ABC Western Plains Dubbo with Dugald Saunders
E&OE
DUGALD SAUNDERS:
It’s 12 to 9 on the morning show; another lycra clad figure that’s been part of the pollie pedal through the region today is Kevin Andrews, who is the Federal Minister for Social Services. He has just launched this morning Clontarf Academy’s South and Delroy Campuses at Dubbo College; he’s popped in to see us. Good morning Minister.
MINISTER ANDREWS:
Good morning.
DUGALD SAUNDERS:
Thanks for coming in it’s obviously been a fairly busy time for Social Services over the past couple of days hasn’t it?
MINISTER ANDREWS:
It has and out here it’s been great because I went to Clontarf Academies this morning, yesterday we were at Iprowd, looking at the work they’re doing for indigenous people, both young and not so young, and the Westhaven Support Services for the disabled. So it’s been a fairly hectic tour apart from riding a bike to get here as well.
DUGALD SAUNDERS:
How are you feeling, how are the legs?
MINISTER ANDREWS:
Ah actually we’ve done five days, the toughest day was from Gunnedah to Coonabarabran, we had a long stretch from Mullaley to Tambar Springs into a head wind and that really took it out of us. But yesterday was the longest leg, 160 km, but I actually feel quite good this morning.
DUGALD SAUNDERS:
Did you do the whole thing?
MINISTER ANDREWS:
I’ve done 660km so far from Moree.
DUGALD SAUNDERS:
And supported by local member Mark Coulton who loves being on a bike.
MINISTER ANDREWS:
He does and he’s done a great job on the bike as well, so I think he’ll be joining us again today and then we move out of his electorate tomorrow.
DUGALD SAUNDERS:
Look we’ve talked about the Clontarf Academies here on this program quite a bit before and in our region there’s also an academy at (inaudible) and now another couple as you’ve launched today in Dubbo. How important are these Clontarf academies?
MINISTER ANDREWS:
Ah absolutely critical. What it does for young people is to give them a sense of purpose and give them what we might regard as the soft skills, by which I mean getting out of bed, being on time, talking to each other with respect, feeling part of a team and sport is very much a part of it. Sports not really the issue, sport is the mechanism if you like, the means by which they can gain a whole lot of other skills. And you can see it just with them this morning talking to the young kids, that this has given them, I think, a sense of self-esteem that they wouldn’t otherwise have had.
DUGALD SAUNDERS:
Mmm, and from the communities then that have operated them for a while and we are keeping in contact with them, what feedback do you get from them?
MINISTER ANDREWS:
Oh the feedback is that this is a process that puts them on a pathway to a sense of hope in themselves, a sense that they are an integral part of the community and a sense that they actually become leaders in their own communities and therefore pass on a set of values to others in the community and importantly to the next generation. Given that the indigenous population is a young population in Australia compared to the non-indigenous population I think this is so important.
DUGALD SAUNDERS:
I think it’s fair to say the Social Services area has sort of been a bit of a focus in the news lately. Again today Paid Parental Leave is on the agenda, the Independent Senator Nick Xenophon has said this morning the scheme which is essentially to provide new mothers their full pay for six months capped at $50,000 is well and truly dead, in fact he’s compared it to the Monty Python dead parrot sketch which is interesting. Ah he says the government thinks it’s alive, but it’s well and truly gone, what’s your reaction to that?
MINISTER ANDREWS:
Look we’re talking with all the Senators, the crossbench Senators in particular. We’ll continue to do that any constructive suggestions they have then we will listen to them. In the end we want to get on with governing the country, we know we’ve got some challenges ahead of us and we’ll do that in a constructive way.
DUGALD SAUNDERS:
It is one of just a number of measures though that the Government is struggling to get through, is there a plan or is it just…
MINISTER ANDREWS:
Look its early days; I mean I’ve been around long enough that I was part of the Government in 1996 and as I recall it took us months to get our budget through in 1996.
Look, I think the main thing is that we continue to be constructive about it, we have to remind people that we’ve got a challenge in Australia, I mean we’ve talked about the $670 billion trajectory to debt till we’re blue in the face, but the reality is that’s there, so we’ve got to make some changes, we’ve got a plan on the table, nobody else seems to have one. We’ll have constructive conversations with crossbenchers and anybody else who wants to talk to us.
DUGALD SAUNDERS:
We’re talking this morning to Kevin Andrews, Federal Minister for Social Services, and part of the Pollie Pedal through the region. Look the other thing that is hard to avoid talking about at the moment is Joe Hockey and the Treasurer’s comments around fuel excise. Who in the community it affects and how it affects them. I guess you would have been quite aware, if not before in recent times, how many people in our area use cars, certainly not a luxury in regional areas but a necessity. How do you think regional areas would cope with any increase in the excise?
MINISTER ANDREWS:
Well the proposed increase in the excise I think works out at about 40 cents a week, you know, for the average user. I grew up in a regional area; I grew up in Gippsland in regional Victoria Dugald so I understand people in regional areas. I’ve still got family in rural Australia and yes cars are important because the distances are much greater than they are in the city. And I think what Joe’s comments were taken out of context because he was simply pointing out what the stats show in terms of the use of cars and the use of fuel and things like that. But we fully understand and appreciate the total reliance on cars in rural and regional Australia.
