Interview with Mark Riley

SUBJECTS:

Budget 2006-07

RILEY:

Treasurer, thanks for joining us. Tomorrow’s headline: miners is up, tax is down!

TREASURER:

Well, it is a great story the mine rescue, and I think it is a sound Budget and tomorrow will be a lot of focus on superannuation, maybe they will say super Budget.

RILEY:

Peter Costello, Superman, they are rather stunning the superannuation changes, what is the idea there?

TREASURER:

The idea is that if you have paid tax on your contributions and your fund has paid tax on earnings, no tax on any benefits. No tax on lump sum, no tax on pension, it will simplify things enormously and it will give people better retirement incomes. And also, it means if you want to save, put money into superannuation – you will never find a better savings vehicle.

RILEY:

The tax cuts on average wage earnings around $10 average a week, mortgages have just gone up by about $30 a month, petrol is sky high. Do we call it even now?

TREASURER:

Well, there are tax cuts, and also for families, increases in family benefits. I think a middle income family with two kids is probably about $30 a week better off; with three kids $40 a week better off. So these are quite substantial benefits, people might want to save some of them, that would be a good thing, but there are benefits that flow from strong economic management, we have now repaid Labor debt and we are debt free. And now we can invest for the future.

RILEY:

I noticed that there was a crucial line that was dropped from your speech tonight, here on the second last page of the printed speech it said ‘inflation should remain contained’. Why did you drop that off?

TREASURER:

Probably did not have time. But inflation will remain contained, 2 ¾ per cent is our forecast, it is in the Budget papers and that is consistent with our goal of keeping it between two and three per cent over the course of the cycle.

RILEY:

Let’s hope you meet your goal. Treasurer, thanks very much for your time.

TREASURER:

Thanks Mark.