HOST: As the Labour Party National Conference winds up in Sydney today, the Federal Opposition Leader, Malcolm Turnbull, has launched an attack on the Prime Minister. Mr Turnbull has responded to a 600 word essay the Prime Minister wrote last weekend, with a shorter essay of his own. In it, he accuses Mr Rudd of changing his ideology to suit the times, and says in the years ahead, taxes and interest rates will rise to fund the Labor debt. The Finance Minister, Lindsay Tanner, is heading home from the conference, and he spoke a short time ago to our political correspondent, Lyndal Curtis.
LYNDAL CURTIS: Lindsay Tanner, is Kevin Rudd a political fashionista, changing his ideology to suit the times, but in reality unable to understand what makes the economy tick, and unable to say what Australia has to show for the accumulation of debt under the Government?
LINDSAY TANNER: Of course he's not. Once again we've seen a giant rant from Malcolm Turnbull, that has almost entirely ignored the issue facing Australia, and that is, global recession and the threat to jobs. That's the number one issue that Australians are concerned about, that's the number one issue that the Government's addressing, and yet Malcolm Turnbull's just recycling all of his previous irrelevant lines, while he's trying to hold the divided battle together.
LYNDAL CURTIS: But isn't he also looking past the time when the economy may get better, to the time when the Government will have to start paying off the debt, isn't that going to have implications for things like interest rates and taxes?
LINDSAY TANNER: The Government's very focused on getting the budget back into surplus, we accept there's a very substantial challenge there, we've had a giant hole knocked in budget revenue by the global recession, that's why we've had to borrow, that's why we've got deficits over the next few years, but we've set out a strategy in the budget for returning the budget to surplus, and then to pay down the debt.
LYNDAL CURTIS: Given that the Prime Minister warned in his own essay last weekend that the recovery will be tough, doesn't it have some validity to argue that this could be the first generation to leave the children worse off than parents, given that the recovery will see rising interest rates, and at least the Government cutting spending, if not raising taxes?
LINDSAY TANNER: No, I don't believe that's the case. You'll see real living standards continue to rise over the next five years, you'll see a return to ordinary trend growth, I believe in a reasonable period of time, we're dealing with an unprecedented global economic disaster, that is having big impacts on Australia. And you'll need to also note that the actual share of taxation of the total economy, has dropped significantly, so the Government remains committed to keeping the overall tax share of our economy at or below the level that we inherited from the Howard Government.
LYNDAL CURTIS: You've been attending the ALP National Conference in Sydney, the conference yesterday voted for a negotiated change to the Labor Party policy, to include unions on Government inquiries and boards. Unions don't generally have a role in business on investment decisions, why should they have that role in Government?
LINDSAY TANNER: There are numerous areas where unions have got a legitimate interest in Government processes and decisions, as do industry bodies, employer organisations, in some cases consumer organisations, environmental organisations. Trade unions have got a legitimate right to be consulted in a variety of areas that Governments have a role in, just as do numerous other kinds of organisations.
LYNDAL CURTIS: But can't unions be consulted without being formally put on the boards, or the inquiries, can't they put in submissions, like most other groups?
LINDSAY TANNER: Yes, but this is not a once in a lifetime inquiry we're talking about, Lyndal, it's an ongoing process of dialogue, and it's very important for any group that's being represented in a dialogue, that there's a designated person, that there's a point of contact, that everybody in that particular constituency knows, is the person to go to.
HOST: The Finance Minister, Lindsay Tanner, speaking there to Lyndal Curtis.| Media Contact: | Website: |
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| Tim Naughtin - 0438 265 065 | www.financeminister.gov.au |
