E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
WEDNESDAY, 26 MARCH 2014
SUBJECT /S: MRRT; Tony Abbott’s secret Commission of Audit; Regal
honours; Racial Discrimination Act; Immigration; Budget; ICAC; WA Senate
by-election; Colin Barnett’s cuts to education; Australian Labor Party;
National Disability Insurance Scheme.
JOURNALIST: Mr Shorten, Andrew Probyn from the West Australian. A
couple of weeks ago you appeared on Sky News from a visit you were
taking to Perth, now despite David Spears’ best poke, prod and cajole of
you, you couldn’t quite elicit or give support to the mining tax. Now
despite that fact that yesterday, despite this, your side supported with
the Greens to defeat the repeal of the mining tax. So can you clarify
for once and all and ahead of the April 5 Senate re-election in WA, what
your position is on the mining tax and where you hope to land on this
issue by the time of the next federal election with regards to
profits-based taxes on resources?
BILL SHORTEN, LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION: I’m happy to clarify that. I
wish the Government before April 5 would clarify where they stand on the
Commission of Audit though. In terms of the mining tax, I have said
that we didn’t always get, the extent of our dialogue didn’t always
match the extent of our ambition for reform. But I do support the
concept of a profits-based resource tax. We have voted against the
repeal of the mining tax.
The proposition why I support a profits-based resource tax, if I can
borrow from a very, very clever speech by a democratic Senator in
America, Elizabeth Warren, who said on a different topic but I think her
words did sum it up; Labor and I have no problems with people being
rich, but no one ever got super rich in Australia on their own. It is
the people who pay for the roads, it is the people who pay for the
schools that educate the workforce, it is the people who pay for our
healthcare system which makes this such an enviable and lucky country.
It is the people who pay for the police and the emergency services, and
the fire services that make us safe. That is why I recognise that it is
appropriate that we have the principal of a resources-based tax. It is a
profits-based tax.
What I would also say in terms of the last part of your question, the
next seven weeks in all fairness, is about the Hockey-Abbott Budget. We
will reveal and release our policies in good time before the next
election, but for the next seven weeks, it is the Government, as I said
in the speech, who have to indicate where their priorities are, what
their choices will be, and the signs are not promising.
JOURNALIST: From the ‘Tiser. It’s a much more lightweight question.
If you were in power, would you talk to the Queen about revoking the
knighthoods and dame-ships that have just been announced?
SHORTEN: It just shows what priorities this Government have, really.
On a day where we’re debating trying to get a quarter of a million
dollars from some government program back to look after 1200 orphans and
in some cases double orphans of military veterans who’ve served
overseas, the Government comes out, or the Prime Minister comes out with
dames and knights? For the record, Labor has had a policy since 1918,
which I don’t foresee us changing any time soon, against imperial
honours, and I think there’s probably questions. Did the Prime Minister
talk to his Cabinet about it, and how much is it going to cost? It is
anachronistic.
HOST: Phil Coorey.
JOURNALIST: Hi Mr Shorten, Phil Coorey from the Fin Review. Just back
to the Budget and the PBO modelling Chris Bowen released today. That
trajectory assumes that Labor would adhere to a 2 per cent spending cap
that you imposed on yourselves during the Rudd years to reach those
numbers. Now Joe Hockey in Parliament yesterday said as a result of
Labor pushing stuff into the out years of the Budget to make savings
that the spending increases, well it’s the 4th year of his first Budget
now, they’re going to be way above 2 per cent. Isn’t it just a fact if
you were to meet those targets as outlined by the PBO today, you too
would have to take the axe to health and education and disabilities in
the out years?
