| Interview on RN Radio with Patricia Karvelas
Subjects: Federal Election.
EO&E…………………………………………………………
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
The phoney campaign has ended and the real one is off and running. This morning the Prime Minister fired the starting gun on the Federal Election that will either finish his leadership or turn him into the stuff of political legend. Scott Morrison is billing the poll as a test of who voters trust better to run the economy. But the Opposition Leader Bill Shorten’s decision to give his election pitch from a backyard in the Liberal-held electorate of Deakin speaks volumes about Labor’s hopes and ambitions for this contest. South Australian Liberal Senator Simon Birmingham is the Coalition’s official campaign spokesman, and he joins me now. Welcome to the program.
SIMON BIRMINGHAM:
Great to be with you Patricia.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
After three Prime Ministers, three Treasurers and a lost majority, how can you expect to campaign realistically on the issue of trust?
SIMON BIRMINGHAM:
Because the things that really matter to Australians are the circumstances that they and their families face, and what we did six years ago was promised that we’d deliver a strong economy and more than one million jobs. And what we’ve done is deliver more than 1.2 million jobs in that time. We promised we’d repair the budget, and we’ve now brought down a budget surplus. We promised that we would secure Australia’s borders and we’ve done that, we’ve stopped arrivals into our borders unauthorised. So, we’ve put in place the types of things that we promised we would do and in doing so we’ve set Australia up very strongly for the future, being able to legislate for tax cuts for small businesses as well as hardworking Australians, and in doing so map out a plan to eliminate the scourge of bracket creep that many Australian workers face to ensure people get to keep more of their money in the future, and to ensure we keep a strong economy.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
So is your message, we’ve been a rabble but we’ve done alright of the economy?
SIMON BIRMINGHAM:
The message is that on the things that impact the day-to-day lives of Australians and the running of our nation, we have done a good job. We’ve made our economy stronger, we’ve made Australia safer, and our policies for the future will continue to deliver a stronger economy, more jobs, 1.25 million jobs over the next five years, we will deliver on tax cuts that will put more money back in the pockets of hardworking Australians and eliminate bracket creep. We’ll deliver on new policies in terms of growing apprenticeship numbers, new package of investment in mental health services, and all of that of course sustains a strong economy, a budget surplus and record levels of growing investment in our schools and hospitals, and the services that Australians rely upon.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
Do you accept that the Coalition has a huge task ahead? Do you see yourself as the underdog?
SIMON BIRMINGHAM:
We have a big mountain to climb these next 36, 37 days, and we don’t underestimate the challenge of that. But we also believe in the wisdom of the Australian people, that when they think long and hard about elections, they know that management of Australia’s economy is central to their wellbeing, the wellbeing of their families, and they know that every time Bill Shorten talks about spending hundreds of millions or billions of dollars more, that comes from higher taxes, that’s going to come out of their hip pockets. They know that we inherited a $47 billion dollar deficit in Labor’s last year in office, and we’ve turned that around to a surplus. So, I think that yes it is a mountain to climb to win any election in Australia, but we believe that as this campaign focuses on the issues, the Government’s record of achievement, and the choice that Australians face for the future, a choice between our continued strong economic management, or very radical alternative policies from the Labor Party, which will see many areas of taxation go up, that that will really sharpen the contest and make people focus on what is at risk.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
Are you going to target Bill Shorten personally, are you going to go negative in this campaign?
SIMON BIRMINGHAM:
We will target the Labor Party’s policies absolutely…
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
But you won’t, hang on a minute, will you target Bill Shorten personally?
SIMON BIRMINGHAM:
This is about the policies that Bill Shorten and the Labor Party have on offer. Now if Labor wins, Bill Shorten will be the Prime Minister, that’s a choice that Australians get to make between Scott Morrison as Prime Minister for the next three years, or Bill Shorten as Prime Minister. But they also then have to choose between the policy considerations. Bill Shorten’s policies are to slug Australian retirees more, to reform the way in which houses are taxed in Australia that will see rents go up and property values go down, to ensure that many Australians will end up paying more in income tax and the average worker according to NatSem modelling, being about $1000 worse off under Labor’s policies, whilst we will abolish the thirty seven percent tax bracket and make sure…
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
Sure, that’s what you’re offering, but this morning the Prime Minister said voters had benefited from the Coalition’s economic management, but growth is weakening, wages are stagnant and the surplus is on paper only it hasn’t been delivered, you are not back in the black, so is it a hollow message?
