Sky News with Chris Kenny
E&OE
CHRIS KENNY:
Thanks for joining us Scott.
MINISTER MORRISON:
G’day Chris, good to be with you.
KENNY:
Look I want to come to all the substance of your child care reforms and the Budget in a moment but let’s just deal with some of the political posturing first. A lot of people talking about how you’re taking a higher profile in the lead up to the Budget than Joe Hockey has been. Why is it that you’re so prominent, taking the front running on this rather than the Treasurer Joe Hockey?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Because the Treasurer is putting the Budget together, I mean the Treasurer is the principle…
KENNY:
It’s at the printers, the Budgets at the printers now.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well he is the principle player in all of this and the rest of us provide supporting roles and I’ve been pleased to provide that role in I think getting out there and making very clear some of the key measures that will be part of this Budget and those measures in my own portfolio area of responsibilities where I’ve been confining my activity obviously in the pensions area, in the child care area and in the jobs for families package. Look these have been key areas of our activity over the last six months; there’s been a lot of intensive discussion with the stakeholders and crossbenchers even as we’ve gone through this process. But mate it’s a bit like in rugby league, sometimes the forwards will take the ball up and then they’re unload it to the big try scoring players and Joe Hockey is that one.
KENNY:
Oh, Scott Morrison as the viewer’s know rugby league is going to be gobbledygook to me; we should have stuck to Aussie Rules there. But I think I know what you are trying to say. But the key question here is that there is a lot of insider political speculation about you as a possible replacement Treasurer if Joe Hockey can’t pull it together a lot better than he did in the last Budget. Can you put that to bed right now, but it to rest right now and say you support Joe Hockey – so you support Joe Hockey remaining Treasurer until the next election?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Of course I do and yes, because look all of this is just bunkum and rubbish. What the Government is doing is outlining serious policies and serious changes that have been worked through with stakeholders and others to help Australia get to the next level. There are big changes going on in our society and whether it’s the ageing of the population or it’s the changes that are happening in families. We’re releasing policies that address those things that help families get to the next level and help the country deal with the changes in our demographics. If people want to scribble around about gossip and other nonsense well maybe they should be writing for gossip magazines and not pretending to be interested in serious public affairs.
KENNY:
Maybe they should, I want to get to those in a moment but I suppose the trouble that fuels that sort of speculation is the sort of thing we saw this morning when Joe Hockey…
MINISTER MORRISON:
[inaudible] that’s what fuels it Chris, that’s what fuels it. We’re all doing our job; everyone else can bang on about this all they like. We’re doing our job.
KENNY:
Just the point I wanted to make is Joe Hockey as Treasurer in a major interview this morning, asked about details about the package you’re announcing today, a key element of his Budget and he was unable to reveal the details, have a look;
Joe Hockey:
It is Tony Abbott’s Budget as well and it’s a career limiting move to release something on the same day the Prime Minister is Laurie.
Laurie Oakes:
It’s been released, it was announced to one newspaper chain overnight the rest of us had the announcement today; surely you can talk about it.
Joe Hockey:
Well I can say to you Laurie that there is a multi-billion dollar package that is fully funded…
Laurie Oakes:
$3.5 billion?
Joe Hockey:
Fully funded by offsets on other areas and its important…
Laurie Oakes:
That’s the announcement we read in News Limited, $3.5 billion family jobs package.
Joe Hockey:
Well Laurie it is vitally important – I can see you’re upset, but it is vitally important…
Laurie Oakes:
I think it’s funny really that you can’t talk about your own Budget.
Joe Hockey:
Well I can talk about my own Budget.
KENNY:
Well Scott Morrison that’s just unfair for the Treasurer to be stuck there not being able to reveal what’s in his own Budget when you and the Prime Minister obviously can.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well I think that was media introspection frankly Chris. I mean seriously, we’re dealing with serious policies here of course the Treasurer knows what’s in his Budget and was very well aware of all of these measures and he confirmed those largely in his reply and the Prime Minister and I announced the details of those things later in the day. Honestly, move on.
KENNY:
Well I am intending to move on actually. I wanted to give you a chance to respond to that sort of stuff as well because it was ugly this morning.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well I think it’s a bunch of gumpf and people carrying on about nothing so I think we should move on.