SHORTEN: Budgets are about making choices. As I said, they’re a
window into the soul of a government and a party. When we were in
Government we made hard decisions so we could fund overdue reforms like
the National Disability Insurance Scheme, like supporting the best
educational outcomes for our kids. What was interesting in Question Time
yesterday I thought, Phil, is after repeated questioning by both Tanya
Plibersek and Chris Bowen, the Government didn’t realise that they’d
contradicted themselves. On one hand they say they’re not going to be
able to, they’re not going to achieve a 0.5 per cent commitment of [GNI]
to foreign aid and they said, “Well, we can’t do that..”. If that is
the case, why in their MYEFO projections, do they say they’re going to
reach it by 17/18? The reason why they have kept certain numbers in
their economic forecasts as opposed to what they’re really going to do,
is they are conflating a Budget emergency, and then what they will do is
they will say, “We’re not going to do this or that.” The reality is
they’re creating a straw man Budget emergency, and we’re on to it and
the Australian public will be on to it.
JOURNALIST: Mr Shorten, Karen Middleton from SBS. If the
Attorney-General succeeds with his proposed changes to the racial
discrimination act, what would a Labor Government do? Would you seek to
amend or repeal those changes? And both you and the Prime Minister spoke
on Monday night at the migration and settlement awards, and in his
speech Mr Abbott said that he believes that Australians have sometimes
been frightened of or scared of the number of migrants, and confessed
that he himself had had hesitations about that in the past. Have you
ever had hesitations or concerns about the number of migrants coming
into Australia, and how do you think Australians feel about the level of
migration now?
SHORTEN: Plenty in that but first of all, again it goes back to my
concern about this current government. What are their twisted
priorities? I do not recall the issue about watering down anti-hate
speech, anti-racism laws as being the key issue of the last election.
Yet why on earth is the Government expending so much political time on
that?
Where’s their plan for jobs? I find it amazing that they can give
impassioned speeches in the Senate about the right to be a bigot, that
in itself was amazing, but that they can’t give the same level of
passion to where you help people from Alcoa, where you help people from
the car industry, where you help people at Gove up in the northeast of
Arnhem Land, where you people from Electrolux in Orange transition to
new jobs.
So first of all this is a Government with wrong priorities. And in
terms of immigration, I am the child of an immigrant. Other than the
first Australians, the secret’s out, we’re all immigrants. And I have to
say that one of my ancestors, John O’Shea, I think he arrived in the
port of Melbourne in about 1853, he jumped ship. He was illegal. He went
to the goldfields, he lacked the entrepreneurial spirit of many others
and I think one of the ancestors set up a butcher shop, it’s still
there, it didn’t expand. So immigration though, other than John O’Shea’s
contributions, immigration has been, if you could view, the subsequent
Shortens are alright. But you know, I’ll just stop there.
[laughter]
SHORTEN: Immigration delivers much more than it takes from this
country. Migrants are the people who do the night shift jobs, who do the
work which others perhaps turn their nose up. They’ve set up the corner
stores, the market gardens, the accounting practices. They deepen our
cultural knowledge. You look at any Year 12 leaving school list, and you
look at the high performers, there’s always an immigrant’s surname in
the top three. More often than not two of the top three. So I’ve never
been phased by immigration. I believe it is a positive for Australia. Of
course we need to make sure that our infrastructure keeps up, we need
to make sure that the resources are there so we’re not crowding our
cities. But that is not an argument against immigration, it is an
argument in favour of making sure we are putting the resources into the
suburbs of Australia, so that the middle class of Australia can have
prospects of doing better not worse.
JOURNALIST: And what will you do with 18C?
SHORTEN: First of all let’s see if the Government get their changes
through. Sometimes in life you get yourselves in political fights.
Sometimes in life you’re just going to lose the political argument. The
question is how long it takes, that gap of time between realising you’re
going to lose and when you decide to surrender. That is a question for
the Abbott Government.
JOURNALIST: Thank you. G’day Mr Shorten, David Crowe from the
Australian. Just on the Budget again, in your speech you put Tony Abbott
on notice on a couple of fronts in where you’ll stand on Budget
changes. And in that speech it includes if the Budget seeks to make
middle-class Australians who already do the heavy lifting carry a bigger
burden. Now I wonder, with a deficit of $47 billion, are you suggesting
that there is no scope at all for middle Australians to carry any extra
burden? And related to that, are you in fact denying the extent of the
$47 billion deficit?
