TRANSCRIPT
of
THE HON PETER COSTELLO MP
Treasurer

Doorstop
Canberra
Monday, 13 May 2002
8.20am

SUBJECTS: Budget; Leadership; Bob McMullan

JOURNALIST:

Mr Costello, tomorrow night’s Budget, is it a case of boosting spending on border protection and defence at the expense of health?

TREASURER:

What we will be doing tomorrow in the Budget is, we will be building a safer Australia and I think it is important that we take into account all of the unpredictable events that have happened in the world and we make sure that Australia is safe. What we will also be doing is we will be laying down a long-term plan for sustainable, good, services into the future, not just in 2 years time or 3 years time, but in decades time.

JOURNALIST:

Is the strong economy helping the Budget?

TREASURER:

I think it is important that we work to keep the economy strong. It has been a very difficult year. This has been a year of international global slow-down. An American recession, and a Japanese recession, and a German recession, and a Singaporian recession, and a Taiwanese recession, this has obviously had an effect on Australia, but we have got to work to keep the economy strong.

JOURNALIST:

Can you guarantee that disabled pensioners won’t be worse off after your Budget?

TREASURER:

Well, the Government has a very strong commitment to the disabled and you will be seeing that tomorrow night, a very strong commitment.

JOURNALIST:

Mr Costello, you say your focus has been totally on this task at hand. Are there other Cabinet colleagues that haven’t been focused on the task at hand?

TREASURER:

Don’t know, you had better ask them.

JOURNALIST:

Do you think that some of them are focussing too much on leadership speculation and not the Budget?

TREASURER:

Well, I read newspapers, you know, I, you can see the stuff that is in newspapers. But anybody who lives in Canberra knows that I have been here working every day…

JOURNALIST:

You haven’t been briefing journalists?

TREASURER:

…14 hours a day in the Treasury. I do not think there is anybody that can say that they have been working any harder than that over the last week.

JOURNALIST:

(inaudible) Bob McMullan got it totally wrong when he says that you and John Howard have been briefing journalists?

TREASURER:

I have never really heard Mr McMullan say anything that had any believability about it. Mr McMullan is somebody who is yet to produce an economic speech or an economic policy. And the only interesting thing I have seen him say recently was that Labor did not have a tax policy in the last election, it had no economic policy, which was a direct swipe at Mr Crean. So, I think Mr McMullan ought to focus a bit more on economic policy because he does not have any runs on the board, and he is new at the job. And I think if he were focussing a bit more on his task then he might get a bit more credibility.

END.