HENSCHKE: Senator Penny Wong, Minister for Finance and Deregulation and Senator for South Australia is on the line now. Good morning Penny Wong.
WONG: Good morning to you.
HENSCHKE: You’ve just heard Dean Jaensch’s take on this. This is about trying to salvage a disastrous situation in Queensland, Kevin Rudd’s home state. Is that how you see it?
WONG: This is about resolving this issue once and for all. And that’s what we need to do. And you heard the Prime Minister in her press conference say she will be calling for a ballot on Monday morning. You also heard her saying, and I agree with her, that this needs to be resolved not just for the good of the Labor Party and the Government, but for the country. I agree with that. You also heard saying that she will abide by the decision of the Labor caucus.
HENSCHKE: I also heard Kevin Rudd saying that the climate crisis was the biggest change confronting humanity, and you were alongside him back a few years ago as his right hand person on the international stage. So, if he does win on Monday does that mean that you don’t want to work with him?
WONG: I have made clear that I’ll be supporting Prime Minister Gillard in the ballot on Monday. And I have decided very clearly to do that because I think she is the best person to lead the party, the Government and the nation –
HENSCHKE: Ok –
WONG: She is a woman who is focused on doing what is right for the nation –
HENSCHKE: But he was a man who was focused on doing what was right for the world, wasn’t he Penny Wong?
WONG: But what I would say about the climate. You are right, I did serve in the Rudd government cabinet on climate change, and we were unable to achieve that reform. Under Prime Minister Gillard, with a minority government, with fewer votes in the House of Representatives we have achieved that reform. Just as we have achieved the reform in terms of the mining tax, which is about ensuring we spread the opportunities of the boom to all Australians. So I think this is demonstrative of the type of person and leader that she is.
HENSCHKE: Well let’s just take those points there Penny Wong, Minister for Finance. You’ve said in effect exactly what was said by Tony Burke last night. And in fact it’s interesting that Tony Burke who has been trying to resolve the issues surrounding the River Murray has come out so strongly as well. So as a South Australian, and if you’re saying you’re acting in the best interests of South Australia, was Tony Burke right when he said that the Rudd government was about chaos, bad temper and an inability to get things done?
WONG: I didn’t see Tony’s press yesterday, I was probably on a plane –
HENSCHKE: I’ll read you the exact words –
WONG: I’m happy to respond.
HENSCHKE: Yes.
WONG: I’m happy to respond Ian. What I think is this: I genuinely am not somebody who gets into the details of personality and other issues. What I can say to you is that I served Kevin Rudd loyally as a Cabinet Minister. I now serve in Prime Minister Gillard’s Cabinet. I have made the judgement very clearly that the right person to lead the country is Prime Minister Gillard. And I do so because of how she runs government, and because of her intentions, which are always focused on what’s good for Australia.
HENSCHKE: We’re talking to Penny Wong, Minister for Finance and Deregulation, Senator for South Australia, and of course Minister for Climate Change in the Rudd government. Now, Kevin Rudd said this morning – when he gave what Dean Jaensch just said was an extremely clever, I suppose in a way, pitch to the Australian people – he said anyone is a mug who believes in a list of numbers.
So, Kevin Rudd has just told us that, if you’ve said you support Julia Gillard, that we shouldn’t believe what you’ve just said, because he knows the people in the Government better than you know yourself. I mean, the whole thing’s becoming Byzantine in its complexity, isn’t it?
WONG: (laughs) Ian, I can only tell you about what I’m thinking, and I’ve been upfront about that. And I’ve been upfront about the reasons for that. This has been a very difficult time, and it has not been a time when we I think as a party have done what we should have.
It’s time for it to be resolved, because there are many things that the Government has delivered. An unemployment rate which is extremely low by comparison with our counterparts, over 700,000 jobs delivered since we came to Government, the minerals tax which will spread the benefits of the boom. A whole range of these reforms –
HENSCHKE: You’re Minister for Finance and Deregulation, and Kevin Rudd came out quite clearly this morning and said that he thought it was a great weakness, a great weakness, in dropping support for the car industry. So that’s something you’re involved in – deregulation – so if you deregulate the car industry you’re at odds with his policy there. You couldn’t work with him, could you?
WONG: Can I just say on the car industry, I think Prime Minister Gillard has made very clear our support for the car industry. And, unlike the Liberal Party and the South Australian Liberals, we have committed to continuing to support the industry out to 2020. And we are, as you know, currently working with the South Australian Government and Holden on what needs to occur in terms of ensuring we retain these capacities and these skills in manufacturing, in South Australia and Australia.
HENSCHKE: Was axing the Green Car Fund, which Kevin Rudd pointed out this morning was a big mistake?
WONG: I’m Finance Minister, and unfortunately, some of these hard decisions are ones that I have to be part of. But what did we do there? We took the additional component of industry assistance, but not the component – the $5.4 billion out to 2020. We took the additional funding there to pay for the reconstruction of Queensland as a result of the floods.
Now, I would have preferred not to have had to have done that, but it was more important to ensure that we rebuilt Queensland, which was suffering in the face of some of the worst natural disasters we’ve seen. So I would make the same decision again, because first I think you have to look after the great many Queenslanders who were in very difficult circumstances in the tragic events of that summer.
HENSCHKE: Well let’s talk about the Queenslanders now because Dean Jaensch, you say that this is about Queensland.
JAENSCH: No it’s not entirely, I said it was an elephant in the room. And it’s sitting there and there’s no doubt about it at all, that the Labor Party must sort this out if it wants to have any hope of winning in the Queensland election. If the Labor chaos continues, then the Queensland election is gone completely.
HENSCHKE: Penny Wong, this point that this is about the Queensland election seems to be very strong. Peter Beattie who was the leader of the Labor Party, was on the radio last night just before all of this broke and he was saying that he comes from Queensland – Rudd comes from Queensland, Kevin Rudd comes from Queensland. So this is really being brought on because of state politics and if you lose the Queensland election very badly, is there any hope at all that you could win the Federal election?
WONG: First, I think we need to resolve this issue for the good of the nation. Second, of course we need to resolve it because there is an election on foot in Queensland and Anna Bligh for whom I have enormous regard is in the fight of her life and this I’m sure is not helping. And I agree with her when she said, I think earlier this week, that this matter needs to be resolved as soon as possible.
HENSCHKE: Can you resolve one matter once and for all here now – if Kevin Rudd does win and you say that’s not likely, but if he does win on Monday that we will get a policy commitment from you that you will not work with him?
WONG: I am not going to engage in this sort of hypothetical Ian. I am supporting Prime Minister Gillard. That is my position.
HENSCHKE: Alright thank you very much for your time this morning Penny Wong.
ENDS