SHORTEN: Let’s go back to what I said in the speech. This is a matter
of choices for the Government. A Budget is a window on the soul of what
the Government creates as its values and believes that are its values.
We haven’t seen what the Budget is, so to an extent I can’t give you a
chapter and verse answer on everything they may or may not do. What we
are doing as a constructive Opposition is spelling out what we think the
priorities should be. If they cut our science budget, if they want to
sack more CSIRO scientists, how does that help? If they want to say that
they can’t find a quarter of a million dollars for veterans’ orphans,
yet we can have four dames and knights every year? That’s a joke. So the
challenge is on the Government. We will look at their measures and we
will take them very seriously. We understand the constant need for
Government to be evaluating the efficiency of what it does. But if the
Government is asking for a blank cheque, where it can undermine, where
it can make healthcare in this country depend upon your credit card not
your Medicare card, we’re not up for that. Never have been, never will.
HOST: And the veracity of the Budget deficit?
SHORTEN: Well, we are concerned that this is a Government who has
added a large, if you look at the next four years, they’ve added about
more than half of what their projected deficit is, is by decisions
they’ve made since. Don’t forget the payment to the RBA, don’t forget
the fact that they’re changing some benchmarks and measures, don’t
forget the fact that they’re saying there’s a big Budget deficit on
foreign aid when they have no intention of reaching that by 17/18. This
is a Government who is addicted to spin. What this country needs is
measures which help people keep and find good jobs. Skills, healthcare,
infrastructure, productivity. That’s the game in town.
JOURNALIST: Mark Riley of the Seven Network, Mr Shorten. I just want
to ask about your aspiration to more than double the membership of the
Labor Party to 100,000. Isn’t it reasonable people will be looking at
Labor at the moment, reading about the ICAC in NSW, looking at Craig
Thomson being slotted in Victoria, the controversies around the CFMEU,
the HSU, yadda yadda yadda, and thinking “This isn’t a mob I want to be a
member of” and then they look at you and say, “Wasn’t that the bloke
working the two phones in the Chinese restaurant who killed a Prime
Minister that night?”
What will you do now to further reform the party to reduce union
influence if it needs to be done and to reduce the influence of
factional leaders if it needs to be done, to make it an organisation
that people want to join?
SHORTEN: Mark, there’s many things in what you say but some of your
language there I don’t accept. The leadership changes were incredibly
difficult. I said that at the time and they were. But at every stage the
Labor Party has to be about making sure that we are a viable Government
or a viable Opposition because that’s what millions of Australians
expect us to do. In terms of the Labor Party, also I don’t accept the
proposition, the vast bulk of trade unionists are engaged in that sort
of terrible conduct which you quite rightly identify. That is not the
labour movement which I believe most people are active in. Having said
that, we do need to modernise our structures, there’s no debate about
that. As I said in the speech, we have to set our goals high. We need to
be an outward focused organisation, not an introspective organisation.
The leadership ballot was a very good start in terms of giving people a
say in the direction of this country through involvement in the choice
of leader of one of the two parties. I do not expect Tony Abbott to be
copying this any time soon. So, yes, I do think that the state leaders
of political parties, of the Labor Party, there should be an element of
direct election.
I do think we need to open up our policy processes. I do think we
need to modernise our relationship with the unions and I’ll have more to
say about that in coming weeks and months. But we need to appeal to
people who traditionally have not seen themselves as spoken to by the
Labor Party. We do need to make sure that people are a member of the
Labor Party first, not a member of a faction first. And I think that we
have an opportunity to really make the Labor Party as confident, as
broad-based, as democratic and as outward looking as we want this nation
to be, but we do have to do it.
