STEVE PRICE: Yeah, thank you. Twenty-five minutes to 10 o’clock. At least Lindsay’s had a laugh for the week. It must be fairly grim up there in Budget week. It’s a fairly stressful time, I would think.
LINDSAY TANNER: Oh, it’s very arduous. You tend not to get a huge amount of sleep, Steve, and, of course, there’s lots of media things and lots of meetings. And the thing in my position is that you have to be across a huge amount of detail and so it does get rather testy.
STEVE PRICE: Tony Abbott said last night, in his reply speech, that he’s going to stop your reckless spending. Have you been reckless in spending and do you believe that Tony Abbott can do that?
LINDSAY TANNER: Oh well, this is just a new turn in the ridiculous rhetoric. You know, a little while ago, it was all [indistinct] and deficit, and all these mad scare campaigns, and it’s just empty rhetoric, Steve. We obviously had to increase spending at the peak of the global financial crisis to sustain employment, to sustain economic activity. And, as a result, there’s a couple of hundred thousand Australians out there who’ve still got jobs who otherwise wouldn’t have, and there’s loads of businesses that would have closed their doors had we not done it. But we are now winding that back and, in fact, in the next Budget year we’re expecting the spending to be at - around the level that it was typically under John Howard, and a couple of years after that, it will actually be lower than the level it was under John Howard. So, this is just empty rhetoric from a…
STEVE PRICE: Do you think he might not have hit a nerve though? Do you think there’s not a perception in the community that some of the things you did to get us through the global financial crunch have not been managed well? And we all know about the insulation scheme was a disaster. We also have the problem with the Building the Education Revolution spending. Don’t you think that’s starting to resonate with people out there?
LINDSAY TANNER: You never quite know what opinion polls really mean, but it’s certainly true that we’ve had a couple of fairly ordinary polls suggesting that things are pretty much 50/50. And they came in the wake of a couple of weeks that were pretty difficult for us. We accept that there’s been significant problems with the insulation scheme and we’re acting to address those problems. The Auditor-General examined the Building the Education Revolution scheme, the new buildings in primary schools, and broadly, I think, came up with a much better report card than most people were expecting.
STEVE PRICE: But he wasn’t even able to look at value for money. I mean, it wasn’t part of the terms of reference.
LINDSAY TANNER: Well, he decides his terms of reference. The Government - the Auditor-General’s entirely independent. The Government doesn’t tell the Auditor-General what to look at. And I think the key point here was made by the Treasurer the other day, Steve. We all know what the building industry’s like. You know, if you’ve ever done an extension on your house, or built a new house, every now and then there are going to be difficulties. And when you’ve got thousands and thousands of projects, it’s just inevitable that there’s going to be the occasional argument, the occasional dispute about whether or not something was overcharged. So, I think the total picture still is one of enormous value, both for our education system and, in particular, for keeping thousands of people in jobs, in work and businesses in work that otherwise would have been lying idle.
STEVE PRICE: I know you’re on the flyer, you’ve got to go quickly, can I just ask you the resources tax, I’m now a little confused as to whether it’s going to generate nine billion or 12 billion but one of those two figures, it appears that the Opposition will block it. I had Senator Steve Fielding on the program yesterday who said he was of a mind not to support it, how much of a dent does that put in your forward estimate budget calculations if you don’t have that revenue?
LINDSAY TANNER: Well it doesn’t put any dent in those calculations Steve, what it does is it denies Australian small businesses are cutting company tax, it denies Australian large businesses are cutting company tax, it denies Australian businesses - small businesses an increase in the amount they can write-off for tax purposes immediately from $1000 to $5000, it denies all Australians an increase in the superannuation guarantee levy from nine per cent to 12 per cent, it denies people in resource state a big increase in infrastructure investment and it denies ordinary battlers who put away a bit of money in bank accounts, a tax cut on the tax they pay on interest they earn on their savings and so the list goes on. Because that’s what Resource Super Profits Tax is financing, basically tax cuts on business and tax cuts on savings and what in effect Tony Abbott has announced last night is that he’s going to put company tax up, the Rudd Government’s going to put company tax down so under our government it will be 28 per cent because of his great big new tax to pay for parental leave for high income earners, it’s going to be nearly 32 per cent.
