KEIRAN GILBERT: Mr Tanner Good Morning
LINDSAY TANNER: Morning Kieran
KEIRAN GILBERT: Before we get to areas of your responsibility I want ask you about the asylum seeker issue. Why does the Government not concede that this was a special deal to these asylum seekers on board the Oceanic Viking?
LINDSAY TANNER: The only special deal as far as I’m aware that was being sought was to come to Christmas Island or the Australian mainland neither of which has happened. Now the position that we have taken has ultimately been conveyed to the asylum seekers is entirely consistent with the position that Australia takes and has taken for some time regarding the processing of people in other countries because there are only a relatively modest number of countries that are end takers of refugees under the international convention, we are one, but of course there are lots of other countries that have displaced people, asylum seekers, that they are looking after, sometimes for long periods of time. We’ve always taken the view that those processes should work as quickly as possible, they should be dealt with, they should be processed and where found to be legitimate refugees repatriated to a third country, an asylum giving country as quickly as possible.
KEIRAN GILBERT: The point that everybody is making is the speed. Not so much the process but the speed with which this has been undertaken. This has been fast tracked for these people.
LINDSAY TANNER: Look I don’t think that is necessarily the case. We need to also note that there a different circumstances for different individuals on the vessel. Now my understanding is that some have already been designated as refugees, some haven’t, there is clearly going to be a case-by-case assessment of whether or not people qualify, if they haven’t already qualified. So I don’t believe that the speed element of this is in anyway at odds with Australia’s broader stance. Now Malcolm Turnbull, a day or two ago accused the Prime Minister of misleading the parliament in saying that there was no special deal and saying that he not been directly involved in any such alleged special deal but in spite of the Prime Minister taunting Malcolm Turnbull yesterday in the Parliament to put up or shut up, to demonstrate the evidence to back his claim that the Prime Minister had misled Parliament, Mr Turnbull didn’t respond. So there is no evidence to support this claim that there is some kind of special backroom deal that has been done here.
KEIRAN GILBERT: How many other asylum seekers in Indonesia get this sort of fast-tracked processing?
LINDSAY TANNER: Again, I don’t know the individual circumstances of some of the people involved. Some of them for example may have been in Indonesia for an extended period of time already; some of them may have been assessed as refugees.
KEIRAN GILBERT: But that’s the point isn’t it, if they have been there for an extended period of time, surely this group of people that come there and are told that they will be fast-tracked, doesn’t that show that they have been given a special deal, a different deal however you want to describe it.
LINDSAY TANNER: No I don’t think that is the case, its difficult to be absolutely precise when you are dealing with individuals who are different in characteristics. Some of them may not qualify, I don’t know, I am not in the position to really speculate about this other than to say that my understanding is that some have already been designated as refugees, some haven’t. I don’t know anything more than that.
KEIRAN GILBERT: The Indonesian President was due to come here this week, the Ambassador is now reported as saying the itinerary was locked in, how is this not a snub?
LINDSAY TANNER: Kieran, one of the mistakes that a lot of Australians often make is to assume that some issue that is going on between Australia and another nation is always all about us. We forget that in fact there is another party to the situation and often the circumstances that prevail may actually reflect issues that are actually important to them but are not relevant to us. For example every time our dollar goes up or down relative to the US dollar people overlook the fact that what is going on with the United States economy may have a significant role to play there and they tend to ask what is going on in Australia. The same thing is happening here, everybody is assuming that it’s all about us, well it may not be about us. There are other issues that have been floated as explanations for why the President of Indonesia has decided to postpone that visit, I don’t think it is a huge issue, he is not suggesting that he is not going to come and we’re in no position and nor is anyone to cast any judgement on the stated reasons for the postponement, we have to accept those reasons.
KEIRAN GILBERT: On the Emissions Trading Scheme, the government says it is engaged in good-faith talks but then yesterday in Parliament it opens a full frontal assault. Not much goodwill yesterday, which is it?
LINDSAY TANNER: Well yesterday the full frontal assault occurred in the Senate, where the Opposition resisted and rejected the move to get the debate going in the Senate and therefore maximise the time for debate on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme legislation in the Senate And then voted to ensure that debate couldn’t occur at all yesterday in the Senate. We wanted to maximise debate and they have rejected that. What we have seen all along, and going way back into the Howard Government, is a pattern of endless delay, always try to avoid the issue, always try to avoid making a decision, and when you look at the shambles that the Opposition are, where you have got people on both sides of the argument, where you have got Mr Turnbull and others saying climate change is real, that they think human activity is a substantial cause of that and that the world and the nation need to act and on the other hand you have Nick Minchin saying it is a communist conspiracy, you have got Albi Schlutz saying it’s a Nazi conspiracy, you’ve got nutty propositions being floated by other people in the Liberal Party then its very difficult for us to deal with.
