2GB Ray Hadley
E&OE
HADLEY:
Scott Morrison joins us, as he does every Monday, except today is Tuesday because yesterday was a public holiday.
MINISTER MORRISON:
It was Ray, it’s good to be with you and I hope everyone had a good Easter and a safe Easter and the Sharks have finally opened their account, Ray.
HADLEY:
I knew that would be your opening gambit, I knew before we got to more serious issues you’d be delighted with their win. I called that game and I’ve got to say, I think the Roosters just simply took them for granted, they thought all we’ve got to do is turn up and beat this mob and led by Gallen, some of their players found an extra gear, and that young bloke, Jake Bird, the five-eighth, he’s only 20–
MINISTER MORRISON:
Stunning.
HADLEY:
I don’t think Ben Barba will be coming back to five-eighth for the game next week.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well he had a great game and it was great for the Sharks fans, there weren’t too many of them there that day, but for those that were there, it was a very special day.
HADLEY:
Couple of emails I want to share with you before we get into business. Ray, says Peter, my fourth month old baby who’d not received her third and final vaccination, because she was too young, contracted whooping cough. It was terrifying seeing how this disease was preventing her from breathing. After experiencing that, I really can’t understand how parents can be so selfish and reckless, something must be done to bring these people into line for the sake of the wider community, and there’s about six emails saying the same thing. Now, the story comes up again today, it was mentioned I think on Friday and Saturday, you’re going to change things I hope. In 2012 the Federal Labor government made changes requiring all parents to immunise their children in order to claim Family Tax Benefits and Childcare subsidies, but all of a sudden, conscientious objectors which have gone up, what, four-fold, five-fold, in the last six or seven years? What are we going to do?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well there’s been a loophole clearly that’s been able to open up over a number of years and we’re currently, as you know, working through the Families package and changes to the childcare arrangements and we already have some Family Tax Benefit changes on the table in the Senate. There are exemptions that currently exist and those exemptions clearly need to be tightened.
HADLEY:
Personal, philosophical, religious or medical. It’s pretty widespread.
MINISTER MORRISON:
But currently you need to present yourself to a doctor and the doctor has to sign off and say the risks have been explained to you. But we’ve got to think about the health and wellbeing of all the other children that are put at risk, and it’s their health that also matters and in fact those parents have taken decisions to immunise their children and that’s obviously the sensible thing to do, we’re a free country and we’re a free society but that doesn’t mean you get to take taxpayers money if you don’t want to go along with the rules.
HADLEY:
So will we see any way that people could object other than personal, philosophical, religious or medical?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well Ray, I’ll have a bit more to say about this as we get closer to the release of the Families package that looks to the issues of childcare benefits and support and we’re working that detail through at the moment so I don’t want to pre-empt anything at that level other than to say that the system we’ve been running has been the one that was introduced by the previous government and there have been a lot of issues raised about tightening up the eligibility for that.
HADLEY:
I’m interested since this was first announced, have you been getting the plethora of lunatic emails that I get from people fringe dwelling at Nimbin and other places saying how dare you tell us to immunise our children, there are stated medical history here that it’s dangerous and all the rest of it and you trace it back and it’s some urban myth that started in the USA. I’ve never seen such gullible people who pretend to be so intelligent and so well informed about an issue they don’t know anything about.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well Ray, as you can expect I get lots of emails from lots of people on all sorts of issues in my portfolio and some still want to talk to me about the last portfolio which was sort of at that end of the spectrum, so look, what we need to do is make good policy and we need to look after the health of our kids and people have a right to do what they want to do, but they don’t have a right to take taxpayers money if they don’t want to sign up to the rules.
HADLEY:
Story by Janet Fife-Yeomans I did last Thursday which encompasses both your portfolios, past and present. A Bangladeshi couple applied for the Family Tax Benefit and the Baby Bonus two days after the mother arrived here with their then seven month old son, and then there’s a history of appeals until the Admin Appeals Tribunal in Sydney last month finally said no, the doctors reports are forged, the documents are forged, I mean how do these people from Bangladesh know so much about our welfare system? I know the husband was here previously, but he must have done a thesis on it at Sydney University, how to rort the system to get more money out of the joint.
MINISTER MORRISON:
They wouldn’t be only ones who’ve done a thesis on the system in terms of trying to rort it, including people born here and bred here, so it’s not unique to those who have come from other places. But look, we have got the right outcome here, they were denied access to those benefits and the Tribunal actually upheld the position so I think that’s a positive outcome that they’ve been prevented from doing that but as we know, the vast overwhelming thumping majority of people who come from overseas come here to make a contribution, not take one.
HADLEY:
Of course.
MINISTER MORRISON:
There is a proportion of Centrelink seekers that come out in that sense and they’re the ones we need to shut down.
