2GB Ray Hadley
E&OE
RAY HADLEY:
Scott Morrison, good morning.
MINISTER MORRISON:
G’day Ray, good to be here.
HADLEY:
Nice to see you. Now, I understand the Federal Government is cracking down on fraud in the childcare industry. I also understand after a report came to pass on Channel 7 in South Australia you’ve found an operator who you’ve suspended. What I’m told is this operator, who is Farah 4 Kidz, don’t just have operations in South Australia but also have a significant presence in New South Wales and Queensland. Take me through what’s happened.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Yeah, that’s right Ray. Farah 4 Kidz, they were engaging in a whole range of practices which were the subject of our investigations and also working with the South Australian State Government. 186 individual carers were involved in this across all states or most states – 29 in NSW and 32 Qld – there were allegedly multiple breaches. So we’ve suspended them and that’s going to save the taxpayer over $13 million a year in alleged rorts that were taking place through the operations of these centres. It’s in a Family Day Care setting and that’s been an area where there have been some serious issues. I’m going to be introducing a new regulation in the next couple of weeks which will be cracking down on what’s called the children swapping practice, where basically two Family Day Care operators basically swap each other’s kids and then claim childcare benefits to look after each other’s kids.
HADLEY:
Hang on…slow down. So I run one up the road, you run one down the road.
MINISTER MORRISON:
You look after my kids, I look after yours.
HADLEY:
Look after your kids and we get the Government to pay?
MINISTER MORRISON:
That’s right. It’s an absolute rort and that’s what we’re shutting down.
HADLEY:
How many kids involved? Unless they’ve got 12 kids or something, I mean are you saying it happens at every centre?
MINISTER MORRISON:
No, I’m not saying it happens in every centre. But the people who are going to try and rort the system; they will get up to this and it is alleged…
HADLEY:
They should be in jail.
MINISTER MORRISON:
…these groups – well there’ll be a full investigation of all of this. But we’ve suspended their ability to receive benefits and there’s a process that then follows that.
HADLEY:
Well what happens to the kids that are there? Just say that there are 50 kids there? At one of these…
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well – because Family Day Care is quite small, you’re talking about you know five to 10 kids who are affected by any one operation. In this operation there’s about 186 carers I mentioned, that’s around about 1,000-1,200 actual children involved.
HADLEY:
Oh right.
MINISTER MORRISON:
But there will be some necessary exemptions in there, because there are cases where you have children with special needs that can be affected by these practices as well as people in very remote areas and certainly those who have work or study commitments which would explain why there would be some practice going on.
HADLEY:
Ok, Family Day Care…Farah 4 Kids do they take them to people’s homes or do they actually have centres?
MINISTER MORRISON:
No, Family Day Care is in the home and so they’d have a home they’d be in and the other children would come there. It’s a less formal method of childcare, it’s been around a long time, it helps a lot of families and a lot of families rely on this. But there are some, like an area whether its immigration, tax, welfare whatever – there are people out there who will take a loan of the taxpayer and we’re shutting this down. We’ve shut down around $80 million worth of rorts in the childcare sector and that’s important because it’s an important area of support that we provide to help parents stay in work and be in work but we’re not going to have it rorted.
HADLEY:
So how do you find out about this? I know Channel 7 did stories on it, but you’ve got to investigate it, is it whistle-blowers that come and say to you ‘listen Bill’s looking after Jack’s kids, Jack’s looking after Bill’s kids and I’m not going to pay for it anymore?’
MINISTER MORRISON:
That’s exactly how we work it out, in the same way you track down rorts anywhere. So we want to thank those who’ve been involved in tipping our authorities off and we want to encourage them to do that. Now they’re registered in South Australia and the South Australian Government has dealt with that but equally they have, I understand, a further registration in Victoria that hasn’t been dealt with yet and we’re in contact with Victorian authorities.
