so much for coming in and hopefully we can do it again.
TONY ABBOTT:
Look forward to that, Jim.
JIM BALL:
Good luck in the New Year.
TONY ABBOTT:
Thanks so much.
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