CHRIS BOWEN MP SHADOW TREASURER FEDERAL MEMBER FOR MCMAHON TRANSCRIPT DOORSTOP INTERVIEW THURSDAY, 7 AUGUST 2014 CAIRNS SUBJECT/S: Tony Abbott’s and Campbell Neuman’s cuts; Abbott Government’s unfair budget; university cuts; Joe Hockey’s glass jaw; Joe Hockey’s attack on the media; Innovation; Abbott’s GP tax; Cabinet dysfunction; visa fraud; MH17 memorial service. CHRIS BOWEN, SHADOW TREASURER: Well it’s great to be in Cairns with Jan McLucas our hard working senator representing North Queensland. I’m visiting Cairns to talk about the impact of the Federal Budget on North Queensland and what an impact it has been. We know of course about the $14 million worth of cuts for Cairns hospital that has felt the brunt of Campbell Newman’s cuts and now having to deal with Tony Abbott’s cuts as well. And of course, right across the community, impacts on families, right across North Queensland. A few minutes ago, Jan and I had a meeting with Allison Smith, talking about the impact of the Budget on her and her family. Allison, a hard working person and mature age student, has decided to go back to university and get a degree so she can work in social work with young people. Her family budget has been impacted dramatically; the cuts to family tax benefits, by the changes to HECS, by the GP tax. This is just one example, of the impact being felt, broadly, right across North Queensland. I see today the Treasurer complaining that the media coverage of his Budget has been unfair. Well Mr Hockey, the only thing that is unfair is your Budget. Your Budget is what’s unfair, not the media coverage. Joe Hockey should stop complaining about how he is being portrayed in the media, stop being Mr Glass Jaw, and start looking at the impact of his Budget on Australians right across the country; the fundamental unfairness of his policies which are impacting Australians right across the board. Allison is going to share a few words with you and then we are happy to take a few questions. ALLISON SMITH: As Chris has said, I’m a mature age student; I have a 13 year old daughter. She has just started high school. Now the Budget cuts are going to affect me are family payments; I’m going to lose both B and A because she is over twelve. That means it’s going to take half of my payment away from me. I’m currently on Austudy and it all goes on rent, so I don’t know where I will be able to get money from to live if these Budget cuts go through. The same with my HECS debt, it’s going to start occurring 6 per cent debt, and that’s not something that I was thinking about when I first started. I also realise that the uni cuts or debt will be hanging over my daughter’s head when and if she decides to go to university as well. So I really wish Mr Hockey would reconsider. It’s really hurting me and it’s really hurting a lot of people. Thank you. BOWEN: Happy to take questions guys. JOURNALIST: Do you expect the government to back down on any of the other changes in the Budget? BOWEN: Well, that’s a matter for them. Certainly they should listen to the Australian people and the Parliament. The Parliament has made its views clear here. Mr Hockey has now finally decided he might talk to some Senators after delivering the Budget three months ago. So that’s a matter for him. More importantly, Mr Hockey should listen to the Australian people. The Australian people have passed judgement on the Budget – it’s unfair. This Budget does not have the support of the Australian people and it’s Mr Hockey who needs to go back to the drawing board on this Budget, not Australia’s media. JOURNALIST: [Inaudible] BOWEN: Mr Hockey shouldn’t be seeking sympathy; Mr Hockey might find it hard to explain his Budget because it is fundamentally unfair. It’s not Mr Hockey who deserves sympathy here, it’s the Australian people who have been subject to his unfair Budget. I mean I’m not interested in Joe Hockey out there singing ‘what about me it isn’t fair’. It’s his Budget that is having an impact on the Australian people, so stop complaining, stop blaming the messenger, stop attacking Australia’s media and start looking at the fundamentals of his Budget. JOURNALIST: In your speech to the FSC this morning you said the economy more broadly needs to look at innovation. What kind of opportunities do you think Cairns might have? BOWEN: Well, the point we are making about the economy is that we need an economy that embraces science, innovation, research and development, because we need to add value in the global race. So the sort of jobs that might have been created a few years ago aren’t there anymore. So we need to be creating new jobs in the new economy and places like Cairns are well placed. One of the great innovations over the last 30 years has been regional universities; James Cook University does a great job here. Right across the country you find universities in regional locations leading the way in research and investment and development. So here in this beautiful part of Australia there are enormous opportunities when it comes to research about the environment; about