JOURNALIST: Mark Kenny, Mr Shorten from the Age and Sydney Morning
Herald. Ken Henry, the former Treasury boss, recently observed that the
tax to GDP proportion has in fact gone down over the last decade by
about 3 per cent and that, had this proportion been maintained, it would
pretty much account for the deficit that we have going now. I notice
that you’ve listed as one of your four tests for the forthcoming Budget
that tax as a proportion of GDP must not increase. Now I assume you’ve
done that on the basis that it’s a commitment by the Abbott Opposition,
now government. But is it in the best interests of Australia that both
sides of politics continue with this folly of basically building in a
politically constructed structural deficit?
SHORTEN: You’re right to observe at the start of your question that
there was a very dishonest debate for the last few years in Australian
politics. The Opposition I think were successful, if somewhat dishonest,
in saying that Australia is a very high tax nation. We are simply not
by OECD standards. And you’re quite right to observe that if we had had
the tax to GDP ratio in the 5 and a bit years that we were in Government
that the Howard Government had, if we had what the Howard Government
had the 5 years previously to the five years of what we have now, we
wouldn’t have had the deficit for some of those years. So you’re quite
right.
But what we also recognise as Labor is we intend to hold this
Government to account. They set the standard. We will make sure they are
consistent. They are the ones who fed this story that the debt and
deficit is the issue. We want to see that having constructed this issue,
that they having constructed this issue, we will hold them to account
on it, because they weren’t honest then. We want to see what they do now
and certainly, as I said, elections and politics are all about choices,
they’re all about priorities. We can choose to be a country which cuts
and slashes and says that, adopts a shoulder slug shrugging fatalism
about the inevitability of unemployment, or we can be a country who says
the way ahead is to build productive infrastructure. Let’s face it,
this current mob haven’t started a lot of new projects. They’re pretty
good at turning up at the ribbon cutting of Labor projects. They haven’t
done a lot. Let’s face it, education, how you have a view which says
that cutting funding to schools in the future is somehow going to create
a greater, more powerful, more successful nation. It’s a fiction.
Even on something like the National Disability Insurance Scheme, I
know that many, not all the Coalition backbenchers to be fair, but I
know that people like Joe Hockey were dragged kicking and screaming to
support the NDIS and I always knew that once they got into power, they’d
start to move away from it. And what they don’t understand is they view
that the National Disability Insurance Scheme, they know the price of
it, they don’t know the value of it. The idea that carers, 70, 80 year
old carers can be freed of a midnight anxiety of who loves their child,
their adult child who is precious and special after they are gone, the
idea that a nation would want to relieve people of that pressure, that
is not a cost, that’s a great idea. So this is a Government, who whilst
they bang on about issues, let’s see how they go, and I look forward to
seeing what they do.
JOURNALIST: Anna Henderson, ABC News. Mr Shorten, you say that the
Commission of Audit needs to be released before the WA Senate election.
Why shouldn’t voters also have a chance to understand what kind of
resource tax you envisage before they go to the polls?
SHORTEN: Well we’ve voted. We voted this week. We could have played
smart and delayed the vote in some way until after the April 5 election.
We didn’t. We voted. Now it’s the turn of the Government to show their
cards. Does anyone seriously think that if there wasn’t an April 5
election they’d be so nervous about revealing it? Does anyone, like I
love their definitions. They’ve got a report in early February. Quick,
you could just see them slapping each around the head and the red lights
were going off in Liberal HQ spin central. What do we do? This report
is a smoking gun. And what do? They say right it’s an interim report.
Good move. Interim. Interim means we don’t have to release it.
What they should do is why should, if Tony Abbott doesn’t trust
Western Australian voters, why should Western Australian voters trust
Tony Abbott? It’s his political call not to release it. Does anyone
really think that a lot of the stuff in the report won’t actually be the
report? Does anyone think they’re engaged in rewriting it? The whole
900 pages? I don’t think serious people think that this report is going
to be greatly different whenever they release it. The reason why they
don’t release it is they don’t trust Western Australian voters, so why
on earth should Western Australian voters trust them?
