2GB Ray Hadley
E&OE
RAY HADLEY:
Minister good morning.
MINISTER MORRISON:
G’day Ray.
HADLEY:
Nice to see you. The Prime Minister is going to make some very important major national security [inaudible] next Monday to protect us from terrorism – of course we have had Copenhagen over the weekend. I think this would gain support from everyone.
MINISTER MORRISON:
I would hope so. But we already have some measures that are currently in the Parliament which haven’t been passed. When I was Immigration Minister we had what was called the Protection and Other Measures Bill. That dealt with the situation where people couldn’t prove who they were and they were seeking to get protection visas and they couldn’t provide the paperwork – they had thrown documents away or whatever – that bill hasn’t been supported by the Labor Party, it hasn’t been supported by the Parliament and that is one of the classic areas where people have been given the benefit of the doubt in the past which we sought to remove. Now I would hope there would be a change of heart from the Labor Party on that but that is a good example of the types of things you have to tighten up.
HADLEY:
See when you were the Minister and well before you came to government we used to talk about this all the time when Labor was in power. We would have the boat people arriving and even if they had arrived in Indonesia with their papers intact as they approached Christmas Island or the Cocos (Keeling) Islands the paperwork would go overboard, we don’t know who they are. But this other one – these two fellows that are currently detained for a likely act of terrorism, one of them arrived by the traditional means on a false passport and I guess what we would like to know as a public given he arrived here on a false passport and I don’t know if you know the answer, but when did we find out and if we did find out sometime after that how in the hell did he get permanent residency or citizenship given that he arrived here illegally in the first place? Surely that should be a pre-cursor to disqualifying anyone from being a citizen.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well I think they are all good points and only the previous government would be able to explain how they granted them residency and then citizenship. One of the things we did when I was immigration and Border Protection Minister is we have been increasingly introducing more e-passports coming through so that means the facial recognition technology is much harder to get around and we are putting more and more counties on that system. As part of the package we put into counter terrorism last year there was $150 million which was going in to those facial readers for exiting the airport as well. They are all the things you have got to do. It is expensive, difficult and takes some time but I think they are all very reasonable questions people are asking and the Prime Minister has indicated clearly he is going to continue to answer them. We have already made a very big and strong start on this.
HADLEY:
Now you have announced, back to your portfolio, 770,000 Australian part pensioners an allowance recipients will have a modest rise from next month. It is due to a change in the deeming rate – you can explain that later – how does it work and how much will the increase be per week or per year for those people who qualify for it?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Look it is not a big increase Ray and I don’t want to overstate it – $3.20 a fortnight on average for 770,000 pensioners and allowance recipients. Something as small as that costs over $200 million. That I think gives people a sense that you make even small changes in this area and it has a very, very big bill attached to it. What we are doing here is recognising some of things that have changed in the financial markets so people may not be earning as much as they did previously from their investments and so we have changed what their assessed income is effectively through these deeming rates which means they will get greater access to part pensions. It also affects carer payments and the DSP for those who are affected in that way. It is a modest increase but says one thing – where we can make an adjustment we do. We do understand that families and pensioners in particular are under a lot of cost of living pressures. Yes we got rid of the carbon tax – that had its impact, the petrol price is falling which is another good assistance for all Australians but you have to do what you can. What we won’t do is go running around the country with this unfunded empathy policy of Bill Shorten pretending he can solve everybody’s problems, doesn’t fund one solution but a big cheesy grin from Bill Shorten won’t cut it. You have got to fund what you plan to do and it is the same for the opposition as it is the government. This is a modest increase, it is a small increase but we are backing it up with the funds to ensure it can be delivered.
HADLEY:
Is there something in the water in Canberra or has he been eating Nanna’s berries, the shadow treasurer Chris Bowen? Because he is saying that our multimillion dollar debt is ‘rhetoric’. He must be on something.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Maybe he likes to play fantasy football and he is playing fantasy debt but the debt is very, very real. Over the projections – $25,000 for every man, woman and child in Australia. The debt is real. The debt is costing us in interest $14 billion a year. That is twice what we spend on providing child care support every year. Now we weren’t paying $14 billion a year six or seven years ago. We are now just on interest and you can understand the impact that has on the broader spending conditions that the government has. If he doesn’t believe there is a debt problem then he is in fantasy land.
HADLEY:
Well maybe he should talk to the governor of the Reserve Bank and Treasury officials about what they said to NewsCorp reporters only a week ago about what we are confronting in the next 20 or 30 years.
MINISTER MORRISON:
What do they think? Shovelling all that money out the door when they were in government did they think it would never have any consequences? Of course these things will have consequences. That is where we have all been frustrated with Labor’s position on this. They shovelled the money out the door, paying money to pets and dead people and pink batts and all the rest of it and they think there would never have to be any sort of reckoning on this. This government is sadly having to come to terms with that reckoning. We are endeavouring to do that. We do not have great support in the Senate – that’s not an excuse just a reality – just like on the debt.
HADLEY:
A bit worried about you – I read the Sun Herald yesterday a quote from you – ‘we have no need or interest or desire to take this policy into a combative space”. I hope you are not talking about the rorters.