environmental science; about green technology and the jobs that can be created. So I’m sure that James Cook University and research institutions right across North Queensland that there are other examples out there about what can be done. But when you have a government that cuts CSIRO funding by $111 million; a government that cuts research and development assistance to firms; a government which makes it harder to get a science degree, more expensive to get a science degree, whether it be in environmental science, you’ve got a government that just doesn’t get the role innovation can play in the economy. JOURNALIST: Is the business community less willing to back the Budget [inaudible] BOWEN: This is Joe’s other complaint today, saying that the business community hasn’t been strong enough in backing the Budget. I mean the Treasurer should just stop the whinging, stop the complaints, and stop the glass jaw, and look at the impact – if he’s wondering why he can’t sell his Budget, well it’s because it’s a bad Budget. JOURNALIST: Do you think as the months go by more and more families will realise just how tough it is? BOWEN: I think what we are seeing – right from Budget day on – is Australian families responding to this unfair Budget, and yes, as more and more details get through to the Australian people, you find more and more anger. You start to see people like Allison, who see the Budget in detail and say this is just not on for me, my family or the future that people like Allison are trying to carve out for themselves; working at the same time as going to university, doing what they think is the right thing for themselves, their families and their country; committing no crime other than going to university as a mature age student, and a whole lot of Australians working hard, paying the bills, trying to look after their families, and being punished by Joe Hockey. JOURNALIST: Just back to business. Several business leaders have come out and said that the Government’s Paid Parental Scheme should be scrapped and the money go into childcare. Do you think the government should listen to these business leaders? BOWEN: Well the government should be scrapping their PPL scheme. It’s unfair and unaffordable. You’ve got families like Allison’s being in put a situation where they have to pay more. Yet Joe Hockey and Tony Abbott say here’s a cheque for $50,000 to somebody who might be a millionaire who has a baby. It’s just not fair and the only people who don’t seem to get it are the Treasurer and Prime of Australia. So yes, they should scrap their PPL scheme, there are better things that can be done with that money, and there is a need for childcare to be improved going forward. JOURNALIST: Allison, if I could direct this question at you. You’ve got a young family and our facing numerous pressures on your budget. What are your concerns for the Australia of tomorrow for your daughter? ALLISON: I fear for the fact that she has aspirations to go to university, she really wants to go but with my financial situation, for me to fund her to go to university at the moment doesn’t look likely. We would have to get a scholarship for her which is, I mean her chances would be as good as anybody else’s but she has to (inaudible). So for me, my daughter’s hopes might not be able to come to fruition because there won’t be enough financial support from me. And that really worries me because she really wants to go. JOURNALIST: So if these budget measures do go through, what situation are you going to be in if you continue to study at university? ALLISON: I don’t know. JOURNALIST: How will you be able to make ends meet? ALLISON: That’s a very good question because I would have to move out of where I am now as I couldn’t afford the rent. Rent in Cairns is actually higher than what I’m paying at the moment. I don’t know, I don’t want to live in my car, I have a daughter. I could go up to Coreena and live with my mother but then I would be travelling down to go to JCU which is more petrol which is less money in my pocket. So either way I look at it, for me to go on and study next year which is what I wanted to do, it is really under a cloud at the moment. Which means I don’t get to better myself at all which means I can’t go into the sort of job I want to do and benefit youth because that’s who I want to work with. They don’t get anything from this whole thing. Nobody gets anything. I and my daughter get nothing. JOURNALIST: And Jan, locally is that the kind of message you’ve been receiving from many families or is this a unique situation? MCLUCAS: Oh no, as people more and more understand the budget, we are getting more and more people contacting the office to tell their story. First of all, of course it was the GP tax people were worried about how it would affect them accessing a GP. As people understand more, particularly around the higher education cuts, the massive cuts to our universities but also to people accessing a university education, more and more we’re getting greater understanding in the community and the trickle of calls