BRUCE GUTHRIE: Joining us this morning from Canberra, Lindsay Tanner, federal Finance Minister. Good morning, Minister.
LINDSAY TANNER: Good morning, Bruce, good morning, Virginia.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Good morning, Minister.
BRUCE GUTHRIE: Look, I suppose we should get the easy one of the way first. What do you think of Michael Clarke's leadership aspirations? Seeing as you're a sports nut.
LINDSAY TANNER: [Laughs] You know, Bruce, I - I think it's none of my business, frankly. I think all of this stuff really is ultimately something he's entitled to make decisions about. He's answerable to his employers but ultimately his choices about personal circumstances are his affair, not mine, so I have no criticism whatsoever of him and he has to conduct his life as he sees fit and I think it's wrong for people like me or anybody else to start telling him that he's right or wrong for doing that.
BRUCE GUTHRIE: Yeah, good point. Now, onto more substantial matters. Tony Abbott obviously came down this week and probably took many people surprise [sic] with his - by surprise with his parental leave scheme. What does this do to your scheme? I mean, will you - you're now going to be under pressure to not only close the gap between the money you're offering, which I think is the minimum wage, as compared to his $75,000 but also the term. I think you're offering 18 weeks and the Opposition's proposed six months. Are you going to review the policy, Lindsay Tanner?
LINDSAY TANNER: No, we're sticking to our commitment, Bruce, because we've got a major budget problem to deal with, following the global financial crisis. That blew a big hole in our revenue and we are gradually clawing our way back towards budget surplus and that's still several years away, therefore we have to be very careful about our financial commitments and also, of course, we've got a commitment to keep the overall level of taxation down so his method of paying for his proposal, of course, is to whack a giant new tax onto Australia's major employers. That has all kinds of negative consequences so we're going to stick to our proposal. Let's see what happens when we get to the Senate. Ultimately it'll be a choice for Tony Abbott and the Liberal Party about how they deal with it.
BRUCE GUTHRIE: Isn't there an argument though that business should contribute?
LINDSAY TANNER: Many of the businesses that he's proposing to slug already do provide full paid maternity leave to their staff so many of them would end up in the ironic position of paying for their own staff's maternity leave and also their competitors' staff's maternity leave through the tax. And there will be businesses, for example, who have slightly more than five million dollars per year in turnover who'll compete with other businesses who are a bit under that level and therefore you'll end up with an uneven playing field, some businesses getting taxed and others not, who are competing in the same market. So there's all kinds of flaws in his proposal. It's been cooked up on the run, just to get a headline. He didn't even talk to his own colleagues about it. He's actually apologised to them for that. He didn't talk to business about it, it's simply a half-baked exercise designed to win short term political support and distract attention from health reform.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Minister, last night, of course, as you know, the Senate voted down or at least did the final bit of voting down of the private health insurance rebate legislation that the Government wanted to get through and, of course, we've got the Health Minister talking about the budget hole that that will now knock in the budget. Is this going to be, in your view, the reason why the Government won't be able to provide a surplus at budget time this year?
LINDSAY TANNER: The challenge we face is larger than just this particular aspect of it, Virginia, but it was a very big savings initiative in the budget last year and we've been fighting to get it through because it's an important part of repairing the damage to the budget. We are estimating at this point a return to surplus in 2015. That's five years away and that's a long, hard grind to get there and part of doing that is imposing a limit on our spending growth of two per cent per year, once ordinary economic growth resumes, and therefore these savings initiatives really matter. So a party that's out there posturing every day about debt and deficit and how terrible these things are but at the same time is racking up massive new spending commitments, refusing to announce any savings, and trying to destroy the Government's own savings measures, really needs to have some public questions asked of it. We are committed to the tough measures to get the budget back into surplus, this is a central one, and what Tony Abbott's trying to do is to have ordinary working people who are on 50 grand a year taxed to pay for private health insurance subsidies for people on my salary. I think that stinks.
BRUCE GUTHRIE: Lindsay Tanner, aren't you crying poor a bit here? And you wouldn't be the first finance minister to do it, but aren't the - isn't it the political reality that you've got to come up with some more dough in areas - perhaps not parental leave but what about the health system? You've got the states now lining up against these health reforms and they're all basically saying the same thing, that we'll only come on board if there's more money.