JOURNALIST: Paul Osborne from Australian Associated Press, thank you
for your speech Mr Shorten. Given Labor’s critique of the Prime Minister
not doing due diligence on Arthur Sinodinos, I was just wondering
whether you have eye-balled all of your frontbench, particularly given
the ICAC has a lot of ongoing hearings and that the Royal Commission
into unions may see a few of them giving evidence over time.
And just on a related matter where is the line drawn for you on MP
ethics? Is it, would you sack someone or stand someone aside when
there’s a media reported averse to them, whether they appear in court,
whether there’s an adverse report? What is the line for you?
SHORTEN: I think, I mean obviously this question is given immediacy
by what’s happened with Senator Sinodinos. I think a number of things,
but I think Australians are pretty confident of two basic points. One is
that Arthur Sinodinos is entitled to the presumption of innocence. But I
think Australians also have a second point. What did the Prime Minister
know and when did he know it and why won’t he tell people? It isn’t
good enough for the Prime Minister to say, “well you know that’s a
matter for ICAC.” Actually what the Prime Minister knows is not a matter
for ICAC. That’s not the subject of ICAC’s investigation. But it is a
subject for the Parliament of Australia to know. So what Labor also
said, and let’s be really clear about Arthur Sinodinos because that
underpins the whole assumption of the question, is that he gave a
statement last year. He was asked by the Labor Senators to correct the
record and make a statement in the Parliament. He chose not to. He chose
to stand aside. That’s his choice. Labor asked him to make a statement.
He didn’t want to.
And also I think that what we have here is that you’ve got a
Minister, as much as I wish that we were the Government and the other
team were the Opposition, that is not so. So I think that when you’re a
Minister and you’re handling matters to do with directorial
responsibility, I think that is a tough place for Arthur to be in. In
terms of how we handle matters, we’ll cooperate with the Royal
Commission. You know I get that there’s a political agenda with the
Royal Commission but let me be really clear, we will cooperate, full
stop.
JOURNALIST: Your own line on ethics in this? I mean do you have you got parameters? Can you define those in any way?
SHORTEN: I believe I can. One thing I know, if someone gives you $20
million for doing a job, that’s remarkable. That’s never happened to me.
[laughter]
SHORTEN: But no, just to also be fair, you never use union members’
money for some of the expenses we’ve seen Craig Thomson do. Not only is
it wrong and besmirch the reputation of a whole lot of people working
hard every day, but I just don’t get how you think in any fashion that
that’s legitimate. It’s just not.
JOURNALIST: Lane Calcutt from Nine News, Mr Shorten, or Sir William, and just going back to –
[laughter]
SHORTEN: They’re not hereditary. I would still be against it.
[laughter]
JOURNALIST: Just going back to Tory’s theme and running the risk of
inciting a family feud, do you believe your mother-in-law deserves to be
a dame, and if not, why not?
SHORTEN: I have made a practice of not commenting on the
Governor-General, but I do think it’s fair and I did say publicly last
night, she is a remarkable Australian. I was standing at the Fairbairn
airbase today with the Prime Minister, standing with my wife Chloe, I
realise, I care to believe that she goes with the good will of
Australians. Some people have talked about her fashion, it’s excellent.
But I liked what Katherine Murphy said today. People look at her
fashion, in fact what Katherine Murphy sees is that she’s formidable.
Now in terms of though, this anachronistic debate about dames and
knights, I think it is ridiculous. I am sure that people didn’t evaluate
whether or not the Governor-General or the departing Governor-General
or the new Governor-General are worthy people. I think everyone thinks
they are. I just think people thought, “Are we in a time warp?” Like,
John Howard wouldn’t do it.
[laughter and applause]
JOURNALIST: Michelle Grattan from The Conversation. Mr Shorten, could
I take you back to Mark Riley’s question about party reform and ask you
to directly address the issue of whether the proportion of
representation that the trade unions have at Labor Party conferences,
the 50-50 proportion, should be reduced, and whether you think that
Labor has a disproportionately large number of candidates and MPs from
the union movement? And perhaps also what you think of the situation in
WA where you have one person from a union going out, another from the
same union coming in to that Senate spot. How do you justify that?
