Sky News with Kieran Gilbert
E&OE
KIERAN GILBERT:
With me here now in the Canberra studio the Social Services Minister Scott Morrison. Mr Morrison thanks very much for your time now. First of all I want to start with homelessness funding. The government is going to reverse that decision. Can you explain how much money is going to go into the agencies that work to combat homelessness?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well this is a partnership agreement with the States; $230 million will go into the homelessness over the next two years. That builds on the past 12 months, including this financial year, where we reversed Labor’s decision which was to cut this program all together. Now what we have said is we want this program to focus as a priority on domestic violence and on youth homelessness. So families affected by domestic violence particularly women and children and those circumstances and this will see that funding go into those areas. Now the previous Government had been involved in homelessness funding when they were in Government but in their last budget they made no provision for this funding going forward. So we’re fixing up the agreement and we will have this funding in place for two years. During that time there will be a review with the States about the level of responsibility between state and federal Governments on homelessness. It’s principally a state responsibility. But this enables us to add serious value and gives some National focus to priorities on domestic violence.
GILBERT:
You say it is Labor’s cut. But wasn’t the Government going to pursue this anyway? This is a backflip from the Government as well, surely?
MINISTER MORRISON:
No it’s not. No.
GILBERT:
So you were always going to spend this money?
MINISTER MORRISON:
We had funded it for one year and we said we would review what we were going to do for the next two years. Now we have made the decision to go ahead with those two years and the previous Government cut the funding altogether. So we have kept the funding.
GILBERT:
Well there was a sense that this was just a stop gap that you were going to end the funding, but no, this was always the intention to renew it.
MINISTER MORRISON:
We were reviewing it in that first year. We ensured that the services could continue for a year in our first year in Government, because they had been cut by Labor. After that year we have decided that we are going to continue for a further two years and over that time we will work with the states to better reflect and understand the responsibilities at those [inaudible]
GILBERT:
Has there been any improvement on that?
MINISTER MORRISON:
On which?
GILBERT:
On homelessness. Since the – well I mean Kevin Rudd made a very big deal of this 100,000 plus homeless. Where’s it at?
MINISTER MORRISON:
I think the outcomes have been very modest and that’s why we think the program needs to have greater targets. It has to have greater focus and that is why we’re putting the focus on domestic violence and on youth homelessness. I think the program in the past under the former Government was very woolly. I mean we had $13 million dollars spent on projects to improve career paths for people working in homelessness. This is not a work program this is homelessness program and it is designed to get money to frontline services and we will be ensuring that does with greater accountability. This will be a new agreement in states –
GILBERT:
It is shocking how many numbers still – people remain homeless in this country.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well it is. That is why we’re not going to give up on it. We are going to acknowledge the fact that the previous way of doing this we don’t think was targeted enough. The principal responsibility is with the states on these issues. So where the Commonwealth is going to get involved then we need to add value, not just shovel money out the door as was happening previously and the states just spent it wherever they wanted to.
GILBERT:
On a few other issues, the welfare card. The Government is going to trial something in this respect to restrict how much people on welfare can spend on certain items like alcohol and so on?
MINISTER MORRISON:
This is in response to the Forest Review and the trials will be conducted in a number of places around Australia and it will focus on both indigenous and non-indigenous communities. Communities of significant disadvantage where obviously issues like gambling, and alcohol abuse, and drug abuse, and things like this are destroying communities and destroying families. This is a poison in many of these communities and this is a targeted way, another tool, another option for us to be able to combat that. There will be very specific trials. I see this as a very targeted measure. There is no suggestion at the moment that these sorts of measures would be applied on a broad basis across welfare recipients. This is very much quite a surgical way of going and dealing with very specific problems in very specific communities.
GILBERT:
Ok, let’s look at a few other issues. This front page of the Australian reporting Government payments aren’t going to return to their long-term trend and reduce until 2021. That’s five years after the May budget suggested in 2016. That seems a further blow out on Government – in terms of Government deficit here and it’s not an iron ore issue this is a spending issue that the Government has got to grapple with here.
MINISTER MORRISON:
I will leave the specifics of that to the Finance Minister but only to say this in my own portfolio. What we are seeing is a growth in payments based on the eligibilities and the arrangements that are currently there. We have been making the argument that it is necessary for us to get these payments and these systems under control. Patrick McClure was making the same point, if we don’t deal with it now with the sort of reforms that we are putting forward and that are being frustrated then down the track a future Government, hopefully a Coalition government would be in place, but what we are saying is that down the track there would need to be a very sharp shock to changes to payments. Now we…
GILBERT:
Are you confident that there will be a better – there will be an improvement on that trajectory well before 2021?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well that is what we’re working to but the Labor party is opposing us in doing that. I mean their plan on welfare is just basically to let it rip and let it run off the edge of the cliff. Now that means down the track, welfare recipients, people who depend on this will not have a sustainable welfare system and they will have to face very sharp cuts down the track unless we deal with the problem now incrementally in a way that people can respond to changes. That’s what we’re trying – we think that is the fair thing to do. What Labors plan is…
GILBERT:
Can you get it done sooner? Can you get that improvement happening before 2021? Which is what the Treasury charts are saying according to the Australian?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well of course this is what we want to work towards Kieran, but, at the end of the day you can only make the progress you can where you can get the cooperation of the Parliament to be able to put in sensible, modest, incremental measures and that’s what we’re working on.
GILBERT:
Should you apologise as a former Immigration Minister to the Save Our Children staff? That’s what your critics and the Governments critics are saying in the wake of the Moss report into the Nauru Centre.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well the Moss review was done at my instigation. It was based on allegations that had been formally made and I ensured that those allegations where reviewed properly by an independent review. I made no such allegations. I saw those allegations on a whole range of very disturbing matters, particularly the matters on sexual abuse; I made sure that they were independently reviewed. We now have a report. I am pleased the government has accepted those recommendations.
GILBERT:
But your critics say that you smeared them in the way that you called for that review. What do you say to that?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well I reject that.
GILBERT:
And no apology?
MINISTER MORRISON:
I put in place an independent inquiry to review allegations. That is what a Minister should do in those circumstances and I am pleased the matter has been properly investigated, we have got clear findings and they have got clear recommendations and the Government has responded positively to those recommendations. I mean, I am happy to deal with things that I have said and done, absolutely, but I don’t feel there is a need where people have distorted or served to distort things that I have said in the past, well that’s a matter for them to explain. I ensured these things were investigated and that action is now taking place.
GILBERT:
Minister I appreciate your time, thank you.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Thanks a lot Kieran.