2GB Ben Fordham

E&OE

BEN FORDHAM:

Scott Morrison, good afternoon to you Sir.

MINISTER MORRISON:

G’day Ben, great to be on ‘shake it off Friday’ again.

FORDHAM:

A lot to talk to you on a Friday, I am sorry it can’t be after 5 o’clock because I know you are a huge fan of Taylor Swift. What do you make of the comments from Mark Dreyfus?

MINISTER MORRISON:

They are completely predictable. Mark Dreyfus wants to run a ‘bring them home campaign’ for terrorists from Syria. The fact that Bill Shorten has been unable to slap that down is just everything we know about Bill Shorten as well. The bloke is completely hollowed out. He is the hollow man of Australian politics.

FORDHAM:

Bill Shorten has got a tough time going on as well doesn’t he with the allegations that come out day after day regarding the Royal Commission into Union Corruption?

MINISTER MORRISON:

Well these are very serious allegations. It is not for me, I suppose or others to repeat them other than to simply say it raises one simple question and that is if union members couldn’t trust him, allegedly, when he was the union boss, how could Australians trust him if he wants to be Prime Minister? It is around the central question of trust as to why these deals were allegedly done and what his motives were in it. I have no doubt the company they were working with, they obviously got a good arrangement but what arrangement was, allegedly, the Leader of the opposition when he was union boss trying to arrange…

FORDHAM:

That is the problem for him. I made the comment the other day there would be a lot of people in the private sector who would think ‘oh well I don’t mind the idea of this, deals like this’ because they benefited the employer. That is fine for companies and it is fine for the union if you are receiving some payment from that company because the union wins, the company wins but the problem for Bill Shorten is the people he purports to represent, the workers, are the ones who have lost out.

MINISTER MORRISON:

What was it all for? There has always been this sort of thing hanging over Bill Shorten about his motives and whether people can trust him. Kevin Rudd couldn’t, Julia Gillard couldn’t, Mark Arbib says he couldn’t be trusted. Well the question here is could the workers he was representing as their union boss, the union members, could they trust him? Really, that is the issue that people will be looking to form an opinion on.

FORDHAM:

You have had a big win this week, you secured the support of the Greens for legislation that will tighten the assets test surrounding the pension. It will save $2.4 billion over four years. Labor opposed the legislation but you didn’t need them. You did it without them, with the Greens.

MINISTER MORRISON:

Well that’s right. Labor left a vacuum on this and the Greens entered it. We didn’t have to change our policy at all on this and what this does is it increases the pension for those on the lowest level of assets by around $30 a fortnight and it pares back the access to the pension for those on much higher levels of assets. Now given ACOSS was supporting this sort of arrangements and the Council of the Ageing, it is a mystery as to why Labor wanted to go and play politics with this. The Greens wanted to support good policy, well good for them. The measure will pass the Senate. The issue for Labor is if they want to continue this charade of opposing this then it will cost them $4 billion to be credible on this issue. You can’t say you oppose something and then refuse to reverse it. So if they are fair dinkum about opposing it they have got to say that they will reverse it if they won the next election. If they won’t say that well it is just another hollow promise from a very hollow opposition leader.

FORDHAM:

We know to make an omelette you have to break a few eggs and when you are trying to get the budget back into balance you are going to upset some people. You copped it this morning on Neil Mitchell’s programme on 3AW. There was a bloke by the name of Steve, a Liberal, who says he won’t vote Liberal again…

MINISTER MORRISON:

Well he said he was a Liberal. He says he was a Liberal, who knows.

FORDHAM:

I have a got to take him on face value.

MINISTER MORRISON:

Sure.

FORDHAM:

He is a middle income earner and he says I am going to be dudded by the changes. So a retired couple with assets above $820,000 won’t be able to access the part pension and the government is telling them to whittle their super away. This is the argument that was put forward to you this morning. I mean you are going to have these criticisms. Someone has to lose out right?