LINDSAY TANNER: Well, Bruce, the states I think need to remember the fact that over the past couple of years there has been a huge additional injection of money into the health system by the federal Government. Now, it's true that that followed a period of slashing and burning by the Howard government so there's an element of catch-up in that, but in November of 2008 at a COAG agreement, we pumped in a very substantial additional amount of money into the nation's health system. We've also put in some significant one-off payments, for example, to cut elective surgery waiting lists. So there's been huge amounts of additional money put in. Now, its' understandable that state premiers are always going to be asking for more but the key thing we're offering is relief from the long term threat of unsustainable health spending for the states. That's the real challenge they need to focus on and that is that if we keep the existing arrangements, within five to seven years the pressure on their budgets is going to get overwhelming. So what we're offering to do is to relieve much of that pressure in return for them reforming the way the whole system works and we believe the savings that'll generate, the efficiencies that'll generate, will essentially offset much of the additional cost that we're all going to be hit with, whether we like it or not.
BRUCE GUTHRIE: So the premiers are just posturing, are they?
LINDSAY TANNER: Inevitably they will always be looking to get more for their states and that's fair enough. I don't complain about the fact that they will be out there seeking to get the best deal for their states, that's what their job is, but the real question is going to be how they conduct themselves once the serious negotiations commence and once we get to the COAG meeting in a few weeks time where ultimately we need to reach a resolution on these issues. And there's different arrangements in different states which makes it more complex too so that something that looks like an attractive proposition in one state will, to another state, look like not such a good deal. That makes it hard to reach agreement about these things but we're committed to delivering on health reform. It's a long, hard grind. It's not something you can fix overnight but it's a really, really important thing for the Australian people so that we get better health outcomes and that they're financially sustainable. In the long term, if we keep going as we are, we will encounter real problems.
BRUCE GUTHRIE: Okay, and just finally, your - the Indonesian President, Yudhoyono, is addressing Parliament today, a joint sitting.
LINDSAY TANNER: He is. That's instead of Question Time this afternoon.
BRUCE GUTHRIE: Well, it'll be better than Question Time, won't it?
LINDSAY TANNER: Depends on your point of view there, Bruce.
BRUCE GUTHRIE: Well, governments don't like Question Time, do they? It gets in the way of good government, doesn't it?
LINDSAY TANNER: Well, again, it depends on which day you're talking about. Sometimes Question Time can be enjoyable. Other times it's rather painful and so I think it depends on your point of view but it's actually great that the Indonesian President is in Australia and it's something I think many Australians don't appreciate as much as perhaps they should, that what we've seen over the past 10 or 12 years in Indonesia is enormously important for Australia, literally a miracle of positive change where you've now got the world's largest Muslim country, still a developing nation, with a stable, robust democracy, still fragile in some respects but with vibrant free speech and significant economic development and the person who's been central to that is in Australia today and addressing the Parliament today. So I think we need to acknowledge how important that is for Australia but particularly, obviously, how important it is for Indonesia and we obviously want to make sure that continues because it's great for the Indonesian people but it's also great for our region and great for Australia's security and the longer term stability of the whole area.
BRUCE GUTHRIE: Virginia Trioli will probably roll her eyes when I ask this question but I've got to ask it. How's Essendon going to go this year?
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: I'm rolling my eyes.
BRUCE GUTHRIE: She's rolling her eyes.
LINDSAY TANNER: Bruce, I would have been very disappointed had you not asked me that question. I think it'll be challenging because everybody expects that there'll be a continued rise and last year was good. The fact that there are very few pre-season injuries is a real positive because injuries…
BRUCE GUTHRIE: You've really thought about this, haven't you?
LINDSAY TANNER: Bruce, I spend most of my waking hours thinking about these things, while I'm not worrying about the state of the budget. I actually got to go to pre-season training at 7.30 in the morning with Matthew Knights and team, and sat in on the coaches' meeting a few weeks ago and I couldn't understand what they were talking about. It's all this gobbledygook and code and so on.
BRUCE GUTHRIE: Sounds like the Prime Minister, Minister.
LINDSAY TANNER: [Laughs] I asked Matthew Knights after. I said, when do you start talking about circle work and Indian file and all those sorts of things? And he looked at me and laughed. So no, I think we'll - we'll have a reasonable chance of ending up, you know, in the bottom half of the finals maybe and maybe even better. You never know but everything depends on injuries but I think the long term looks good so hopefully another step forward this year.
BRUCE GUTHRIE: Oh, well, I hope you're right. Thanks very much, Minister.
LINDSAY TANNER: Thanks very much, Bruce.
BRUCE GUTHRIE: Thanks. Federal Finance Minister, Lindsay Tanner. I can be excused for asking a football question, can't I?
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: I take back what I said about bring on the footy season. I take it back immediately. I'm sick of it already.
BRUCE GUTHRIE: Oh, we haven't even started. I mean, bring it on, please.
-ends-
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