Doorstop interview, Burraneer, Sydney
E&OE
MINISTER MORRISON:
The Abbott Government does not believe that the answer to the country’s challenges is higher taxes and more welfare. We believe the way to seize the opportunities that this country has before us is through a strong economy and strong jobs growth. That’s why in this Budget we have invested in the choices that Australians want to make; the choices to grow their business, the choices to be able to work more where they need to work more and where they want to work more. These are the choices we are supporting to ensure that Australians can work our way through the challenges we currently face and find this even better place for Australia where there is greater prosperity for all. So the answer that is put forward by some that we need higher taxes and more welfare – that’s the answer of the Labor Party and the Greens that’s not the answer of the Coalition and the Abbott Government. We want to see a strong economy with stronger jobs which gives Australians the choices that they want for themselves, their families and their businesses and that’s where our focus will always be.
QUESTION:
Do you think those choices though are fair because the ACOSS analysis suggests that’s its low income earners and families who are going to be hurting the most.
MINISTER MORRISON:
The Child Care Package – the Jobs for Families package puts $3.5 billion in to support low and middle income families. The changes we are making to the pension are increasing the pension for pensioners with low to moderate assets. That’s who we are investing in and supporting in this Budget. We are supporting and investing in people to have the choices that they need to have at this time. I know that the Labor Party and the Greens want to see, effectively, a bus run from the school gate to the Centrelink office. In this Budget what we are saying is if you are job ready, not if you are significantly disadvantaged or been long term unemployed or something like that, but if you are job ready then you should have to go and apply for jobs first before getting the dole. You should have to wait four weeks plus the one week mandatory waiting time before you can access the welfare dollar. What Labor is saying is that they want a shuttle express bus to run directly from the school gate to the Centrelink office. The Coalition under the Abbott Government is saying no. We want to invest in helping people in getting jobs and we have hundreds of millions of dollars in this Budget which is trying to help people get job ready, particularly young people, to get in a job and stay in a job. For the young people who want to choose a life of work rather than a life of welfare that is what our Budget is doing. The Labor Party is saying no, they want to block it; they want to play politics in the Senate rather than get Australians to work.
QUESTION:
ACOSS has particularly talked about families who have single parents or those with older children as being disadvantaged by cuts to Family Tax Benefit Part B. I suppose, what’s your response to that?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well this analysis is making no assessment of the investment this Government is making in growing the economy. The best form of welfare is a job and that’s what this Government is investing in. We are investing in helping young people to make the choice to be in work, to get into work and to stay in work. We are saying to young families who are having children we want to make it possible for you to be able to go to work, to work more when you need to work more and when you want to work more. That’s what our Jobs for Families package does – this is all about the priorities we’re setting which are saying we want to help Australians with the choices they want to make work. Frankly, the Labor Party prescription is higher taxes and more welfare. That’s not the answer for Australia. The answer for Australia is backing Australians in the choices they want to make and their choices to be able to go out there and earn more than they would receive in welfare benefits. That’s the future of this country, those who get up and go to work every day. Eight out of ten income taxpayers are going to work every single day to pay for our welfare bill. Someone’s got to stand up for them and this Government is standing up for them and we are saying we are a generous country who supports those who are most in need but we must get our welfare budget under control. We must invest in the things that create jobs and support the choices of Australians to be in work.
QUESTION:
In terms of priorities child dental health programmes and remote housing programmes appear to have lost funding in the Budget; they are not priorities for this government?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well the Government is supporting regional and rural communities not just with child care but we are doing it with our homelessness package – $230 million is in this Budget to Budget to support the National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness, funding that was cut by the previous government. We have put that $230 million back to support those, particularly who are the victims of domestic family violence and those who are victims of youth homelessness; working with the states proving new money that the previous Government abolished. So there are many priorities right across the spectrum but the most important priority that we have as a Government is to ensure that people who want to work, who need to work, need to be in a job – we are supporting them to get into that job because the best form of welfare is a job. That’s the right thing to do by taxpayers; it’s the right thing to do by young people, by not condemning them to a life on welfare, it’s the right thing to do by Australia.
QUESTION:
A report in The Age today suggests that some Department of Health commissioned research – that the Government may have been overstating the use of ice in Australia, its prevalence. Do you accept that the Government may have been overstating it? Doe ice remain an epidemic issue?