SHORTEN: Well, there’s three questions there. Let me just –
JOURNALIST: I’ve broken the rules, I know.
SHORTEN: Pardon? Michelle, you’ve got your own spot. You can ask me whatever you like.
[laughter]
SHORTEN: On Western Australia, our candidates are good people and
they’re strong representatives. Our number one candidate in the Senate,
Joe Bullock, has spent 35 years standing up for low paid workers. That’s
a good qualification to be a Senator. We will have a strong team. What
Western Australian doesn’t need is a rubber stamp. The last thing this
nation needs is a Senate which simply waves through Tony Abbott’s cruel
agenda of cuts so in Western Australian when you vote the Labor team,
and Louise Pratt’s highly capable, so is Shane Hill, so isKlara Andric,
our number 4, but we probably won’t get to that. But they’re all very
talented, strong people.
What you get when you vote the Labor ticket is you will get strong
representation in the Senate which will not simply agree with Tony
Abbott. Tony Abbott is the one who said he wants to model himself on
Colin Barnett. Obviously no one told him the Western Australians aren’t
happy with Colin Barnett’s cuts. Did you know that Colin Barnett cut 350
teachers, 350 teachers assistants, $183 million out of the education
budget? What’s going on? So I think our candidates are good and they are
strong.
Going to your first two points, when it comes to modernising our
relationship with the unions, we have to. Let there be no one under any
doubt. I think we have to. We have to appeal to people who might think
they that don’t want to be in a union but they’d like to be involved
with the Labor Party. We need to appeal to people who are professional,
say professional women. There are a bundle of great potential candidates
working in corporate Australia who we’ve got to reach out to and say,
you know, this process isn’t quite as black box as you think it is, and
we can involve you and join you up. We need to reach out to small
business. As I showed today, I no longer will allow the Liberal Party to
lazily claim the province of small business without a contest. Small
business just need people to tell who them the truth, who talk the
concrete changes, not more rhetoric. We will no longer let the Tax Act
of Australia define who votes for what party. It’s on.
In terms of the point of union representation, do we have too many? I
make no apologies for being a union rep in my working life. That is
what has taught me the power of consensus. Opposition’s hard because by
nature I am a pragmatist, I am not ideologue. I have learned in the real
economy of the world how people make their money, the pressures
external businesses are under. If we were to say that we shouldn’t have
trade unionists in Parliament or in public life, you wouldn’t have got
John Curtin, you wouldn’t have Ben Chifley, you wouldn’t have Bob Hawke
or Paul Keating, you wouldn’t have even had Ronald Regan, or you
wouldn’t have had Lech Wałęsa, you wouldn’t have the Leader of the
Opposition in Zimbabwe. Being a unionist is okay. Of course it’s not the
only thing. and what we need to do is broaden our depth. But thank you
for those questions, Michelle.
JOURNALIST: Steven Scott from the Courier Mail. Do you regret that
Paul Howes was not able to find a spot in the Senate or Labor wasn’t
able to find a spot in the Senate for Paul Howes? Would you like to see
him have a career in Parliament in the future? And you talked about
wanting to re-energise the Labor Party, attract more people. What is
Labor doing wrong if it’s losing people like Paul Howes or in recent
times, Greg Combet?
SHORTEN: Greg’s had a distinguished career in public life. Paul is
32. The Labor Party hasn’t lost him. He’s still there. He’s still a
member. He’s just doing a different, he’ll do a different job to the one
he’s been doing. I do get the point that we need to appeal to more
people and I’ve been at pains to say that’s part of what I want to do as
the new leader of the Labor Party. In terms though of what the Labor
Party does, we need to reach out to more members. I buy that logic.