HADLEY:
I mean I sit here dumb founded that people can be so – I mean there’s no other word for it, I was going to say mischievous but it’s not mischievous it’s just thieving.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well it is, that’s exactly what it is, and they’re trying it on and it undermines the integrity of what is otherwise across any area of payments we have, fair dinkum payments helping fair dinkum people.
HADLEY:
Is there a mastermind behind this, is there one person? Because you’d like to think it’s one person pulling a rort, but if you’re telling there there’s 101 of these centres in South Australia and 29 in New South Wales and 32 in Queensland that would mean if its wide spread there’d have to be all these people complicit in doing all of this?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well it’s all under this Farah 4 Kidz model, its linked to them back in South Australia. So, this has been able to shut down a pretty big network of rorting and fraud. We’re pleased to do it; there were a lot of reports about this in South Australia. Basically we were keeping our powder dry and people were saying why aren’t you doing something about it? Well we were and we’ve been able to get to that point.
HADLEY:
But do you think it could be even more widespread, Minister? Do you think it could extend beyond this one organisation?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well it’s possible and that’s why this regulation has to come in and so we’ll be doing that. There’ll be elements of the Family Day Care Centre sector who won’t want to see this reg come in. We did see that there were some unintended consequences of it last time, but we believe we’ve fixed those and so it’s going to come in because the taxpayer cannot have a loan taken off them.
HADLEY:
I must be little na?ve, I mean I know I’m opposed to blokes going and robbing banks or service stations or pubs, with masks over their head. But I’m just as opposed to people who present as normal hard working decent people who think there’s a rort in this. It comes down to other parts of your portfolio, which I forward to you. People contact me and say “this woman is living with this bloke, she’s on what used to be the deserted wife’s pension or whatever they now call it, he’s on Centrelink payments, they pretend they don’t live together but they’ve just had their fourth child together. I just can’t believe – do we live in a country where we make it so easy for people to rort the system that we have to have Centrelink police?
MINISTER MORRISON:
We do have Centrelink police and we do have a welfare cop on this beat and we need to have one. We do rely on the public so could I just appeal to the public, 131 524, that’s the fraud tipoff line, 131 524. If you think someone’s rorting, whether it’s on childcare or it’s on other forms of pensions or payments then let us know. They think they’re clever, they’ll boast about it at the pub. That’s when their mates should dob them in because they’re taking a loan directly off them and other people who desperately need this support.
HADLEY:
Away from your portfolio to your previous one. News Limited is reporting today the amount of money that we’ve saved through the success of your baby, Operation Sovereign Borders, implemented while you were the Minister. It’ll save from the next Budget $500 million and forward estimates $3 billion. Well done.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Look this is a dividend from stronger borders and The Telegraph today I think has a very strong editorial and it highlights a really important point as others have in other papers. It is this, Bill Shorten will still not commit to turn boats back where it’s safe to do so, in fact he says he won’t. Now any serious political party who hasn’t learnt the lesson of the last ten years when it comes to this issue, I mean it is done and dusted you have to turn boats back where it’s safe to do so, if you want to save lives and end this trade. That’s what we did and these are the dividends. Now one of those savings which is referred to there today and the Prime Minister and Minister Dutton, and Peter’s doing an excellent job and I know you had chat to him I think when you were in Queensland. Peter will be announcing today that there’ll also be the savings from the charters; it’s reported there today some $66 million in charter flights. I remember us talking about that in Opposition about all these flights going everywhere and the logistics to support all these centres. Well there’s no boats, there’s no need for those centres, there’s no need for the costs and these no need for these planes to all fly around.
HADLEY:
Now back to you, the Budget, age pension – it’s been reported previously the Government is dumping its plan for a lower indexation rate for the age pension but with the Budget shortfall it will be made up by changing the eligibility criteria for the part-pension. Will this include taking more assets into account, including perhaps the family home?