MINISTER MORRISON:
I don’t think it is possible to overstate the great risk and damage that is done by ice and drugs in our community. Just look around, every parent knows it, every community knows it and for people to suggest that someone this issue is being overstated I think is out of touch. I think we are all concerned about the damage that ice is doing to young people in this country. What it is doing to families, what is doing to communities, it is tearing the place apart and particularly in some parts of our cities and right across the country. I think it does require a strong focus and that is what this government is doing. The government will always be criticised by those who don’t share our priorities – the priorities to ensure that we support people into work, that we have a strong rule of law in this country, that we crack down on rorters and abuses of the system and we also give a strong hand to our law enforcement agencies to deal with criminals and those who would seek to wreak havoc in our communities. We will have our critics on that but we stand absolutely resolute in making our country safer, our communities safer and to provide the right choices for young Australians rather than that of drugs and criminal behaviour.
QUESTION:
Just on asylum seekers is there any truth in Indonesia’s claims that 60 to 70 per cent of those in boats offshore are Bangladeshis looking for work?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well I have seen those reports and I am not privy to any of the things that would be behind those reports. What I do know is Australia has strong borders. What I do know is Australia has put in place policies that have worked and has stopped the flow of boats to Australia. Now there are issues that are happening out of South-East Asia out of Myanmar and Malaysia and Indonesia and Australia will continue to provide the support that we always have. I was in in Myanmar in February of last year I visited the displaced person camps where the Rohingya are in Rakhine State. I suspect I am the only politician in the Parliament who has done that. I know what the situation is there on the ground and it is far more complex than the Greens and advocates are putting forward. There are a million Rohingya in Myanmar. The suggestion that somehow resettlement is the answer to that issue I think completely misunderstands what is happening in that part of the world. This requires a proper understanding of the complex issues in that part of the world. I believe our Government has that understanding. I believe the Foreign Minister and the Immigration Minister are doing absolutely everything that Australia should be doing. We are doing it from a position of understanding and knowledge of what is happening. As I said I was there at the beginning of last year, we went through all of Rakhine State and the areas where those displaced people were – not just the Rohingya but the local Burmese as well. It is the second poorest state in that country and there are serious issues there. We need to support Myanmar as we have done with increased aid; we also need to work with other countries in the region, particular Malaysia and Indonesia. In Malaysia there are almost 40,000 Rohingya who are living there today. The fact that for years we have been taking thousands of other Christian minority Burmese refugees out of Malaysia I think has been supporting and helping Malaysia particularly to deal with what it has been dealing with. Now we will continue to play our role as we have but the suggestion by the Greens in particular, and Bill Shorten doesn’t seem to understand either, that somehow Australia is the answer to this issue fundamentally fails to understand what is happening in that part of the world. I think the Greens are simply using this as another political excuse to have a crack at the Abbott Government because they just cannot accept that the Abbott Government has got the policies on border protection right.
QUESTION:
Remaining on border protection but moving you had some comments in the Weekend Australian about inside our borders, you had some concerns about integration. What are your concerns about the lack of integration I guess?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well under Labor 50,000 people turned up on 800 boats and 30,000 of them now are still being processed because of the legacy that was left behind. Australia is the most successful immigrant country in the world in my view, even more successful than the United States, Canada, New Zealand and other places such as that. The reason we have been successful is we have always focused on skilled migration. One of the other terrible legacies of Labor’s poor border policies – failed border policies, is not only the back log of people we have to process but the integration of those who are found to be refugees into our community. We know that when you have immigrants come to the country who have very poor vocational outlook, poor language skills, come from very distressed backgrounds that it is a tough job to integrate people with that background into our community. So we have a big job to do, 50,000 people who turned up on Labor’s watch – some of whom will be going back because they are not refugees. Some may be found to be refugees and we will need to integrate them into the community. If we fail then the consequences are very significant both socially, economically and potentially also from a national security perspective. This is why I am making this point about this issue. Yes radical Islam is a great danger to Australia but disadvantaged and vulnerable and disconnected communities in Australia are also a big risk for Australia’s future. We need to deal with both of these issues with a deep understanding of what is driving the risks in those communities.
QUESTION:
What can the Government do to support greater active engagement policies?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well in the Budget we announced over $20 million to specifically support young people in vulnerable migrant communities. $20 million, just over that, to go and work with those communities to ensure that those young people are getting connected into good choices, connected into education, connected into mentoring, connected into employment and helping them to stay in jobs. We are deadly serious about tackling this issue and we have put our money where our mouth is in this Budget to address these issues of youth disadvantage in vulnerable migrant communities. Afghan refugees who have come to Australia, many in cases without parents or people there to support them, can be cut adrift in this country and we need to ensure that those who are found to be refugees area able to be supported into making positive choices. There are plenty of good examples about those who have made a good fist of it here in Australia, heaps of them, and they are the examples we want to see replicated not the bad examples we have seen in this country which are the exception I think to our very strong and proud immigration history. Great, thanks for your time.