ABC 936 Hobart
E&OE
PRESENTER:
With me from the Federal Government is the Minister for Social Services, Kevin Andrews, Minister good afternoon.
MINISTER:
Good afternoon Louise.
PRESENTER:
Do you think it’s fair the Prime Minister said that it’s not the worse thing if young people who can’t find jobs in Tasmania where the unemployment rate is higher than the rest of the nation, need to leave the State.
MINISTER:
Look many young people travel; go from one area to another in order to get a job. Many young people go from Northern Tasmania to Southern Tasmania to go to university or interstate to get training. So it’s not something which is unknown or unusual for many young people and the reality is we want to encourage as many people as possible to get into work, get training, get skills and have a better life.
PRESENTER:
In an area though where the unemployment rate can be as high as 20 per cent, is it the best solution though that it’s incumbent on the young people to move to find work rather than to be the beneficiaries of government stimulus programs to create employment?
MINISTER:
Well government stimulus programs have a very mixed result at the best. If there’s high levels of unemployment it usually reflects the state of business and industry and economic activity in a particular region and government stimulus programs over the years have been shown only to have a marginal impact. So if you’ve got an area of high unemployment it’s unlikely that government stimulus programs, even if you implemented them, would lead to the whole scale result that you might desire or want so in many instances people do move because that’s just the economic reality.
PRESENTER:
Some of the modelling from the impact of the budget on the Australian people suggest that 20 per cent of the lowest income earners are actually bearing the biggest brunt of the changes being brought in, a lot of that is within your portfolio, particularly in the area of government assistance, benefits and some of the concession programs, has it been too tough on the poorer part of Australia?
MINISTER:
Well we’re asking all Australians to contribute to the mess that we find ourselves in at the moment. We’ve got deficits galloping away, we’re on a trajectory to a $667 billion Commonwealth debt, we’re paying a billion dollars in interest in a month which would build infrastructure right across the country if we didn’t have to pay this interest bill. But If you take someone on the minimum wage or less, around about $30,000 by way of income, they get between $20,000 and $30,000 by way of government benefits depending on their family size or the number of children they have. Even somebody earning $50,000 or $60,000 is likely, depending again on the configuration of their family, to be getting a further $10,000 to 20,000 worth of government payments and benefits and that doesn’t include things like childcare or rent assistance if they’re getting that.
PRESENTER:
Some of those programs that do assist people are actually assisting people, and we spoke to some here in Tasmania this week to assist them to stay in education to further their prospects and there are very many people who are doing that and not looking to survive long-term on the benefits, are you making it harder for people to improve their lives by denying them the assistance they need to make their own ends meet?
MINISTER:
No quite to the contrary, first of all if you’re talking about young people under 30 there’s a range of exemptions, so if they’re not capable of working more than 30 hours, if they’re a parent of a child, if they’re a principle carer, if they’re a disability employment service participant, and a number of other exemptions are in the system. Now what we’re saying is that people who are capable of , or capable of working more than 30 hours who don’t fit into any of the other exemptions, we want them if they’re not working to actually be in training so they can get a job. One of the things that is quite clear is that people who end up on welfare at the age of 35, a very large proportion of them were on welfare at much younger ages, so it’s very important to try and encourage people if they’re not in a job to get the skills that will get them into a job in the future. If they do that they’ll qualify, or be eligible to qualify, for payments like Youth Allowance or Austudy or Abstudy which can help them in their training and in fact what we’ve done in this budget is to increase the payments, a larger range of training programs now attract (inaudible) assistance and you take say apprentices, we’re providing a $20,000 loan which they only have to pay back effectively $16,000 of if they finish their apprenticeship. PRSENTER: In a way Minister this brings us back in a circle to where we started which is an area of high unemployment, such as the north west of Tasmania. If the opportunities are ultimately just not there it still leaves young people up to the age of 30 facing a bleak future, and there’s some concerns from some agencies that we could see crime increase we could also see a serious impact on the mental health of young people, does that concern you?
MINISTER:
Well I believe that the best thing we can do for young people is to give them the skills and the ability and the opportunity to be able to get a job, and if they haven’t got those skills then the main thing we should we doing is encouraging them to get those skills. If that means having to travel or having to move well lots of people do that. I was one of a lot of people who grew up in country Victoria and had to move to Melbourne to get the training I wanted when I was a young person; it’s fairly common these days and we need to encourage people. What’s the alternative, leave them on the north west coast of Tasmania where there are no jobs and them not getting the skills and the reality then is that many of them will end up being on welfare not just for a few years but potentially for life.
PRESENTER:
Is there any assistance to help some people move, and we’re talking young people but often they are people with families, so is there any assistance to help them move in search of work?
MINISTER:
There is and there were a number of measures in the budget that were announced in terms of helping people to relocate from one area to another, and if there are people in that situation who are listening I would encourage them to go to their local job network and find out how their circumstances can be tailored, or assistance can be tailored to help them in their particular circumstances.
PRESENTER:
There’s a high proportion of Tasmanians, I think it’s almost one in three Tasmanians, rely to some extent on Federal or Commonwealth assistance in some way. One of the areas of concern in Tasmania is the cost of electricity; it’s an area of concessions. There’s some concerns that the handing back of responsibility to fully fund concessions to the states will lead to reduced circumstances and quite difficult experiences for Tasmanians who do have concessions cards, was that a fair move?
MINISTER:
Well in terms of the Commonwealth concessions they will all remain, so assistance with the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, GP costs, out of hospital medical expenses, hearing assessments, hearing aids, all of those things which are part of the Commonwealth concession program, all of those remain in place. Now the Commonwealth has provided some funding up until now, a minor part of the funding for state concessions but we’ve taken the view in the very difficult economic circumstances that we’ve got that the states should provide for those concessions and I’m sure the states will pick up the difference.
PRESENTER:
Why should people in nursing homes who are handing their pensions over to the nursing homes to receive their care also be forced to find a $7 co-payment to see a GP?
MINISTER:
Well they don’t hand over all their pension, I think it’s at a rate of 85 per cent is my recollection of the payment and they will still have protection because there will still be the bulk billing provisions in place, it’s still up to the GP as to what they charge and once they get to the 10 consultations then they’ll go back and be back in the same situation as they were in the past. So there are protections built in for people in those circumstances.
PRESENTER:
Just one question on the GP co-payment, it is slightly outside of your portfolio but from what I understand it’s affecting people especially in aged care. Already we are seeing that GP consultations are down because people are concerned that the co-payment is already in place, has the government effectively explained the budget to Australian people so they understand what will happen and when it will happen?
MINISTER:
Look we are trying to do that. We are trying to explain it, not just in terms of the detail it relates to individuals but also in the context of why we’re doing these things. I mean we’re not asking people to contribute more because it is something that is naturally popular, indeed quite to the contrary. We’re doing it because we believe we’ve got a national interest in order to make sure the budget is back in a much better position than it is and that’s the way in which we can sustain our welfare system into the future.
PRESENTER:
Well just a final question on that because the tables indicate that for me I pay absolutely nothing, I get no benefit but I pay no extra but they do seem to indicate that poorer Australians are paying proportionately more of their income to assist the country out of its troubles, is that fair?
MINISTER:
Well that’s not true, if you take somebody on a relatively higher income, $150,000 say, they don’t receive any government benefits and yet they’re paying close to a third of their income by way of income tax. So the system is still very progressive, those who earn more are paying much more by way of income tax but we’re trying to be fair across the board because unfortunately we’re all in this mess together.
PRESENTER:
Kevin Andrews I’ll leave it there, thanks for your time.
MINISTER:
Thank you.