Subject: IPSOS-Fairfax poll; Budget
E&OE…
KIERAN GILBERT: I’m joined by Liberal front bencher Simon Birmingham and Labor front bencher Michelle Rowland; Good Morning to you both. Michelle I’ll get to you first of all on this poll, on this IPSOS Fairfax poll. What did you make of it, given the events on the other side of politics? Is it a bit of a worry that Labor’s vote has fallen four points? Mr Shorten’s approval rating also down.
MICHELLE ROWLAND: I’ve taken a pretty consistent approach to polls, Kieran and that is you shouldn’t focus on them, you should be listening to your constituency and your electorate and the people who you’re representing, both in your area and in your portfolios; and I can tell you what this poll is actually showing is… I doubt there is a person who seriously believes Tony Abbott’s Prime Ministership is not terminal, seriously. I think this is a reflection of other contenders putting their hands up and it’s very clear that he is coming third to other contenders within his own party. But, even putting all that aside, I don’t even think we need to go there…
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: That would be, “I’m not going to comment on the polls” comment on the polls…
MICHELLE ROWLAND: Well I think it needs a preamble because it’s important to recognise that even these numbers, if, you know, my colleague here wants to take pleasure in them, knock yourself out, but when you go around Western Sydney, when you speak to people who are about to vote in a state election in a couple of weeks’ time, Tony Abbott is utterly toxic and he’s toxic, not only because he lied to the electorate, he lied his way in to Government, but he’s toxic because of his policies. It doesn’t matter who is leading the Liberal Party, they are toxic because of their policies and it would be a very, very brave person to suggest that going in to the New South Wales election, you are actually going to have a better result than you would otherwise have with Tony Abbott.
KIERAN GILBERT: Let’s get, Senator Birmingham, your thoughts on a bit of what Michelle Rowland had to say, but also I guess this does give Tony Abbott some breathing space now
surely.
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: Well Kieran, firstly in relation to what Michelle just said, let’s see the New South Wales election fought between the New South Wales parties. The Labor Party’s desire to try to create some sort of haze and drag all federal issues in to this really is an indictment of where they stand in New South Wales and where they’ve been as a government previously in New South Wales. But, in terms of the federal sphere, Kieran, what I hear from colleagues and what I see from the government and what I hear from people on the ground is that the public and the government have all moved on from the events of the last few weeks far faster than it seems the media cycle necessarily has. We are getting on with the job of government and last week you saw that in intensity with policy debates and, of course, the Prime Minister out there delivering his national security statement on Monday; releasing discussion papers in relation to foreign investment in agribusinesses and in residential real estate. You see steps forward in relation to the metadata laws that the government will be hoping to progress this week; You’ll see the intergenerational report released this week that will outline, of course, the disastrous state of the budget that we inherited from Labor, the real long term structural challenges that whoever is in government in Australia will face and our government is committed to fronting up to those problems and getting on with the task of discussing the sometimes difficult task of fixing them.
KIERAN GILBERT: Is there a chance though that people have already factored in a leadership change as the pollster in Fairfax is suggesting this morning? That that’s what the polling is suggesting?
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: Kieran I think people have factored in a government that is able to go like that to get back on with the policy debate; to get back on with doing the things Australian’s want to see in terms of tackling issues like the labelling of food products which came about last week, in terms of responding to real community concerns and action from the government to get on quickly with addressing those types of things that matter to people’s day-to-day lives, not the insider Canberra chatter.
KIERAN GILBERT: Michelle Rowland, just finally on this poll issue though, is it maybe a case of people thinking for the first time, thinking hard about the alternative and they don’t necessarily like what they see in Bill Shorten and Labor, that there’s not enough of an alternative there?
MICHELLE ROWLAND: I don’t get that at all, we are very clear about our need this year to be an opposition that actually has ideas, unlike when Tony Abbott was in opposition, getting elected basically with no plan to govern and you can see that in the results today. We are releasing today, a very significant policy initiative in terms of multi-national tax. We are also very concerned about making sure that we have the rest of our policies being rolled out. But look, just to go to some of the things that Simons touched on, you know I read a lot of analysis about, you know, the attributes of the Prime Minister are actually really down in the doldrums, areas like trustworthiness, having a vision for the country and again, I don’t need a poll to tell me that’s the case. People know that this is a guy who is berefted of ideas. Any policy announcements that are being made are about saving his own job. Ditching paid parental leave, something that he was a zealot, a zealot about this, ditched it. Medicare co-payments, well we actually don’t know if it’s off yet, we had that many false stops and starts about whether it was coming in or not coming in.
KIERAN GILBERT: Well it is actually going to go this week, as far as I’m advised, the Medicare
co-payment to go. Is this a sign the Prime Minister is listening, and well, probably should have done it a bit sooner?
