2GB with Ray Hadley
E&OE
RAY HADLEY:
Minister g’day.
MINISTER MORRISON:
G’day Ray. It’s a bit damp, heading on the M1 heading up to Tuggerah today. We are doing work up there on childcare and a domestic violence forum and a youth forum up there with Karen McNamara.
HADLEY:
So is it bucketing down or just steady rain?
MINISTER MORRISON:
It has quietened down a bit but a few minutes ago we could barely hear ourselves think.
HADLEY:
Ok, you were part of the Sky News election coverage on Saturday night. Was the result pretty much as you expected going into it?
MINISTER MORRISON:
I think it was a better result than we were expecting, certainly worse for Labor. On the weekend this was a bigger win for the Liberal party on Saturday night than when Nick Greiner won in 1988. We can all agree that was a thumping victory for Nick Greiner so it was an outstanding endorsement of Mike Baird and an outstanding endorsement for the future shape of the state and it was a vote against the reactionary, negative [inaudible] politics of the Labor party which has become [inaudible].
HADLEY:
Well Luke Foley is going to be with me in the second hour but should they respect the mandate? I know you have similar problems in the Senate as we have the upper house here. What do we do?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Of course they must respect the mandate. If you get [inaudible] an election and you then go and tell the people we are going to reject that and we are going to do what we want to do anyway well I think if he thinks he is setting himself up for the next State election he has got another thing coming. There was a clear message from the people of New South Wales that they want those roads built, they want that infrastructure built, they want the jobs that goes with them and that is very important for the national economy as well. New South Wales is leading the national economy and what happened on Saturday night was a boost for jobs, not just in New South Wales but around the country.
HADLEY:
Ok, back to your portfolio. Over the weekend you spoke about the government’s plan to make pensions more sustainable. The current plan will see future pensions increased, indexed to CPI rather than other measures including the Average Male Wage. You have indicated the plan is not set in stone, how much tweaking is there still to be done?
MINISTER MORRISON:
We are very open for business on this. I am happy to work to a compromise because at the end of the day we need to be able to absorb a very big amount of expenditure which is coming into the welfare budget which is the NDIS. That is going to be 1.1% of GDP by the end of this decade and if we think that you can just swallow something as big as that in the budget and not make changes anywhere else and it’s just certainly not being practical. Now we’re open to any number of issues that can be addressed to make our pensions and our retirement incomes systems sustainable and the welfare safety net more generally but eight out of ten income tax payers go to work every day to pay for this and if we don’t want that to become ten out of ten and beyond then we’ve got to be able to acknowledge that we can’t keep going on the way we are going on.
RAY HADLEY:
Story in the Daily Telegraph on Saturday confirming that people under the age of 50 will be forced to work for the dole from July, it’s currently limited to people between 18-30, take me through how the full work for the dole scheme will work in your eyes.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well we’re getting back to the work for the dole arrangements that were put in place by the Howard government, that were dismantled under the Rudd/Gillard/Rudd government. I mean under them, the something for nothing bus was running pretty regularly under the Labor party. That service isn’t running anymore. What we’re doing is ensuring that work for the dole, mutual obligation, is a key part of the system, and that needs to apply right across the board and it will be applying to those under the age of 50 from 1st July this year. Now that’s being run out of Eric Abetz’ portfolio but the linkage between that and how we run the welfare system I think is very important.
RAY HADLEY:
You’ve spoken before about Gillian Triggs, from the Human Rights Commission. Now she was before a Senate Estimates hearing on Friday, where she defended her recommendation to the government to give this palooka, John Basikbasik, $350,000 in compensation. Now for people who don’t understand who John Basikbasik is, he bashed his pregnant partner to death in the year 2000, he served 7 years for manslaughter then detained in Villawood, she’s deemed a legitimate refugee so he can’t be sent home apparently, but Gillian Triggs thinks fair-minded people would think it’s reasonable to pay him out of our money, taxpayer money, $350,000 in compensation because of the time he’s been in detention.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Yes, we’ll it’s just completely out of touch and I think, I don’t need to run a commentary; that’s for people to work that out. I don’t think they think Australians are fair-minded people and they know that that’s absolute nonsense. And I think this is the issue they’ve had all along, I mean Australians are generous people, but they’re not mugs and they know that that’s absolute nonsense.
RAY HADLEY:
Ok, we’ll leave it at that. Thanks for your time. Have a good trip to the Central Coast.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Thanks a lot, Ray. Good to be with you.
RAY HADLEY:
Social Services Minister, Scott Morrison.