has quite frankly turned into a flood. JOURNALIST: People were describing this as the Americanisation of Australia, do you think this could be a turning point for our country and the economy? MCLUCAS: Well it is certainly an Americanisation of our health system and our higher education system. It is also a change of the Australian ‘fair-go’ in terms of family payments to assist where you could sink or swim and you will fall by yourself. So I think it’s fair and legitimate to say that this is an Americanisation of Australia’s economy and our society. It’s not the Australian way. JOURNALIST: Do you have any reaction to reports that Malcolm Turnbull wasn’t briefed on changes to metadata retention? BOWEN: We were promised a Government of grown-ups. The Australian people were promised a Government who would have proper Cabinet deliberation, of cool and calm decision making, of proper consultation. Well clearly Malcolm Turnbull doesn’t see it that way. Clearly Malcolm Turnbull doesn’t think that’s what’s being delivered. He gets left out of an important Cabinet decision which is clearly within his own portfolio. We’ve got dysfunction in the Cabinet processes of this Government which is very worrying and disturbing. And for the Communications Minister not to be included and for him to read about it in the newspaper, an important decision in his own portfolio, I found extraordinary. No wonder Malcolm Turnbull’s angry. I understand that Senator Brandis has pulled out of a speech today he was meant to be giving, maybe he doesn’t want to be answering questions about this. JOURNALIST: I just wanted to ask you about the visa fraud [inaudible] BOWEN: I’ve seen that report. Clearly every immigration system in the world is going to be dealing with fraud. Every immigration system in the world has got people wanting to come to their country. And in Australia, you’ve got lots of people wanting to come to Australia. Many more than there are places for and there are going to be people who try and get in the wrong way and engage in fraud. We absolutely in office did not reduce resources to this, in fact quite the contrary. And what you do see is the previous Government which introduced biometric testing, which is checking people who are applying for visas are the actual people they are claiming to be. A very powerful tool for which Australia is a world leader in implementing in the immigration space. We started to roll it out concentrating on high risk locations to start with. A very important reform. Also, a suggestion that resources in Melbourne were reduced, well what did happen was to ensure that coordination across the Department of Immigration there was a concentration of resources at the high end, high level of investigation in Canberra. Now obviously, I suspect, I know, we weren’t the first government to deal with immigration fraud and we won’t be the last. There will always be people engaging in fraud in the immigration space. If there are ongoing issues of course Scott Morrison should deal with them just as the previous government proactively dealt with this issue. JOURNALIST: As you were Immigration Minister when some of these incidents occurred do you take any responsibility? BOWEN: As I said, I take responsibility for rolling out biometric testing, taking all the advice available to the Government, to do everything possible to deal with immigration fraud. There will always be people trying to get into Australia, there will always be people engaging in fraud. It happened when I was Minister, it will happen when Scott Morrison is Minister, it happened probably when Arthur Calwell was Minister. It’s always been the way, it always will be. Governments can and should use every tool available to them to deal with that fraud and that’s exactly what happened under the previous Government. JOURNALIST: Well the focus on stopping asylum seeker boats wasn’t that at the expense of the integrity of visas? BOWEN: No, not under our Government. JOURNALIST: Today is a national day of mourning for the victims of the Malaysian airlines – BOWEN: Well of course today is a very important day as the nation pays tribute to the victims of MH17 and the atrocity of the shooting down of that airplane. I already had commitments to be in Cairns which I didn’t want to withdraw from because I didn’t want to let people down and go back on commitments I had made. But of course, right across North Queensland, right across Australia, no matter where people are, no matter what people are doing as they go about daily business our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the victims of MH17 and with the loss which our nation has endured. And every Australia of every walk of life I think would join in sending their thoughts and best wishes to the families of those effected. There have been some gut-wrenching stories of course of the MH17 atrocity and we are at one as a nation in mourning their loss. ENDS MEDIA CONTACT: JAMES CULLEN 0409 719 879
Posted on: Thu, 07 Aug 2014 04:37:44 +0000
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