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: Well Susan Ley, who is the new Minister, has been out there consulting, that’s been evident to all, that’s exactly what the Prime Minister said weeks and weeks ago is what would happen. So there’s no surprise here, the health Minister, with the Prime Minister’s full support, has been out talking about what to do in this space, there will be more said in relation to that I’m sure shortly but, of course what we can be clear on here is that the government will only now move in relation to Medicare reform where we have the clear support of the health profession, of the medical profession; but that’s not to say we’re not going to stop talking and engaging with that health profession about the types of solutions that can be embraced that will address the long term structural challenges we have with Medicare. The reality is the Medicare levy only delivers around half of what it costs to fund Medicare. The cost of funding Medicare is going up and up and up and as a government we’re at least willing to talk to industry, to talk to the health profession to try and come up with solutions.
KIERAN GILBERT: Now, we’re only three weeks away from the next budget and yet, this has taken so long to come to this realisation that this is a dud politically, why?
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: Kieran, fixing the nation’s long term problems is not something that can be done easily. It’s not something that can be done easily when you have an obstinate and obstructionist Labor Party, when you have a difficult and a challenging senate, but these are long term problems and if it takes a little longer for us to have the discussions required to come up with the effective solutions that can get support from the medical profession, that can bring the community with us then so be it, we’ll take a little bit longer to get those solutions but we won’t back away from dealing with the problems, even though the Labor Party seems to pretend they don’t even exist.
KIERAN GILBERT: …and with the government now clearly listening on this front, and the Prime Minister to move on it, his polling has improved despite, you know, the characterisation that you’re saying he’s toxic in the electorate, well his overall numbers have improved. Is there a chance here that people are writing him off far too early once again?
MICHELLE ROWLAND: Oh who knows? I will just say in relation to what’s been said about this co-payment, which again goes to your question; firstly, for Simon to come in here and say the governments listening, well it’s taken a while, it sure has taken a while. Now I was sitting down with my local GPs in my area when this was first being discussed and they were saying very clearly “how can you possibly attack primary health care and think you are going to have a more sustainable Medicare? How can you possibly attack the structures which go to managing long term issues like chronic disease, preventative health and so forth?” exactly the wrong way to do it…
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: …What about the long term budget outlook, Michelle?
MICHELLE ROWLAND: …exactly the wrong way to do it. So they came at it at exactly the wrong angle. The long term budget outlook, you can go and support our initiatives we’ve got on $2 billion worth of saves in the area that Chris Bowen’s about to announce later today, but I’ll put that to one side just for a minute…
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: …That’s a mere sneeze in the health system, you know that…
MICHELLE ROWLAND: …But Kieran, the issue here is that this is a Prime Minister who is only dumping this for his own job. All of a sudden, he was so committed to it, so committed to it, remember before the Griffith bi-election Labor’s scare campaign, there’s not going to be any Medicare co-payment, budget comes in, everyone, everyone backing the Medicare co-payment on the Liberal side. Taking about the sustainability of Medicare, talking about this medical research fund we were going to have…
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: …and we won’t stop talking about the sustainability…
MICHELLE ROWLAND: …this was absolutely essential. I had people sitting here telling me that we had hypochondriacs who were seeing doctors and we needed to send a price signal, a price signal, then it was a value statement. You know, this is utter, utter rubbish. What has this government done in the area of health since they got elected? When nearly eighteen months in they’re still fighting amongst themselves about whether or not they’re going to have a co-payment. Poor Bruce Bilson, he was out there, a member not too long ago, saying it’s off the table and all of a sudden it’s still on the table. These people do not know what they are doing and meanwhile in the areas like mine, you’ve got hospital waiting lists, you’ve got emergency departments overflowing, you’ve got cuts to health in the budget, utter debacle.
KIERAN GILBERT: Your reaction to that? And you can wrap up I guess with your response to that fairly forceful criticism.
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: Well look, a clear rant there which is wonderful to identify that there are many problems facing the health sector and we absolutely acknowledge that and part of that is of course the costs of delivering health care in Australia, the costs of running Medicare just keep escalating at a rapid rate. Now, we want Medicare to be sustainable, we want a fair go for all Australians, we want to make sure that we have a health policy in place that ensures those who are vulnerable, those who are less well-off are always cared for as they should be in a country like Australia, but it has to be sustainable, we have to find ways to pay for it. Now Labor can rant and rant all they want about these matters…
MICHELLE ROWLAND: …That’s not called ranting that’s called the electorate…
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: …But the truth is you have to face up to the fact that there are actually budget pressures at some stage…
MICHELLE ROWLAND: …Stop listening, that’s alright…
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: …You left a $600 billion deficit on track…
MICHELLE ROWLAND: …Yeah don’t listen…Keep going…
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: …what do you mean stop listening, Michelle?
MICHELLE ROWLAND: You’ve stopped listening…
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: …Oh come on Michelle…
MICHELLE ROWLAND: …You have stopped listening to the electorate some time ago…
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: …Michelle, you guys have your head buried in the sand ignoring the facts. The budget facts this country faces are real challenges, real challenges…
MICHELLE ROWLAND: …The facts that your budget, your budget hit people who could least afford it and now you’re dumping the most unpopular centrepiece of it…
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: …Michelle you left a huge debt…
KIERAN GILBERT: …We’ve got to wrap up, my apologies. We could continue this after, well you can, we’ve got to keep going, a quick break, back in just a moment…