DUGALD SAUNDERS:
But it’s also the fact I guess and there’s been a lot of reaction to the way the Treasurer made the comments and in and around the context he was talking about the fact that it would affect more people on a higher income because they tend to use more fuel but in regional areas if you live a certain distance you have to use more fuel that affects pensioners, it affects farmers, producers of all kinds, so it doesn’t differentiate and I guess that’s what people have a problem with.
MINISTER ANDREWS:
Look I think if we’re being fair both are right. Yes people on higher incomes do tend to use more fuel but there’s also a reality that once you get outside the major cities where people have to travel greater distances then reliance on fuel is absolutely critical. So I think there’s a bit of sort of a, what would I call it, mischievousness in ah political reporting at the moment, that the slightest comment is taken, and I think often taken out of context, and I don’t think that helps us in terms of a mature discussion about what we need in this country.
DUGALD SAUNDERS:
Fuel is one of those things as well though where it has an excise but it also has a GST, so a tax on top of the tax, that again doesn’t discriminate, which makes it harder and again you represent pensioners as well, which is a group that will be greatly affected by this.
MINISTER ANDREWS:
And look things like getting rid of the carbon tax is a $550 boost on average to households in Australia. But at the end of the day the Government has got to make a choice about difficult decisions, we do face some challenges, we’ve got to do something about it otherwise our standard of living in the future won’t be as good and we won’t be handing onto the next generation. The kids I was talking to down at Clontarf this morning, our interest is giving them the best country they can have, because I think one of the things we’ve always prided ourselves in Australia about is that we’ve tried to hand onto the next generation a better standard of living, a better quality of life than we’ve had ourselves. Now we’ve got a pretty good standard of life in Australia but I think that aspiration to do the best for the future is also important, and that’s why as a Government we have to make some tough decisions.
DUGALD SAUNDERS:
You mention you’ve been around political circles for a fair while, it was originally John Howard who put the stop of the fuel excise and fixed it and that essentially was one of the things that helped win an election for him, is this going to be hard sell for the current government then going forward?
MINISTER ANDREWS:
Well I mean I was there in the John Howard years and before them, and it sometimes helps to have a memory but we were in good economic times then, you know things were booming we were in the height of the mining and resources boom in Australia. One of the big challenges we’ve got in this country at the moment is that we are rapidly transitioning from the construction phase of the resources boom to the production phase, and that means that all that capital investment over a couple of decades and all the additional employment that’s been involved in that, that’s starting to come off. Now of course we are going to to live off the proceeds of the mining boom for many decades we hope but this is proposing new challenges because we simply have to look at a changing economy an ageing population and as I said debt and deficits that is piled up ahead of us.
DUGALD SAUNDERS:
I know as part of the Pollie Pedal you’ve been meeting with Carer groups and you met with a group in Dubbo yesterday. One of the things that the funds being raised by Pollie Pedal go towards Carers Australia, but it as a group has been fairly critical of some of the measures that have been trying to get through like the disability support recipients, the lowering of the indexation, the six month wait for the dole. So how do you relate to carers groups?
MINISTER ANDREWS:
Well I’ve been talking to the CEO of Carers Australia, Ara Creswell, every day on this ride. Look as a government we are fully supportive of carers, what there’s about 2.5 million carers in Australia, at least officially, there may be well more than that. These are people who are doing a wonderful job, without whom there would be a huge cost to the Budget and to the taxpayer in this country and we are supporting them. I suppose in relation to younger people who have got a capacity to work. What we’re saying is that we’re trying to encourage you to work, if you’ve got some capacity to work we want you to participate to the best extent that you can.
So if you take the under 35s on a DSP, up until now they’ve had a requirement, that they have what’s called a participation plan. That might be a plan that they sit down and work out, they can get some work experience, or they might do some work for the dole or might do a part time job or whatever but there’s never been any requirement if they follow through with it. So what we’re proposing for that group is that they follow through with that because we do know that some can participate and if they do participate then they’re part of the broader economic community well than that’s to their advantage as well.
DUGALD SAUNDERS:
Part of the problem that’s been raised particularly for younger people that are having to wait six months for the dole is the amount of jobs they have to apply for and there’s a concern not just from the young people but employers as well who are concerned they will just be getting calls to make up numbers, if that makes sense. Is that been thought about from your end?
MINISTER ANDREWS:
Well two things about it, it’s up to 40 jobs, it’s not a fixed number of 40 jobs. Secondly those proposals are out there for consultation at the moment and we’ll obviously take any feedback that we get about them. But again it’s getting back to the point that it’s about encouraging people who are capable of working of actually getting a job. Now we’re not unrealistic about the situation and we’ll take up any feedback we get about it.
DUGALD SAUNDERS:
I appreciate your time; you’re off to Mudgee this morning?
MINISTER ANDREWS:
Today we’re riding to Mudgee which is 140, we’ve got about 350 to go and then the next day from Mudgee through to Lithgow and Katoomba and then the last day is hopefully downhill into Penrith.
DUGALD SAUNDERS:
Downhill into Penrith thank goodness for that. And the PM possibly meeting you at some stage?
MINISTER ANDREWS:
I believe the PM is going to join us tonight in Mudgee and hopefully he’ll be able to ride tomorrow. I’m sure that he’s missed riding because he’s done 16 pollie pedals and done more than 16,000 km over the last 16 years and raised I think three or four million dollars for charity.
DUGALD SAUNDERS:
Let’s hope you get to Mudgee tonight, thank you for your time Minister.
MINISTER ANDREWS:
My pleasure.