TRANSCRIPT

of

THE HON PETER COSTELLO MP

Treasurer

Interview with

Ross Stevenson & John Burns

3AW

Wednesday, 15 May 2002

8.05 am

SUBJECTS: Budget

JOURNALIST:

7 after 8 on a Wednesday morning. Wednesday morning following the Budget last

night and the Treasurer joins us on the line. Have you got a question we can

translate for you to the Treasurer you might be of the variety “gee this

Budget’s stuffed me” or “gee isn’t he a lovely man with a nice smile

and shiny shoes”. 9696 1278, good morning Treasurer.

TREASURER:

Good morning Ross.

JOURNALIST:

Now Mr Treasurer last year I asked you to put your hand on your heart and swear

by almighty God that the Budget you wrote then didn’t have a heading election

written above it. This year you come out and you say righto we won that, here’s

a deficit of $1.28 billion, any difference?

TREASURER:

Well in the, our actual Budget for the next financial year is for a surplus

of $2.1 billion. In relation to the current financial year as a result of spending

in relation to defence initiatives and upgrades of security, we think there

will be a small cash deficit. But I think in the circumstances where we’re in

a global recession, where we have commitments to land, sea and air operations

in Afghanistan, where we’re upgrading security, these are wise investments.

And I think last year when you asked me to put my hand on my heart you didn’t

know that on the 11^th of September the World Trade Centre was going

to be collapsed and Australia would find itself in war-like operations. I think

there was a big change between May and September of last year.

JOURNALIST:

I saw you with Kerry O’Brien on the 7.30 Report last night, I thought for a

moment I was watching Romper Room with all the talk of “Mr Budget”

and “Mr Deficit”.

TREASURER:

Somebody else said it was a bit like a Playschool set but I didn’t see it myself.

JOURNALIST:

Might as well while we’re deviating, Kerry didn’t appear to me to be at the

top of his form last night. Did you notice anything yourself?

TREASURER:

Well actually at one point do you recall he said…

JOURNALIST:

Can you help me?

TREASURER:

…help me.

JOURNALIST:

You said, why not I’m the Treasurer.

TREASURER:

I felt like saying oh Kerry I’ve been waiting for you to ask that for years.

JOURNALIST:

So you didn’t think that was a little off centre and not at the best, but anyway?

TREASURER:

But anyway if we can help Kerry we’re always happy to do so. Of course you

fellows down there wouldn’t need it.

JOURNALIST:

If you hadn’t spent this money on border protection and the specialist defence

regiments to defend chemical, biological, radiological attack and the upgrade

of the defence forces what would you have spent that money on?

TREASURER:

Well, it’s really a question that you can’t ask. Defence spending is…

JOURNALIST:

(inaudible) I mean we all look at the one that got away, the fish that slipped

the hook, we all look at, if only James Hird hadn’t have been injured we could

have won that game. You must think yourself as the Treasurer, but for the need

to upgrade these things, good grief I could have made a difference.

TREASURER:

Well, look, Australia’s got to defend its borders and its national security

interest. I believe this is the first responsibility of any Government and if

a defence need comes up that’s the first priority you give it.

JOURNALIST:

The fact (inaudible) is it, do we need to spending $2.8 billion on a problem

that may not really exist?

TREASURER:

Well let’s hope it doesn’t. Look, nobody would be happier than me if our regiment

dealing with chemical, nuclear and biological outbreaks never gets called out.

I hope it doesn’t.

JOURNALIST:

What we’ve had to date on border protection is we’ve had a bloke called Kevin

with a pair of binoculars on the North Coast of Australia and it’s worked pretty

well so far.

TREASURER:

I tell you what’s worked pretty well is, in August of last year I think we

had 2,000 unauthorised arrivals in three weeks. What we did is we put navy patrols

on the northern borders, we’ve now doubled coastal air surveillance, we’ve doubled

national marine surveillance, we’ve taken Christmas Island out of the migration

zone and we’re building a new facility.

JOURNALIST:

You might be looking for things that don’t exist.