What I also recognise is that if we want to talk about where this
country’s going, it is a two horse race. I want to know what the
Government is going to do in the Budget. I know people are interested in
Labor because we’re the oldest continuous party. Our story in part is
the Australian story. The Australian settlement, be it Medicare, be it
the minimum wage, be it universal superannuation, be it in a more
contemporary fashion, the National Disability Insurance Scheme, the
Australian settlement is the Labor story. We are the ones who push these
changes and we will continue to do so. So I am optimistic about Labor. I
know we need to change. I also know that we need to be a good
Opposition and hold this Government to account. That is why we have set
the test for the Government.
Choices and priorities are what define Governments. We have seen this
Government choose to raise the debate about a GP tax, we didn’t ask
them to. We’ve seen this Government walk away from the fifth and sixth
year of funding for our schools. We have seen them start to talk about
maybe we need to slow down the NDIS roll-out which will harm and damage
the hopes and aspirations of 460,000 families in this country. Their
choices are not sound. We get that industry’s close. I’m interested in
what this country looks like in 2020. Will our communications be more
dynamic, small business will be going strong, the march of women through
the institutions of power be greater. I get these changes. I get that
the world doesn’t stand still.
Does anyone realise that in 1993, if you have a look at Telstra’s
annual report, didn’t refer to mobile phones or the Internet. The world
is changing fast. We get that. But the reason why we felt concerned
about the abandonment of jobs, I get there will be no car industry in
2020, but what frustrates me is the faces in the street who get left
behind. Do I think a Government Minister’s been down to front the car
workers? Not a chance. Do I think they’ve been down to Alcoa to see how
they’re going? Not a chance. Do I think they’ve been to Gove to talk to
the Rio refinery workers losing their jobs? Not a chance. They shrug
their shoulders and say the world is too hard. We don’t. We get the
world changes we just believe that the change should be for the benefit
of the many, not just the few.
And I’m sure that Paul will make a contribution in the future. I
picked him to replace me at the AWU and I certainly believe he’ll make a
further contribution down the track.
JOURNALIST: Matt Moran from network Ten. Mr Shorten, what priority should Joe Hockey give to returning the budget to surplus?
SHORTEN: It is one of the criteria that he needs to stand by, but
you’ve also got to make sure that when you create growth in this
country, the economy’s an instrument to building growth. The economy’s
an instrument to building a fair and just society. What we need to do is
in all the decisions we make, if we’re in Government or the Liberals
are in Government, how does this help build our future to 2020? So yes,
the surplus is a relevant issue but what I also recognise is that if we
are to have better jobs in the future for our young people, if we are to
have a more secure retirement for our elderly, if we’re to make sure
that people can get the healthcare they need, not the healthcare they
can afford, these are all relevant to the sort of country we want to be.
For me the test is not whether or not I’ve read some right-wing
economic text book or some left-wing economic text book, for me the test
is what will this country look like in 2020 and are we taking the high
road to get there or the low road? We can either get smarter or we can
get poorer. We can either have change for the some or the many. These
are choices and a Government is in power and this is their choice to
make in this Budget.
HOST: We have a group of senior school students from Radford College
in Canberra here in the room with us today. A question now from one of
their number, Rachel Lester.
STUDENT: I was wondering what effect you think the current
investigations into corruption in New South Wales and Federal Parliament
has had on younger individuals thinking of going into politics?
SHORTEN: I think all people are disturbed by reports they see. But I
would say to young people interested in politics and parliament you can
make a difference. Here’s a personal test I set for myself and the Labor
Party. There are many Australians, young and not so young, who don’t
see the value of getting involved in politics because they don’t think
that they can change anything to do with their lives through politics.
The truth is you can change what happens in your world and your
community through being involved in politics.
So I would say that there’s always going to be tough stories out
there, what I would also say is that when you look at university
education, when you look at a minimum wage, when you look at better
funding for schools, when you look at acting on climate change, when you
look at looking after people with disabilities and carers, when you
look at some of your number, in 10 years will be doing jobs that haven’t
even been invented today. What I also know is there a lot more reasons
to be positive about politics than negative and if any of your number
are interested in joining, we’re keen to talk to you.
[laughter]
ENDS
