KIERAN GILBERT: … and in Adelaide we have the Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Climate [Action], Senator Simon Birmingham. Senator Birmingham, thank you for joining us this morning. I want to ask you first of all, has Tony Abbott once again being caught up in this WorkChoices discussion where he wants the debate elsewhere… the Government says he would have to change the Fair Work Act to implement the savings announced just yesterday.
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: Well good morning Kieran, Jason [Clare]… viewers. Look, Kieran, the issue you raise really is one that Tony’s addressed already this morning and the allegations of the Labor Party are plain wrong. The Liberal Party, the Coalition, is quite confident that we can make the 25 million dollars of savings by making unions pay for their own ballots, their own expenses, by changing the Electoral Act. That’s how this issue will be sorted. The simple fact is the allegation is wrong, we can address this issue, make those savings savings that simply make unions pay for their own costs by changing the Electoral Act. That’s all that’s required here and this is just another furphy, another smokescreen by the Labor Party trying to keep the debate on a topic where they want it when the reality is that we’ve made it very clear, and Tony has made it clear from day one, that Australians’ workplace relations framework will not change under a Coalition Government… That’s it, full stop.
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KIERAN GILBERT: Simon Birmingham, you want the focus, the Coalition wants the focus, on issues like debt and deficit… we saw that yesterday with those savings measures announced… but doesn’t this mean, the story in today’s newspapers, doesn’t it mean another campaign day dominated by an issue that you don’t want discussed or at least dominating the election trail.
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: Well Kieran, we will spend today, as we have up til now, prosecuting our message on our terms. Now in relation to workplace relations, we will continue to make it very, very clear that Australians’ workplace entitlements will not change under a Coalition Government. That is the agreement, that’s what we’re putting on the table to the Australian people and it’s what Tony has said from day one. The Labor Party can try to have a sideline debate that tries to drag [in] union balloting as some form of key part of people’s workplace arrangements. People won’t buy that, they know, when we say we’re not going to change their workplace arrangements, what we mean and it’s not about the structure of union balloting or a saving that can be made there. But if Julia Gillard wants to talk about keeping one’s word, let’s look at her words from the first few days of the campaign trail. She promised, right up front, that for every dollar of new expenditure during this campaign there would be savings offsets. Yesterday she made a few million dollars of extra expenditure on her traineeship program but not one dollar of savings was outlined. Contrast that with the Coalition, 46 billion dollars worth of savings identified to date because we know that the first responsibility of government is to manage the books carefully, to make sure that we’re not profligate or wasteful with taxpayers’ dollars and that is real contrast in this election.
KIERAN GILBERT: Don’t you think it’s proving hard to shake, though? It’s proving hard to shake, isn’t it? Does this go back to Tony Abbott not being able to rule out any changes to the IR system and that it allows the Government greater scope to be able to keep this in the headlines?
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: Well, Kieran, not at all. We will continue to run our campaign on our terms and indeed the story today, if you really want to, provides an opportunity for us to talk about savings. The story comes from a 25 million dollar saving, part of our 46 billion dollars worth of savings that have been identified. It’s a very small part of those savings, but nonetheless it’s important, because it shifts a cost from taxpayers back to unions unions who seem to have plenty of money to spend on political advertising during election campaigns when they want to. So our message will stay on savings, on responsibility and on the fact that Labor has wasted so many of billions of taxpayer dollars. We’ve got a plan and are willing to take the responsible action to implement those savings, to identify them and implement them and deliver them to the Australian taxpayer.
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KIERAN GILBERT: Simon Birmingham, the Opposition Leader today in Brisbane… it’s going to be such an important electoral battleground in Queensland… before returning to Melbourne tonight. It’s obviously going to dominate much of not just the Coalition campaign but the Labor campaign as well, that state.