KENNY:
Indeed, and if you say it’s a bunch of gumpf it’s good for us to have you saying that. Now I want is to ask you about this package, I think your package today was a very interesting package, major reforms in child care payments and this does affect a lot of the country of course, myself included and it is a barbeque stopper. I think there is a lot of credit being given to the fact that you’re targeting the child care spend perhaps in a better way and trying to get people into employment but there’s also a sense where everyone is pretty much a winner here and for a Government that was looking to deal with a fiscal crisis, for a Government that was looking to end the age of entitlement, aren’t you just here entrenching entitlement in the child care area?
MINISTER MORRISON:
No, I think you’ve got it completely wrong. I mean there are a couple of things happening here. First of all, because of the changes that have taken place in our society over the last 20 odd years, helping families be in work through child care subsidies is an economic policy. It’s not a social policy, it’s not a welfare payment, it’s not a transfer payment or a pension. It actually ensures that people can be in work rather than on welfare, so it makes a lot of sense to do it. That’s why we do do it. It’s an economic policy, that’s the lever we’re pulling here. Now there are elements of this policy which need to deal with serious disadvantage and we cover those off in the Child Care Safety Net which is exactly what we’ve done. But what we’ve also done in this policy is we’ve ensured that we’re focusing it more on the areas where it makes a difference for someone to be in work and the $3.5 billion increase in investment here is going into low and middle income earners. Not on higher income earners, low and middle income earners, because we know that’s where you need to make the change to ensure you get the impetus for people to make the decision to work and work more. The third thing it is being paid for through savings in other areas of the Social Services portfolio that is in welfare payments for families. So this is a policy that washes its face fiscally, that is focused on getting people into work, paid work that is. We all know all mothers’ work, but an increasing majority of mothers are in paid employment as well. We are doing it in way that is far more targeted so I think it makes sense and I think it makes sense for good economic policy reasons.
KENNY:
I think it will be quite popular; I want to come to that issue of how you are paying for it in a moment. But this sense that a lot of people on middle incomes won’t have 85 per cent of their child care costs picked up by the Government and that will ratchet down to about 50 per cent. So that even people on extraordinarily high incomes, family incomes of $200,000, $300,000, $400,000 could be receiving 50 per cent of their children’s child care costs from the Government, up to $10,000 a year. Isn’t this just entrenching an area of entitlement that the Government is primarily responsible for paying for all child care?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well I think you’re missing the point Chris. What I am saying is it’s not a welfare payment. This is a payment that supports participation in the workforce. This is a payment that gives families choices and ensure that we get an economic dividend – that’s what this investment is about. It’s not about welfare. I think to conceive it in terms of welfare I think it to completely miss why the government is doing this in the first place. That’s why I feel quite strongly about it, we need to ensure that families are able to be in work and it was the Rudd Government that actually increased the subsidies from 30 per cent to 50 per cent for those on higher incomes. Now we’re not altering that because you also have to be careful that if you adjust these settings you could see women actually go out of the workforce, and that’s not something we want to see happen. But where we have put the additional funds is into those power on lower and middle incomes where we know if we can put more support then we can get more families deciding to be in paid employment more. Now you know that all around the country that increasingly families haven’t got the decision about whether they are going to go back to work or not, they need to go back into work. The problem is the cost of child care in this country and the way the system currently runs is preventing them from doing that effectively. Now we want to change that and give those families choices.
KENNY:
Well this is one way of changing it and that is of course through Government payments the other way to change it is to help lower child care costs across the board. We have seen the system become highly regulated through national qualitative frameworks. It’s highly unionised and highly regulated, is there not anything that your Government looks to doing in the medium term to somehow break down some of the regulation and lower costs across the sector to give people more flexibility?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well you’re right the increased level of regulation has increased the costs and that was the National Quality Framework that was introduced by the previous Government. What they did was they put all that regulation in state and territory based regulation/legislation and locked it up. So there is not one Federal Member of Parliament in the Senate or in the House of Representatives that can vote to change any of that regulation, it’s all in the states now and locked away there. So the first goal has been to get a better, more effective, more efficient payment system which is simple and encourages and has the principle of having people be in a job, stay in a job, get a job. The next thing is to work with the states and territories to ensure that the regulatory framework we have is not driving prices up incrementally forever and is sensible and practical. Now it’s the states who have carriage of that, they are responsible for how much this regulation is going to cost families and taxpayers in the future and it is a very worthy conversation to have. But let’s not forget that quality in child care is important as well, it’s our kids we’re putting in child care and I don’t think anyone disagrees with having quality child care.