MINISTER MORRISON:
No of course not.
HADLEY:
We want to come down heavily on the rorters don’t we?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Yeah of course we do and I would expect strong support from everyone to crack down on rorters. This is my point – there are things we have to do in the welfare space and I would have thought they had broad based support from all sides of politics. If people want to get on board with ensuring we have a sustainable safety net for Australians who really need it and that we respect the taxpayers who have to pay for it then I am an open shop when it comes to that. If people want to maintain a very obstructive and difficult position in relation to what we need to do well we will have to have that debate. My door is open at the moment for those who want to come forward with policy ideas and funding to back those up and tell us where we can change things to make sure we do that. That is fine but again we just can’t have this blank cheque approach to welfare. Someone has to pay for it. It is the taxpayers and as I said in the Parliament last week Ray – 8 out of 10 income taxpayers pay for the welfare system, 8 out of 10. They go to work solely to pay income tax to support the welfare system.
HADLEY:
Now over the weekend it emerged allegedly that the Prime Minister and his Chief of Staff Peta Credlin rejected concerns that the six month waiting period for school leavers to claim the dole was too harsh. Now it is being blocked by the Senate, criticised by some of your own backbenchers. I have a little history lesson because I am older than you. Prior to the Whitlam Government coming to power in the early 70s you had to be from memory over 21 and married to get any financial assistance. If you were under 21, bad luck you didn’t get anything. Then it all changed. School leavers were able to access what we now refer to colloquially as the dole. So my first job as a trainee auctioneer in 1972 meant I was getting about $22 a week. The dole was about $14 a week. Out of my $22 I paid $5 board, my weekly ticket into Central was I think $2.50. You need to buy your lunch and things like that. The blokes who were on the dole whose parents were quite happy to accommodate them didn’t pay any rent. They stayed at home, sat on their backsides and in some cases some of those blokes are now third generation dole recipients. Their children are on the dole and now their grandchildren are coming onto the dole. So I am a supporter of at least giving children and young people an opportunity to go and seek work before we actually say ‘here take this there is no need for you to get into the workforce because we will supplement your income, we will give you this’. So where are we up to with the six month waiting period?
MINISTER MORRISON:
It is exactly where you say it is and that is and it applies to people aged under 30 Ray, not aged under 21 so that is a much broader range of people you were referring to.
HADLEY:
So it is not just school leavers?
MINISTER MORRISON:
No not just school leavers. People can have families at that age obviously and many children even at primary school age or higher. So where it is at the moment is it is not supported but the issue though is very much I would hope acknowledged. That is you can’t have people just walking out of school on to the dole. There has to be an expectation that people will do everything they can to get themselves into a job right from the outset. Otherwise you are setting yourself up to be a lifelong beneficiary of the welfare system. That costs an absolute bomb over that person’s lifetime. That is not what we want to set up. My view is the same on that as other measures – if others who are sitting in the Senate or the Labor Party or others have a view about how we can address that challenge better and we can fund it full stop then by all means put it up but again the unfunded empathy we are seeing from Bill Shorten around the country on these issues where he wants to empathise with everyone’s problem but not pay a cent to fix any one of them I think people will see through that. We are not walking away from the challenge of getting young people into work. If there is a better way to do it – fine. That measure remains on the table as we work through those issues.
HADLEY:
Now I said on Saturday during my programme that I thought the Prime Minister was guilty of killing Bambi. The Bambi in this case is the former Chief Whip Philip Ruddock – the elder statesmen in the House, one of the most respected Ministers in previous governments. Over 40 years of service. Mr Abbott is now suggesting that he wasn’t acting as a conduit between backbenchers. Now I would suggest to the Prime Minister anyone who knows Mr Ruddock would understand he is not one of those blokes who jumps on the phone and works like many of your people and the other side so if that is the case why was he put in that situation in the first place. I just think it smacks of disloyalty. When the Prime Minister wanted to get elected he tapped Philip on the shoulder who has been a great servant to the nation and said mate come on the campaign trail with me, you will make me look respectable, you will give me some counsel about campaigning and the rest of it. Then all of a sudden instead of sacking the plotters or making them accountable for what they did he picks on poor Philip Ruddock and kills Bambie and says you have got to go. Now I don’t know whether you can comment or not. I don’t know what your relationship with Mr Ruddock is but I just feel as if he has been duded heavily by the Prime Minister in what appears to be the first captain’s call after we are going to have no more captain’s calls.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well Philip Ruddock is the best Immigration Minister this country has ever had.
HADLEY:
Without a doubt.
MINISTER MORRISON:
And I can say that with a lot of knowledge having served in that role myself. Not just in what he did on our borders but what he did more broadly for immigration in restoring confidence across the country. He is loved by the many migrant communities and ethnic communities around the country but particularly here in our home city of Sydney. I don’t think Philip was running around 40 years in the Parliament to become Chief Whip. He took on that job loyally and I think preformed as the Prime Minister had asked him to. Look that is a matter between the Prime Minister and Philip Ruddock but Philip deserves the great respect and admiration of his colleagues as I know he would of the Prime Minister and of Australians I think more broadly. I think that is the best thing to say about it Ray.