MINISTER MORRISON:
No, the family home will not be included in the assets pension test; we’ve been clear about that for a long time. We’ve always said though, Ray, that on the CPI indexation of the pension measure that was there from last year that nothing comes off unless something comes on. We’ve been working on that now for some time and we’ll have more to say about that by the time of the Budget. But at the end of the day we need to have a sustainable and fair pension, a pension that lives on not just for today but for tomorrow. We can’t walk away and step back from the very significant Budget task; I mean Chris Richardson has reports there in the papers today about his modelling on the situation when it comes to revenue and the Budget position. We’re not stepping back from that challenge and we need to keep leaning forward whether on our fiscal savings. I notice though the Labor Party seem to think that the way to get out of this issue is just to tax everybody more. Bill Shorten has had two ideas this year, both of them are taxes, he’s not interested in finding savings. In fact they are blocking, in my portfolio alone, $12 billion worth of savings. So when it comes to fiscal credibility Bill Shorten just does not get to the starting line.
HADLEY:
Ok, one final thing Laurie Oakes, the veteran commentator, was speculating on the weekend that the likelihood of an early election will depend heavily on how the Budget is received. Can you see any circumstances where you might go to the polls early?
MINISTER MORRISON:
No, I don’t and the Prime Minister made that pretty clear yesterday. I mean we were elected to serve for a 3 year term and that’s certainly what we intend to do. Because there is so much more to do, I mean we have halved the trajectory of Labor’s debt, in one Budget and we are looking to continue on with that job. There’s a lot to do; we need to get on and do it. That’s what we’re focused on and others will commentate on other things and that’s for them. Bill Shorten’s festival of ideas or no ideas will continue, but I tell you Ray one of the reasons I think they haven’t been able to launch any policies this year is because it’s not them who actually approve the policies. It’s there Federal Council, or Conference, National Conference and that doesn’t happen until later in the year. That’s when the unions decide what Labor’s party policies are going to be, because that’s who dominates their National Conference.
HADLEY:
Emails just reminded me of one more thing I wanted to get to. We’ve spoken about vaccinations previously and your move, which I applaud, to force parents to vaccinate their children or miss out on welfare payments. Over the weekend it was reported, I think in the Sunday Telegraph, about a childcare centre director in northern NSW caught out promoting alternative therapies to vaccinations. She even referred to the discredited research linking vaccinations to autism. Now this is a woman, you’d think would be reasonably intelligent…
MINISTER MORRISON:
You’d hope so.
HADLEY:
…and then she comes out and says “oh look this is not how I feel as a Director of this Childcare Centre, it’s how I feel individually.” I mean is there a possibility you could ring her and say “love, it would probably be better if you didn’t involve yourself in childcare if you’re that addled brained?”
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well, there are two things there. Firstly it’s a State Government law as well that you need to have vaccinations to be in those centres. NSW is the only place, as I understand to actually require that, and I’d still encourage the other states and territories, particularly up in Queensland to do the same thing. But also they won’t be getting any subsides from the Federal Government if that practice is put in place. But honestly I mean this issue is settled. I think that’s the view, I think…
HADLEY:
It’s all over.
MINISTER MORRISON:
I think that’s the overwhelming view of the Australian population who vaccinate with their feet effectively. That’s what they’ve been doing, they know it’s a good idea and the people who can’t be vaccinated depend terribly on the herd vaccination which exists and we have got to be mindful of them. This isn’t a freedom of speech issue; this is just a common sense issue.
HADLEY:
Well I can only imagine that this woman, even though she’s a childcare centre director in northern NSW, must have been living in a tree house in Nimbin if she hasn’t read the research into the discrediting of the imbecile, who on some talk show in America said if you get vaccinated it leads to autism. I mean it has been discredited, it has been disproved, it’s gone, it’s finished, it’s over. I mean she must live in some vacuum up there.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well up there that’s one of our lower areas of vaccination and I think that’s a real health issue for that part of the state.
HADLEY:
South Sudan has a higher vaccination rate then some parts of Nimbin and Mullumbimby.
MINISTER MORRISON:
That’s true and that has got to change for the sake of the health of people in that region. But, good to be with you Ray.
HADLEY:
Talk to you next week.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Thanks.