KENNY:
That’s something we will follow up in the longer term; we don’t have a lot of time tonight so I just wanted to ask you also about the way you are going to pay for this. You’re saying its contingent on those other sayings through family payments that you’ve got before the Parliament. No suggestion yet from Labor, the Greens or the crossbenchers that they’re going to give you what you want. Are you – do you have anything you can share with us tonight to suggest that you’ve done some talking with crossbenchers or the Greens or the like that gives you some sort of clear sense of confidence that you can get these savings through Parliament and fund this? Or are you suggesting that this is such a barbeque stopper, such a popular policy that you’ll actually take it as a Double D, a Double Dissolution trigger if you need to?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well we’re doing the responsible thing. What we’re doing is we’re increasing investment where it makes a difference and we’re paying for it through saves within the Social Services portfolio so that’s a very simple proposition and a responsible proposition. I have had discussions with some crossbenchers about this package and those measures and there’ll be no doubt many more. Predictably Labor have gone down their typical reactionary path and just decided to oppose it because we’ve put it forward. As a result I expected that we would be in a situation where we would be talking to crossbenchers. It is important that you pay for what you invest in….
KENNY:
But you can’t….
MINISTER MORRISON:
And you just don’t go and increase taxes and that’s what Labor – and if Labor doesn’t support the savings we’re putting forward to achieve this investment, which is going to deliver greater choice to families, then put up your own savings. All they have put up is taxes not savings.
KENNY:
After all the difficulties with the last Budget though you can’t afford to have such a central plank of this Budget rejected by the Senate, so you can’t back down on this, you’ve either got to convince them or be prepared to take a policy like this to an election presumably?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well I’m a patient man and we’re a patient Government. We believe we have the right policy, the responsible position and we will work practically with the crossbench who will be the ones once gain forced into the situation of having to be responsible players here because the Labor Party can’t support anything. Even investing in increased support for families to be able to go work and have child care support and they cannot put up any alternative savings, they are even opposing $5 billion of their own savings. So this is not a responsible Opposition but we will be working with a pragmatic and I hope, I’m sure, a responsible crossbench to ensure that we can do the right thing for Australian families.
KENNY:
I just want to put to you the general proposition that because of that intransigence in the Senate and your political problems, even internal political problems, that this Government – this Budget is going to be a retreat from the sort of fiscal reform the country needs. Back this time last year the Government was telling us of the dire need to get spending under control and get the Budget back on a path to surplus, obviously we’re not going to see – the Budget this year is not going to be as ambitious. Is this Budget more about politics then the fiscal management the country needs?
MINISTER MORRISON:
This Budget will be about the continued march towards a surplus, every year, incrementally, with a responsible pace to get us back to surplus for the economy and ensuring we don’t walk back from the goal that we had. We will continue to work through to that goal, what we know the Labor Party will do is they will walk away from it; they don’t even accept that there even is a problem. Now we understand there is a problem and we understand the situation we have to deal with politically and we will work these measures through with the Senate and the Parliament more broadly, and we will do it responsibly and we’ll do it by putting up responsible propositions which I believe we have done whether it’s on this measure, or the pensions measure I announced earlier in the week.
KENNY:
David Cameron’s victory in the UK must give you some heart that the voting populous is likely to give a Government credit for trying to do that even if you can’t get exactly what you want through?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well I think that was a win for a clear plan which is what we have also and a determination to follow through with that which is exactly what we’re doing also. What we had in the UK was a reactionary Opposition dragged to the left by their own politics, what does that sound like? It sounds like Bill Shorten. That’s exactly what Bill Shortens’ doing, he is the Ed Miliband of Australian politics and I think we saw a forecast of that approach in the UK Election over the last few days.
KENNY:
Scott Morrison, a bit of gossip columning, a bit of rugby league and a bit of substance and politics. Thanks very much for joining us on this important night on Viewpoint.
MINISTER MORRISON:
All there on Viewpoint as always.