HADLEY:
Was it a captain’s call? Was anyone else…
MINISTER MORRISON:
It is a matter for the Prime Minister.
HADLEY:
Ok. So in other words after the Prime Minister promised us last week there would be no more captains calls within a week there is a captain’s call?
MINISTER MORRISON:
I am not sure that is what he did say Ray but all I know is that position is the gift of the Prime Minister as Philip Ruddock has said. I don’t think we need to get too hyperventilated about this. Philip is trying not to do that. He is doing what he has always done and I think he has been fairly measured and is just getting on with the job like we all are.
HADLEY:
It is as close as I have ever seen him to being cranky in all the years I have known him when the Prime Minister said what he said. He now said on Sky News I think the Prime Minister could have at least come and seen me and said look you are not doing the job I want. He said I had no inkling.
MINISTER MORRISON:
I am going to leave it between those two men. They have both been around a long time and are pretty robust characters. What I do know is there should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that the Prime Minister, Philip’s colleagues, are in any way of any other view than he is the greatest immigration Minister we ever had. He performed exceptionally well as an Attorney-General. He has just been a great Liberal and great Member of Parliament and it is a privilege to serve with him.
HADLEY:
Ok a couple of things by way of conclusion, I note there is an email here taking the government to task over the story that is published in most of the newspapers today about what is happening in Indonesia at the moment saying now the government is accusing the judiciary of being corrupt. No, no, no, no to that e-mailer, it is a lawyer within Indonesia who was the first lawyer for two men now facing the death penalty who said they didn’t have the cash. The government has said nothing, has made no comment about that because the e-mailer said this will play against them now, the government. It is not the government it is a lawyer from Indonesia who is away at Mecca at the moment who said they didn’t have the cash to pay the judiciary. That is not news. The judicial system has been a pay as you go type system in Indonesia for many, many years and I don’t expect you to comment but it is not the the government’s fault. This is a lawyer saying it.
MINISTER MORRISON:
I think they are very important points to make Ray. This is a very sensitive time for these young men and their families and all Australians. It is a very distressing thing. I remember when I was very young the Barlow and Chambers case and I think this has a very distressing impact on all Australians because it is so much what we are about as a people and a country. I commend the Prime Minister and Julie Bishop and the opposition and the bi-partisan multi party approach to try and get the right outcome here. It is a very sensitive time and I don’t think it helps for that sort of speculation being put around. I agree with you that we should knock it down wherever we can.
HADLEY:
Ok Elouera Beach you were there Saturday with thousands of people with that message of support that was photographed in the air by a chopper for our friend Glen Wheeler who is doing it very tough. We don’t update things because there isn’t much to update. He is still in an induced coma and he is still battling but it was wonderful the people of the Shire should gather to honour our friend and your friend.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Look it was and he is a great mate down to everyone in the Shire and I think it was well over 1,000 people down there at Elouera. Rob Stanley-Jones he is a top bloke, he pulled it all together, pulled the community together. Thanks to everyone who came and supported – the media people who were there, big marn was there and I think Ben was there as well. You were here on air of course. He got tremendous support and we just wish him and his family all the best. It was a great family day. Glenn has a great family and they are being an enormous strength and encouragement to him and we need to be there for them.
HADLEY:
Just by finality – I don’t get involved in Liberal pre-selection battles but there was a battle for the State seat of Ku-ring-gai at Hornsby RSL on Saturday morning. So I left it to a number of people to contact me whom I know within the Liberal Party to give me some sort of form guide like Richie Callander does with the tips at Randwick or Rosehill. So what I provided to my listeners on Saturday was this form guide. It was a three way battle between a lawyer called Alistair Henskens, the former media commentator Jason Morrison and a lady form the health industry who is highly regarded up there I think is named Carolyn Cameron. Anyway my operatives said this is what is going to happen. Henskens will be the first beaten. It will be a two prong battle between Morrison and Cameron. Then I said well which way is Barry O’Farrell leaning? They said he doesn’t get on with Henskens, he has lent his support not to Morison but Carolyn Cameron. So I shared that knowledge with my listeners. I picked up the paper on Sunday morning, first one beaten Carolyn Cameron, she is knocked on the head and Henskens beats Morrison in the run-off. So to those Liberal Party aficionados who were tipping me, I will never listen to you again. I will do my own form.
MINISTER MORRISON:
There is a lot of soothsaying that goes around pre-selections but it was a really strong field and I know there would be many listening to this programme who would listen to Jason when he was on 2GB as well. They were all great candidates and I am pleased we have a great candidate now taking over from Barry in Alistair.
HADLEY:
Ok. Just didn’t work out the way they told me it was going to work out. I guess there is no exact science in pre-selections. Anything can happen.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Absolutely not. These things are the will of the pre-selectors and the worst place any pre-selection can be played out is in the media.
HADLEY:
Exactly. So those people who were tipping me a Baird victory of 30 seats I will err on the side of caution there as well.
MINISTER MORRISON:
I always err on the side of caution.
HADLEY:
Thanks Minister, talk to you next week.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Thanks Ray good to be with you.