KIERAN GILBERT: Joining me now from Brisbane, Liberal frontbencher Senator Simon Birmingham and, in Adelaide, Labor frontbencher Amanda Rishworth. Amanda Rishworth, first to you on this likely rate cut later today. It is going to take the rates… official cash rate to well below what was previously described as emergency levels by the Gillard/Rudd Government.
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KIERAN GILBERT: … let’s go to Senator Birmingham on it. Senator Birmingham, well… Joe Hockey… you’ve heard what he’s had to say this morning and when you compare that to what John Howard argued and campaigned, I recall hearing many, many times on the campaign trail, that the Coalition will always keep rates lower, so when the Coalition does it, it’s a good thing; when Labor does it, it’s not so good?
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: Kieran, it’s a very stark contrast when John Howard and the Coalition did it, we had strong economic growth and low interest rates. Here we have the Reserve Bank acting to drive interest rates down to these emergency levels because economic growth and confidence in the Australian economy is just so very, very weak at present. That’s the stark contrast we have here. Low interest rates are a good thing if they’re low interest rates in an environment with a strong economy. What we have at present is a weak economy at crisis level in terms of business and consumer confidence around Australia and that’s the reason the Reserve Bank is having to act and it’s because, of course, this Government…
KIERAN GILBERT: Okay. Well…
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AMANDA RISHWORTH: … the economy is going through transition. It is going through a transition with the reduction of the… China’s resource boom and also a sluggish world economy. We are having still the after-effects of the global financial crisis right around Europe, right around… in America, right around the world, so we are finding difficult economic times…
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KIERAN GILBERT: Senator Birmingham, isn’t it important to see Australia not in isolation, like Amanda Rishworth is arguing; that you can’t see our economy in isolation? It’s interconnected with the rest of the world, which, of course… our big trading partners have been affected, not the least of which China, whose growth has been revised down consistently recently.
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: Which, Kieran, is why you’ve got to set the economic fundamentals so that Australian businesses can compete effectively with the rest of the world and be competitive, and ultra-competitive, against our trading partners and within our export market destinations. That’s why, of course, we want to see the carbon tax eliminated. That’s why we want to drive down ‘red tape’ and ‘green tape’ impediments and costs on business. We want to have an efficient economy, a situation where Australian businesses can actually grow and export to the rest of the world. That’s how you make sure that Australia, in this…
AMANDA RISHWORTH: Does that include your increase in company tax?
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: That’s how you make sure that, in this global…
AMANDA RISHWORTH: You’re putting an increase in company tax.
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: Don’t talk about tax increases, Amanda. You’re the ones who’ve…
AMANDA RISHWORTH: No, no, no, there’s one party that wants to put…
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: You’re the ones who’ve done the FBT tax, you’ve done the cigarette tax, you’ve…
AMANDA RISHWORTH: … one party wants to put an increase on company tax and that’s the Liberal Party.
KIERAN GILBERT: Please, let’s take it one at a time, one at a time. Simon, please just wrap up and I want to move on.
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: Well, Labor is the party of tax hikes and we’ve seen that and it’s the tax hikes and it’s the ‘red tape’ and everything else that is hurting Australia’s competitiveness. That’s what we’ve got to turn around to restore confidence and make us globally strong again.
KIERAN GILBERT: Well, let’s look at… I want to look at something else now… the Nauru agreement… Amanda Rishworth, a spokesperson for the Nauruan Government saying that there isn’t a permanent settlement under this agreement. When Mr Rudd made the announcement at the weekend, there was indication that asylum seekers might be resettled there. Now a spokesperson for the Nauruan Government, Joanna Olsen, quoted in The Australian saying ‘permanent settlement is not allowed that is correct’ it’s not allowed.
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AMANDA RISHWORTH: … we are working with our neighbours to ensure that we address the issue of people smuggling, that we make it clear to people smugglers that there is no permanent option of being settled in Australia, if you come by boat you will not be settled in Australia, and we are working with our neighbours to ensure that that happens and we have agreement with Nauru that was signed on the weekend; we have agreement with PNG [Papua New Guinea]…
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KIERAN GILBERT: Senator Birmingham, the Coalition will try and pick holes in both agreements but the fact is, as Amanda Rishworth mentioned, the Nauruan President has signed it in conjunction with Mr Rudd; the PNG President was side by side. You can’t get much better indications of governments’ support than having the presidential seal on both agreements?
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: Well, the governments of Nauru and Papua New Guinea have always shown a willingness to work with Australia and, of course, it was a Coalition Government under the John Howard prime ministership that set in place agreements with Nauru and Papua New Guinea that opened Manus Island and established Nauru. It was Kevin Rudd, of course, that closed them and ended it and is now having to scramble to put these things back in place and what we’re seeing, though, is that his promises are just all talk. We’re not going to see people, it seems, permanently resettled on Nauru despite what Kevin Rudd said just last week. The Government was meant to have done the details on its PNG arrangement by now but then went into caretaker mode before being able to finalise it, so we see very clearly this is just all talk from Labor.
KIERAN GILBERT: I want to move on to the cars issue. Now, yesterday, Senator Birmingham… you’re a Senator from Adelaide, you know that this is a potent issue there, as well… the Government committing $200 million additional support to the automotive industry. Now, Holden said that they will reassess their future in manufacturing here after the election. I put this to Joe Hockey but isn’t this Holden essentially putting both parties, particularly the Coalition, on notice, given that you’ve indicated you’re probably going to reduce the subsidies to that industry?
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: Well, Holden have made it very clear they don’t like Labor’s $1.8 billion FBT tax hit on the car industry. They don’t want to see that there and it’s very clearly Coalition policy to get rid of that. It’s clearly Coalition policy to get rid of the carbon tax and drive down manufacturing costs, so there are some real benefits there for Holden. If you look at Labor’s announcement yesterday, there’s two important parts to it, one being the $200 million, which the Government can’t even say how or where they’re going to spend it; the other being the claim that they’re going to have Australian cars in the fleet and I just want to address that for a second because if you look at the fleet vehicle selection policy already on the Department of Finance [and Deregulation] website, from April of last year it says that when selecting passenger vehicles within the Australian Government Fleet, they must be made in Australia and have a five-star ANCAP [Australasian New Car Assessment Program] safety rating’, so they must already be made in Australia. It’s just a false promise.
KIERAN GILBERT: Alright, let’s go to Amanda Rishworth. Are you overlapping… is that overlapping, with what Senator Birmingham has said is already there as part of the guidelines and I also want to ask you about, well, this additional money how’s it going to be spent?
AMANDA RISHWORTH: Well, look, a couple of things… I will point out that it’s not just the Australian Government that should be buying Australian-made cars. It should be all governments around this country, including the Western Australian Government and including the Queensland Government that have a very pitiful low percentage of buying Australian-made cars, so my message to them would be: buy Australian-made cars. In terms of what this $200 million is for, this has been announced by Minister Carr to look at demand and look at driving up demand of Australian-made cars, which is very different to what Simon’s talking about in terms of the FBT. That is a tax arrangement that is applied to… whether they’re local or internationally made…
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: It’s a hit on demand, Amanda.
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KIERAN GILBERT: … we’re out of time. Thank you very much for your time, Amanda Rishworth and Senator Simon Birmingham. We’ll see you soon.
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: Thanks, Kieran. Cheers.
AMANDA RISHWORTH: Thank you.
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