TREASURER:

And there is evidence that all of this is working. We have not had an unauthorised

boat arrival since December of last year. Now if you hadn’t have been doing

all of that, and remember in August there was 2,000 in three weeks, the number

of unauthorised arrivals into the country could have been so great that the

cost would be many, many times what it currently is.

JOURNALIST:

Treasurer, let’s introduce you to Robert. Robert fire away.

CALLER:

Yes, Peter.

TREASURER:

Yes Robert.

CALLER:

Yes, on the disability pension thing, now by putting these people from disability

pension on Newstart there’s going to be $320 million savings. Is that correct?

TREASURER:

No actually it’s going to cost money because in the early years…

CALLER:

Well the savings there, the forward estimates have estimated $320 million haven’t

they?

TREASURER:

No, no. We’re going to, let me explain it, what we are going to do is we are

going to introduce these measures from 1 July 2003, but in the early years we

are going to spend more. We are going to create 73,000 new places in rehabilitation

and training opportunities so that people who are capable of doing part time

work are given job skills to try and get back into the workforce.

JOURNALIST:

To be fair though, you are going to make it harder for people to get the disability

support pension aren’t you?

TREASURER:

Well, to be fair, what we’re saying is if you can work 15 hours a week, you

should be encouraged to do so.

JOURNALIST:

It used to be 30 didn’t it?

TREASURER:

That’s right.

JOURNALIST:

So it is harder to get the pension?

TREASURER:

Yeah, but what about a person who can do part time work. Do you say they are

disabled for life and should go on a disability pension for the rest of their

lives? I don’t think that’s right.

JOURNALIST:

(inaudible) they might be if they are only capable of working only a short

number of hours.

TREASURER:

Sure.

JOURNALIST:

They might be permanently only capable of that number of hours a week.

TREASURER:

Sure, if a person has a severe disability and can’t work, they are not affected.

The largest group of people on disability pension are people with bad backs.

That’s the largest single group. Now…

JOURNALIST:

I understand that…

TREASURER:

Now at the moment, at the moment what we say is if you can’t work a 30 hour

week in a labouring job you go on the disability pension, you could be on it

twenty or thirty or forty years until you come off for the aged pension. Now

what we say is some of those people should be encouraged through rehabilitation

to get back into part time work. I think that’s only fair.

JOURNALIST:

And probably encouraged by being taken off the disability pension.

TREASURER:

Well, no, by giving training and by giving educational services, now if they

can’t get a job, they can’t get a job, then they will still be on unemployment

benefits.

JOURNALIST:

(inaudible)

TREASURER:

But if they can work 15 hours a week, don’t you think we should try and encourage

them to do so?

JOURNALIST:

Well of course. But the message that you’re sending, and basically what you’re

saying is, and you know, I think we understand each other here, is these are

soft tissue injuries that can be neither proven nor disproven and that there

is a degree, a belief that a lot of these people aren’t as badly injured or

as badly disabled as they say they are?

TREASURER:

It’s not so much that even, you will notice on the TV, no, you will notice

on the TV, the Victorian Government runs ads doesn’t it on rehabilitation services.

JOURNALIST:

It does.

TREASURER:

Right, trying to encourage people who have had work accidents to get back into

the workforce. But what the disability pension scheme has been saying is we

won’t encourage you to get back into the workforce. We just assess you and then

you just go out of the workforce. What we’re doing is we’re harmonising the

Federal policy with the State policy which is to say to these people, if we

can encourage you to get part time work we’ll help you do it. I think it’s eminently

fair.

JOURNALIST:

Gwyn wants to ask you a question Treasurer.

CALLER:

Mr Costello I’ll be dead honest, I haven’t got much respect for you or any

of you. The whole lot of you, right across the board.

JOURNALIST:

Ask your question Gwyn.

CALLER:

Well I just wanted you to know how I felt first of all. If you hadn’t tried

to buy Nauru and all the business with Tampa to prove a point, if you hadn’t

given yourselves the huge rise do you think maybe people with six kids with

asthma could possibly have made, you could have kept putting their money up

and one other thing Mr…

JOURNALIST:

Now Gwen we got a million people on the line. So you’ve had your one question

we’ll leave it there. Your response Treasurer?