STEVE PRICE: Well he says he’s in favour of lower company taxes but he also wouldn’t commit this morning when I talked to him to increasing the superannuation guarantee up from nine to 12, he says he’s still not made his mind up on that.
LINDSAY TANNER: Well he’s pretty clear based on what he said last night that he won’t be supporting that because that does have a budget cost because superannuation contributions are taxed at a lower rate so by definition if you shift money into the superannuation stream it’s going to be taxed low and therefore there’s a hit on the budget, there’s less revenue…
STEVE PRICE: Yes.
LINDSAY TANNER: …and that’s factored into this budget and it’s being financed by the Resource Super Profits Tax, it’s one of the other side of the ledger things we’re doing. And in effect he said last night that well, if you have to forego those good things that might come from the Resource Super Profits Tax, well so be it, well that means he can’t support it.
STEVE PRICE: But you’re not seriously suggesting to me that you’ll turn your back on regional infrastructure works if you don’t get that tax through, that infrastructure’s needed anyway.
LINDSAY TANNER: No it’s quite clear Steve that we’re not going to proceed with the package if we can’t get it through. We’re already doing a lot on the infrastructure front but this is specifically designed to assist resource states that…
STEVE PRICE: But that’s a try-on isn’t it, I mean some of things you’ll still have to do.
LINDSAY TANNER: No, no it’s not a try-on, there’s no magic pudding here, we’ve basically put forward a package and said here’s a process of more fairly sharing the rewards of our communities mineral resources that are being exploited for enormous profits because prices have gone through the roof compared with where typically they’d been historically and what we’re seeking to do is to spread the benefits of that wealth more fairly across the entire Australian economy. Now we can’t have it both ways. We’re being criticised for having the budget not in surplus immediately, we’ve put forward a plan to get it back into surplus as quickly as possible after it got a real battering in the global financial crisis, so we can’t turn up and say look we’re going to do all these extra things and by the way we’ll just kick the budget in [indistinct] to pay for it. They’re being paid for by the Resource Super Profits Tax, it’s a package and we’re committed to the package.
STEVE PRICE: Even if it cost you votes in those seats in those states where those mining companies are based?
LINDSAY TANNER: Well we said there’s going to be a big argument about this Steve, there’s no question about that and I think it’s one of the other great irony’s is that it wasn’t that long ago we’ve been attacked for being a do-nothing government or a government that hasn’t got any guts or whatever, well this is the argument of the year, the argument for the term in office I think and it’s going to be brutal in many respects but we’re going to stand up for the rights for all Australian people. We own those minerals and they can only be exploited once, once you’ve dug it out of the ground and flogged it off you can’t do it again and the prices have gone through the roof and it’s really important that Australians get a return for that that’s fair and that that return is invested for the future whether it’s for lower business taxes, more infrastructure or better superannuation. STEVE PRICE: Prime Minister getting a bit testy with Kerry O’Brien do you think?
LINDSAY TANNER: Look Steve I thought that was really over-blown, you know, it had people in media interviews calling it a meltdown and so on, I thought that was [indistinct]…
STEVE PRICE: Well I played the audio and I didn’t think he sounded as angry as I’ve heard him in other interviews to be honest.
LINDSAY TANNER: [Laughs] Look I obviously don’t view him in all his interviews but I suspect you’re probably right. Look I - I think he was a bit - he was feeling like some of the commentary about the changed position on the emissions trading scheme is a bit over the top and he just wanted to reinforce the fact that he actually believes in his position, he’s committed to it and he’s committed to pushing it through and we’ve had to modify it because the world has changed and that’s the thing that’s just a reality of life in politics is when the wider circumstances change you can’t ignore it.
STEVE PRICE: Thanks for your time.
LINDSAY TANNER: Good to talk to you.
STEVE PRICE: Lindsay Tanner there the Finance Minister.
-ends-
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