HADLEY:
Well I just, I mean, when I talk to my Australian-Italian friends, my Australian-Maltese friends, my Australian-Greek friends–
MINISTER MORRISON:
They’re outraged.
HADLEY:
–my Australian-Lebanese friends, I tell you who are the most fervent, my Australian-Sri Lankan friends – don’t they blow up.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well in my experience it’s a lot of my Lebanese friends, particularly from the Maronite church out there, they really get upset about this sort of stuff.
HADLEY:
Well I have never encountered such hard workers and I am going out to the markets at Flemington on Friday and I am hoping to talk to a bloke who runs a multi-million dollar business. His father migrated from Greece in about 1913, came to Perth, started diving for pearls at Broome, worked his way around Australia, sold flowers from a cart in Sydney and now his son and grandsons are running this multi-million dollar industry which has recently gone to China to actually – not to just go and buy flowers but to grow them there and bring them back here so that when their farms in Australia can’t produce the flowers they require they grow them in China then bring them here to supplement what they can’t get in Australia. Instead of, you know, paying someone in China to do it they employ Australians to go over there, build the farm in concert with the Chinese government and this all started with one bloke arriving here and diving for pearls back in 1914 or 15.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Immigrants have been great innovators over centuries, not just since the second World War, over centuries and one of the things I have noticed is that they will have a crack, they will have a go and that is why we put over two thirds of the migration programme on skills because if you are on a skilled visa you don’t get access to benefits, you work or you go home. As a result we have seen tremendous innovation from skilled migrants in Australia and they have been one of the driving forces of our economy for generations.
HADLEY:
You just reminded me. I was in Roma of all places last year. I go to a function with sponsors at the Royal Hotel which unfortunately burnt down since we have come back from Roma. I speak to the local jeweller and we are having a yarn about his business, he said well you can imagine being the jeweller in Roma it is a captive market but there is not a big market for me. So he said look we have started manufacturing and doing our own thing and trying to make it a bit of a boutique operation. I said really you do all of that, he said well I needed a bloke and I got a bloke from Ireland on a visa, and he is over here and his wife and children arrived here. He said he is the best jeweller I ever had. Now he said you can imagine trying to get a bloke as a jeweller in Brisbane or Sydney to come to Roma. I have got no hope, no hope, no one wants to live in Roma, they want to live close to the coast. He said this bloke, he has come to Roma, he loves Roma, when he finally finishes he is going to apply for citizenship and stay in Roma because he – and he might end up buying the business off the bloke who is getting a bit older.
MINISTER MORRISON:
There are stories like this all around the country. Resettled refugees out of Burma down at a place called Luv-a-Duck in Victoria where they basically staff the entire operation. It is a great business which is employing lots of people down there in rural Victoria. So the stories are great and that is why we support a strong migration programme but one that focuses on bringing people to the country who make a contribution not seek one.
HADLEY:
Now NewsCorp papers today contain a warning to the government from leading business groups. They say all sides of politics need to start cooperating in the national interest. Now this is not the first time I have read this. I said on the Today programme I reckon I have read three stories similar to this one about business and other groups, you know, non-government agencies saying look you have got a big problem here, the government was elected to implement certain policies to rein in the spending of the previous Labor government. Why isn’t there a picture on the front page of every newspaper, News Limited newspaper today of Bill Shorten, Chris Bowen, the Greens – Christine Milne, and the people that are stopping your government from actually reining in costs?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well there is only one party, one side of politics trying to fix the budget at the moment and that is the Coalition. Businesses are entitled to their view but I noticed they were pretty quiet in their support for Mike Baird. I remember seeing lots of ads from the union movement saying why poles and wires shouldn’t be sold, I don’t remember too many business funded ads actually supporting the case that Mike Baird put forward but they will be enormous beneficiaries. The Coalition is getting on with the job of fixing the budget because we believe that is the right thing to do, we will keep doing it, with or without the support of the business community.
HADLEY:
But you can’t do it – forget the business community, you can’t do it unless Bill Shorten finally admits he left us in a position he has left us in as part of the former government and we need to rein in spending.
MINISTER MORRISON:
That’s right, he ordered the meal and then did a runner on the bill and he left us with the bill and that is what we are having to pay for right now and I know the business community wants to see the budget come back into balance, well if that is the case I would love to see them out there supporting the changes to family tax benefits, the changes to retirement savings that we have put in place in the last budget, I’d like to see them supporting all of those very tough savings measures that frankly aren’t that popular and haven’t had that many friends and I would love to see them out there supporting those specific measures and as you say putting the wood on Bill Shorten and the crossbench about the need for budget repair.
HADLEY:
Ok, thanks for your time as always.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Thanks a lot Ray.