TREASURER:

Well, we haven’t tried to buy Nauru.

JOURNALIST:

But basically the question is have you traded off…Has the money you had to

spend on border protection and the processing of asylum seekers meant that you’ve

got less money to afford to give sick people the rebates on their prescription?

TREASURER:

No. We haven’t tried to buy Nauru. In August of last year 2,000 boat arrivals

arrived in Australia in three weeks. It doesn’t take much to work out if at

that rate had continued how many people you’d have arriving here in a year.

And if you’d had 5, 10 or more thousands, the money that you would be spending

would be so large that the money that we’ve invested to stop it is a great saving.

That’s what I can tell you this, if you secure your borders you are actually

saving money because if you’d had thousands upon thousands, and we had 2,000

in three weeks, arriving in Australia, the cost of housing and medical care

and food and schooling and education, language and all of those things would

have been much greater.

JOURNALIST:

Jenny, we will have to make you the last. Fire away Jenny.

CALLER:

Hi Mr Costello, sorry Peter.

TREASURER:

Hi.

CALLER:

I’m just wondering how do you explain to a deaf daughter that she’s not going

to have a pension next week?

TREASURER:

To who?

CALLER:

A disability child that’s deaf, she’s on a pension. She’s asked me last night

well, what’s the Government doing with my money? I said I really don’t know.

TREASURER:

Well, how old is she? Your daughter is an adult is she?

CALLER:

Yeah.

TREASURER:

Yes, look if your daughter is incapable of work, and that’s the test for a

disability pension she’ll stay on it.

CALLER:

Oh right. That’s what I wanted to know.

TREASURER:

You know, it’s only people who are assessed as being capable of work and let’s

face it, many deaf people are capable of work. And many do work.

JOURNALIST:

15 hours work.

TREASURER:

Yeah, that we’re going to try and encourage them to work. But if she’s not

capable of working she stays on the disability pension. And so you get a lot

of disinformation here and you’ve got to remember that a lot of people try and

put their own political spin on this.

JOURNALIST:

No they don’t, do they?

TREASURER:

The disability pension.

JOURNALIST:

They’re shocking.

TREASURER:

I know this is going to shock you but you’ve got to remember this…

JOURNALIST:

How tiresome it must be for you to have to deal with this…what other people

talk of politics.

TREASURER:

You’ve got to remember this that…

JOURNALIST:

And people on the other side can be just as bad.

TREASURER:

Well, you know, people call in to radios and you know try and put political

spins on things.

JOURNALIST:

They can but…

TREASURER:

But if you’re not capable of work, you are on the disability support pension.

If you are capable of 15 hours of work, there’s rehabilitation services and

assistance to get back into the workforce and getting back into the workforce

I think is something that’s actually going to help people with work skills and

self esteem.

JOURNALIST:

Look at the back page of the Sun. I reckon James Hird is capable of more than

15 hours work a week and he’s working none.

TREASURER:

That is very provocative.

JOURNALIST:

Question for you, by what age would it not be worth you pursuing a dream to

be Prime Minister?

TREASURER:

Well, look…

JOURNALIST:

If you got to 55 would you say, shag it, it is not worth it?

TREASURER:

Well you’ve got to remember this fellows that life expectancy has gone out

to about 85 years now.

JOURNALIST:

That’s (inaudible) that’s from birth. By the time we got to your age you would

live to 130.

TREASURER:

You’re starting to sound like Noah yourself Ross. You’ve been around quite

a long time.

JOURNALIST:

Yeah and he might still be looking over his shoulder.

TREASURER:

And what, you’ll still be here broadcasting on 3AW in 2042 will you?

JOURNALIST:

Well I tell you what, they got the Southern Cross Network has got another bloke

in a state north of here who’s getting Methuselah-like so, it stretches like

a (inaudible) in front of me. Who’s the best cartoonist Knight or Spooner?

TREASURER:

Oh I don’t read the cartoonists. It’s all too unflattering for me.

JOURNALIST:

Thanks for your time.

TREASURER:

It was great to talk to you fellows.