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: Queensland obviously is critical. We won’t take any state for granted, that’s why we will be campaigning right across the country, but obvious there are a number of key seats in Queensland. Queensland had a big swing against the Coalition at the last election and we believe we can earn support back there, and we can earn it back because the people of Queensland are disappointed with what the Labor Government has delivered and if you look at the Trade Training Centres and so on that Jason was just talking about it is the classic case, not just of Labor over-promising and under-delivering, but of Julia Gillard having over-promised and under-delivered. She promised, as Education Minister, to deliver more than 2600 Trade Training Centres around Australia. She’s delivered just 13 just 13 and yet yesterday she came along and tried to put a promise on top of that already under-delivered promise. Well Australian people have every right to question and ask ‘if they can’t manage to deliver on the promises of last term, how on earth can we expect them to deliver when they layer promises on top of that?’ and that’ll be something that Tony will be talking about in Queensland today as well as outlining our positive agenda and when we promise… when we make promises during this campaign…
JASON CLARE: Kieran… Simon, I think an important point to make here… there’s an important point to make and that is that the Government is building hundreds of Trade Training Centres around the country…
KIERAN GILBERT: Wait… as Simon said…
JASON CLARE: No, no, not at all.
KIERAN GILBERT: Well how many have you built? Of the total amount?
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: 13. 13 out of 2600.
JASON CLARE: Not at all. There are hundreds being built and the commitment that Julia Gillard made at the last election…
KIERAN GILBERT: Not how many more, how many built? … This is the question, how many built now?
JASON CLARE: There are more than 20 that have been built and hundreds under construction
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: Oh…
JASON CLARE: We made a commitment at the election… Simon, hang on a sec, you had a fair go… We made a commitment at the election to make sure that every school that wants one gets a Trade Training Centre over the course of 10 years and we will do that… and Tony Abbott…
KIERAN GILBERT: Aren’t dozens of schools sharing… Christopher Pyne, the Opposition spokesman, says there are up to ten schools in an area sharing facilities… why should they? Isn’t this just poorly planned? If you say they’re all going to get one?
JASON CLARE: No, it’s a good idea, Kieran. This is called a cluster arrangement. I saw one on the [New South Wales] central coast recently where one school will have an electronics set-up, another school will have a hospitality set-up, another school will have carpentry… It means all students from all six schools can go to the different schools depending on what trade they want to specialise in. That’s good development, it’s going to make sure that all the students in that area get the skills that they need for the future. Now compare that with Tony Abbott who will cancel the whole program, there won’t be one Trade Training Centre built across the country if Tony Abbott is elected.
KIERAN GILBERT: Simon, quick response to that before we move on because we do have some other issues to get to…
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: Well that example Jason just gave must account for about half of the Centres that have been built across the country already. Look, the key difference is going to be that when the Coalition makes promises this campaign, they will be measured promises, they will be part of our Real Action agenda and we believe we can deliver them and we will keep them as responsible, costed, measured promises that can be delivered. Labor’s promises are wasteful, profligate and all too often end up just not being delivered … and this is a classic case…
KIERAN GILBERT: I need to move on …
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KIERAN GILBERT: Okay Simon, Tony Abbott is going to be on Hey Hey It’s Saturday tonight, a bit of a change of focus, what do you think of that? Will he be able to pull off Red Faces?
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: Well, Tony is willing to get out there and talk to real Australians and he’ll be doing that at every opportunity, be it in local supermarkets or on Hey Hey It’s Saturday through the popular media. That’s a great contrast to Julia Gillard who is only interested in stage-managed appearances, in talking about ‘moving forward’ again and again and again, and that’s of course what we’ve seen in the last few days every person Julia Gillard has met on the campaign trail, in front of the cameras, has been hand-picked by the Labor Party as someone who will look good for the cameras. Tony Abbott has gone out there to meet with real people and that’s what he will be doing all day today and again tonight on Hey Hey.
KIERAN GILBERT: One last issue very quickly … there is one debate, this Sunday… why not more debates? And, you know, the Government, when in opposition did say you would have three… this will be a good debate, I should point out, because David Speers is hosting it, moderating it.
JASON CLARE: No clash with MasterChef, which is important, because everyone wants to see who wins MasterChef…
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KIERAN GILBERT: Simon, quickly to you to finish…
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: The key thing for this debate of course will be about the future for Australia, but it will be for Julia Gillard not to talk in clichés and spin and nice little phrases like ‘moving forward’. She needs to actually own up to Labor’s track record, their failed record of the last three years. She can’t keep pretending that it’s somehow the year zero and it all starts from now. She has to take responsibility as the Deputy Prime Minister for most of the last three years, for her key role in it, and answer for all of Labor’s failings in this debate on Sunday night.
KIERAN GILBERT: Senator Birmingham, as always, great to see you there in Adelaide, appreciate your time…