MINISTER MORRISON:

Well look this fellow has told us he had assets of over $700,000. I am glad he has been able to save that. He would still have access to some part pension as a result of that change and he also has superannuation investments where he would be able to draw them down. The point is this – the pension is not superannuation. The pension is a welfare payment for those who need it most, and that is what these changes do. But if we have given tax incentives for superannuation well the point is that people use those savings when they are in retirement and if their savings fall to a particular level, well they will get access to a pension but the superannuation tax incentives are not some sort of inheritance allowance that is passed on to future generations. That is what people do with their other assets their home and things like that. Their home is not touched in the pension assets test but that is what the super incentives are for.

FORDHAM:

I am going to just swing back into your old portfolio area for just a moment if I can. I had the Shadow Immigration Minister Richard Marles on the programme on Tuesday and I put to him that Labor was on the verge of a dramatic backflip on the issue of boat turn backs that by the time the next election would come around. In fact I will just play this for you; this was Tuesday talking to Richard Marles.

FORDHAM:

I understand that the Labor Opposition is about to change its policy on the issue of turning around boats where it is safe to do so?

RICHARD MARLES:

Well I think you asked me that question last week, Ben.

FORDHAM:

But I understand there is about to be a change of policy, is that right?

MARLES:

Well I, I, I, I, I answered that question in the way…

FORDHAM:

Ooh, ooh.

MARLES:

I will answer that question the way I did last week.

FORDHAM:

Mmm interesting.

MINISTER MORRISON:

No idea and look Kevin Rudd said he was going to turn boats back before the 2007 election and we know he never did that. Whether they say they are going to do it, at present their policy at present is not to do it, you can never believe that they will do it anyway and frankly if they tried to do it they would stuff it up. They just don’t have the commitment to it and the understanding of it that we have and that is why people trust us on this issue and why they trust us not to allow terrorists back into the country with what we are doing on citizenship. I remember some weeks ago I was coming back from the Central Coast and this was that debate and I sent you a message at the time and said don’t worry we will be doing something strongly on that. Peter Dutton is all over it and that is absolutely the case. Our policy is clear and Bill Shorten, Mark Dreyfus they want to roll out that welcome mat for terrorists to come back. I think he is, Mark Dreyfus, has already got his silks all ready to go to try and defend them in court personally, he is getting so worked up about it.

FORDHAM:

I understand that next week is going to be another crucial week. Next week is the last sitting week until the winter break, is that right?

MINISTER MORRISON:

That is right and that’s when the pension changes are scheduled to pass through the Upper House. There are a few other measures there which we are hopeful of getting a good result on.

FORDHAM:

Can we expect a few other announcements from the Government next week in relation to deals that have been done to get legislation through?

MINISTER MORRISON:

No, I wouldn’t say that in terms of deals. We have some measures there which Labor have mentioned they may be supporting some of those. So we will wait to see what happens there in the Senate. We also had some big announcements this week on the China Free Trade Agreement, Andrew Robb did a stunning job on that and there was the unprecedented, almost unprecedented I suspect round of applause that came from that agreement. There was also the big announcement on Northern Australia which the Prime Minister was speaking to today up north. This is a very exciting visionary project and set of programmes which has been pulled together, dealing with everything with massive road projects, water infrastructure, dams, as well as dealing with some of the issues which are preventing Indigenous Australians from really being able to utilise the land assets that they have access to.

FORDHAM:

Before I let you go we are talking nicknames this afternoon and we have got a bit of a challenge running. You picked up one recently which is Scott Morrison being shortened down to…

MINISTER MORRISON:

ScoMo. These things I think Ben you just – you don’t get much say over these things, you just embrace them.

FORDHAM:

Have you had any other ones in your time?

MINISTER MORRISON:

When I was a kid I was known as Scotty Mo so I suppose – because my best mate was Scott Merryman and he was called Scotty Me. So it was Scotty Me and Scotty Mo.

FORDHAM:

ScoMo. What about any of your colleagues? What about any of your Parliamentary colleagues any good nicknames that stand out?

MINISTER MORRISON:

Well Christopher Pyne is a fixer.

FORDHAM:

Of course. But he gave himself the nick name.

MINISTER MORRISON:

He did, I am just an apprentice fixer.

FORDHAM:

Ok, good to talk to you.

MINISTER MORRISON:

You too Ben, have a good weekend.