SIMON BIRMINGHAM:
Not at all Patricia. In terms of the global economic outlook, as the Prime Minister indicated this morning when he announced the election there are headwinds, that’s all the more reason why you want to keep sound economic managers in place. People who will be prudent with spending and focus on those core economic threats.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
People want their wages to go up and you have no policy agenda to make people’s wages go up do you?
SIMON BIRMINGHAM:
We absolutely will continue to create more jobs and by creating more jobs you put more pressure in the labour market for productivity gains, and from that is what comes sustainable wages.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
Why hasn’t it happened?
SIMON BIRMINGHAM:
You don’t make wages go up just by legislating it or through government interference..,
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
But under your strategy it hasn’t happened. You can say you’re going to do that but it just hasn’t happened, Australians aren’t experiencing wage growth and clearly, they’re frustrated.
SIMON BIRMINGHAM:
We understand cost-of-living pressures, but they won’t be made any easier through higher taxes from the Labor Party. Cost-of-living pressures won’t be made any easier if it’s harder for people to get a job and you talked before about our surplus that’s promised for next year, well the difference with us is the track record of delivering on each and every one of our budget outcomes. We have brought the budget deficit back in from $44 billion, down to $33 billion, down to $10 billion, down to $4 billion and now to a $7 billion dollar surplus. That is a clear trajectory of turning things around. What happened when the Labor Party last promised a budget surplus? They delivered a $47 billion budget deficit. So, our track record is prudent forecasting, delivering often over achieving against what we have forecast, because we’ve managed to make sure that we run a tight ship on spending.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
Okay, do you accept that you have underachieved on wages?
SIMON BIRMINGHAM:
Well we would of course love to see sustainable wages growth but first and foremost…
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
But you haven’t delivered it, so do you accept that you’ve underachieved on wages?
SIMON BIRMINGHAM:
No, I don’t accept that Patricia. But we do want to see the sustainability of the economy which requires us to make sure that jobs growth and pressure in the labour market, that drives productivity is what leads to wages growth. You do not achieve wages growth that’s sustainable in Australia just through the type of interventions that Bill Shorten and the Labor Party and the unions carry on about, that will only end up with fewer Australians having jobs in the future. We don’t want a circumstance where it’s harder for young Australians to get a job. We’re proud of the fact that over the last 12 months, more than 100,000 young Australians secured employment in Australia, the highest in Australia’s ever recorded history and that’s the type of opportunity we want to keep creating to give young Australians that chance to get a job and get ahead.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
Labor believes the campaign will be decided in Victoria and Queensland, do you agree with that assessment?
SIMON BIRMINGHAM:
Look, national election campaigns are fought hard in every single state. We don’t take a single seat for granted. The analysts will have a look at where they think different seats will move or not, but I am confident that across every electorate of Australia, the Liberal and National Party candidates will be working hard to convey the message and not one of them will be taking a single voter for granted.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
The Liberal Party is going to have to fight hard in seats you normally wouldn’t think you’d have to worry about, Kooyong and Higgins, to name a couple. In fact Tanya Plibersek was campaigning in Toorak of all places today, it’s a very leafy suburb and you wouldn’t think traditional Labor voters are in that kind of seat, but there she was. How distracting will that be?
SIMON BIRMINGHAM:
Again, we don’t take any seat or any vote for granted, we’ll make sure that in every electorate people understand the choice that is that is to be made. It is a very stark choice and it doesn’t matter where you live in Australia there are thousands of retirees in each and every electorate who face the prospect of paying higher taxes under Bill Shorten. There are people who own homes across every electorate, who face the possibility of having lower housing values or facing higher rents. There are circumstances in every single electorate of Australia where people can look at the hundreds of billions of dollars in extra taxes that Bill Shorten has announced as his policy settings, and think well I’m likely to be worse off from this. And they’ll think that because they’re right, because every time he goes out and promises to spend hundreds of billions of dollars more, Australians are going to pay for it from their hip pockets.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
Well I’m sure we’re going to be speaking to you many times throughout the campaign. Simon Birmingham, thanks for coming on.
SIMON BIRMINGHAM:
Thanks Patricia.
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