E&OE….
Topics: Mathias Cormann’s comments, Newspoll, passing of Gough Whitlam
MARK PARTON:
Greg’s on the line right now. G’day Greg.
GREG HUNT:
And good morning. Now I hear a rumour that you may have won an award on the weekend?
MARK PARTON:
I did. Yes I did.
GREG HUNT:
Best talk presenter and as your producer said to me – he likes to talk!
MARK PARTON:
Well they pay me to do it. But thanks Greg.
GREG HUNT:
I think you’d do it for free.
MARK PARTON:
Yeah probably. Now you’re not going to come on the radio here and apologise on behalf of the Finance Minister are you?
GREG HUNT:
Look, Mathias was making the point that essentially Bill Shorten and the Labor Party are economic vandals. He used exactly the same term as Ursula Stephens, a Labor Senator, used a few years ago. At that stage, strangely, weirdly, there was absolute silence from the Greens and the ALP and some of the commentariat and he did it with the good grace of gently mocking himself. But…
MARK PARTON:
And that’s the thing! That’s the thing that I don’t think people are quite understanding – that he was well aware of the fact that this appeared in Arnold Schwarzenegger before and that people often, when they’re doing him, they do Arnie’s voice.
GREG HUNT:
Correct. And the other thing, of course, is same term as Ursula Stephens, the Labor Senator used a few years ago to describe a Coalition member to a chorus of absolute silence from Labor and the Greens, but the underlying point here is, you know, every Australian family was being left with a debt that was going to spiral to $25,000 per man, woman and child and Mathias is saying we’ve got to deal with it.
At the end of the day, you can’t close your eyes, you can’t wish it away, you’ve got to deal with it or your children and your grandchildren have to pick up the bill and, you know, a great generation saves for their children and their grandchildren. An irresponsible generation, which was what, as a Government, the ALP was doing, steals from their children and grandchildren.
MARK PARTON:
Was it – nevertheless was it a poor choice of words? It entertained me, but I don’t know…
GREG HUNT:
Oh look, in the scheme of things using exactly the same term as a Labor Senator, it is an indication that they probably have one standard for their own Senators and another standard for Coalition Senators when you look at Labor and the Greens.
MARK PARTON:
I’m sorry, I just have to relive, I just have to.
[Excerpt begins]
MATHIAS CORMANN:
The Labor Party has today, is that Bill Shorten is an economic girly man. He doesn’t have what it takes.
[Excerpt ends]
MARK PARTON:
So that’s the Finance Minister and have a listen. This is on Shaun Micaleff’s programme.
[Audio excerpt]
MARK PARTON:
I love it. He does have a sense of humour, Mathias, doesn’t he?
GREG HUNT:
Oh look he does indeed and he’s making the point and by the way, he’s made the point very effectively that Bill Shorten honestly, after having talked about economics, is doing everything possible to block their own savings, to block the path of trying to recover the Budget, because you can’t leave a smouldering hole in the Budget and then stand in the way of people who are trying to fix it. That’s the bottom line.
MARK PARTON:
Alright. Polling out today on Newspoll and if you want to just read this literally, it suggests that people are deserting you for the Greens. What do you make of these polls?
GREG HUNT:
Oh look I think these things you just have to see in a broad context. We’re actually always respectful of public views but always aware that in the first year of the first term of a new Government and just after the first year, our task is to do the really difficult things which is to clean up the waste, to ensure that the carbon tax was gone and, by the way, we’ve just heard over the last week and a half that the eleven percent reduction in electricity prices for the ACT will be reversed under Bill Shorten; do the things to protect our borders and save another thousand lives and build roads, amongst other things.
So we do these difficult things and that’s what you would want of a Government. So we’re very respectful of the views, they move around, but at the end of the day I would say people would want us to be making difficult decisions and that’s actually what the whole debate is about – do you hock the future, or do you create the future? And you create the future by investing and you create the future by doing difficult things, rather than spending the next generation’s money.
MARK PARTON:
Breaking news and you’ll be the first Government frontbencher to comment on this, it appears that based on many, many sources that Gough Whitlam has passed away at the age of 98. That former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam has passed away and an iconic figure in Australian politics.
GREG HUNT:
Well, look if that is correct and it obviously sounds as if it is, he’s been one of the giants of the Australian political landscape and you know, he was a wonderful family man and he was certainly a figure who was a brilliant orator, an outstanding orator.
So to his family, you wish them the best and to the Labor movement, they’ve lost one of their champions and their giants. And any differences of the past are forgotten on a day like today. You just respect a huge lifetime achievement.
MARK PARTON:
It’s interesting though isn’t it, that when it comes to a political figure like Gough Whitlam, I don’t know whether there has been a more polarising figure in Australian politics and it’s interesting that you got to put in that disclaimer of all of the differences of the past will be forgotten, because I don’t know that they ever will.
GREG HUNT:
Well, look this was almost four decades ago and one of the things about Gough is he always retained a magnificent sense of humour and an ability to laugh at himself. And I had the great fortunate of being able to sit next to Gough and Margaret Whitlam with my wife at a Parliament House function a few years ago and there was just this immense sense of humour and dignity about both of them.
And the funniest thing was that Margaret Whitlam would put him in his place, you know, whilst everybody would come up and pay respectful homage to him, people from both sides of Parliament, Margaret would just dismiss him and he had this look of a slightly chasten young boy and she had him in his place.
And you could see just this wonderful lifetime partnership between the two of them and so he was a – you know he achieved the rank of Prime Minister, he was an iconic figure in the Labor Party but I’ll bet he would say, you know in his last days, his greatest achievement would have been a lifetime enduring a wonderful marriage and partnership.
MARK PARTON:
Greg, thanks for your time this morning.
GREG HUNT:
Take care.
MARK PARTON:
Greg Hunt, the Federal Environment Minister.
(ENDS)