KEIRAN GILBERT: Why not stick to the good-faith talks, yesterday it was the first four questions that you gave to the Prime Minister, the Treasurer, Greg Combet, Peter Garrett. It was a full frontal assault it doesn’t seem like a negotiation.
LINDSAY TANNER: We are continuing to engage in these discussions with good faith and to be fair Ian McFarlane, the representative of the Opposition, we believe is also acting in good faith. The problem is that behind him is a rabble. Behind him is a bunch of people who cannot come together on any single position and what were seeking to do yesterday was to highlight that to get an outcome. What we want to do is put pressure on the Opposition to get their act together, establish a clear position so we can have these good faith negotiations. Senator Minchin said a couple of weeks ago that even if we agreed to every proposition that the Opposition is advancing, that they may not agree on any deal they sign up to, how can you negotiate in those circumstances.
KEIRAN GILBERT: You have obviously had to keep an eye on the negotiations, how much room to move do you have on this, in terms of dollars?
LINDSAY TANNER: Obviously very little, that’s very difficult for us. The Opposition cant attack us on one hand for having deficits that are the result of the global financial crisis and the debt that is flowing from that and then on the other be demanding billions of dollars of extra money for the Carbon Reduction Pollution Scheme. So we are committed to getting an outcome from the negotiations that is as close to revenue neutral as humanly possibly, there are complex negotiations because there are a range of issues involved, some of the issues that are involved, do not involve money so for example we have conceded on the question of excluding agriculture from the direct ambit of the scheme, that doesn’t effect the financing of it, other issues potentially involve billions of dollars.
KEIRAN GILBERT: So are you saying that there won’t be billions of dollars additional compensation as part of any negotiation?
LINDSAY TANNER: Our basic ambition is that any changes will be as close to revenue neutral as humanly possible, so from our perspective keeping the budget on track to return to surplus and then to start repaying the debt that has flowed inevitably from the Global Financial crisis, those objectives remain in place, we do not intend to add billions of dollars to the deficit as a result of these negotiations.
KEIRAN GILBERT: The Crawford report into sport funding, John Coates of the Australian Olympic Committee has said it’s an insult to everybody that has worked to get Australia to where it is on the Olympic stage. What’s your response?
LINDSAY TANNER: Mr Coates comes from a particular perspective and obviously there are a range of different interests in the sporting sphere, not all sports are Olympic sports, and of course there are elite sports and grassroots sports, so there are a range of different perspectives that are going to come to the table here. We have only just received the report, we will obviously be responding to it in due course. I am not going to respond to Mr Coates comments other than to say as far as we are concerned elite sport is crucial, grassroots sport is crucial, we are a sporting country nation, we are extremely proud of our achievements in sport and its really important that we continue to have strong government support for sport. There are a lot of propositions in this report, for example rationalising state-based institutes of sport with the national institute of sport, there are a lot of complicated issues to deal with. We are committed to the enhancing, the strengthening of Australian sport and that is what we will continue doing.
KEIRAN GILBERT: But you are not going to pull the rug from underneath the Australian Olympic Committee. Because what Prime Minister in their right mind would reduce funding that led to a reduction in the medal tally, it wouldn’t be too popular would it?
LINDSAY TANNER: These things as Mr Coates observed, tend to go in cycles irrespective of government funding. Obviously government funding is very important to the performance of Australian athletes at the Olympics, it’s a very demanding thing these days, it’s a long way away from the amateur world of 40, 50 years ago. So obviously government funding is very important and we have certainly got no intention of pulling the rug out from anybody in all of these deliberations but there are serious complex issues that we have to deal with here and we want to get the best outcomes for Australian people in their interest in sports across the board, that doesn’t necessarily involved trade offs between this sport or that sport, its just having a holistic perspective, where both the needs of elite sportsmen and women, who are crucial to grassroots participation as role models and inspirers of young people, but also those mass participation sports and also the specialized sports that ordinary Australians are involved in day-in day-out, week-in week-out.
KEIRAN GILBERT: Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner, as always appreciate your time.
LINDSAY TANNER: Thanks very much Kieran.
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