E&OE….
Topics: Budget, Higher Education Reform, Victorian State Election
MARK PARTON:
Greg Hunt is the Federal Environment Minister. They’ve got a bit to throw at you today, haven’t they?
GREG HUNT:
Oh well, good morning Mark. Let’s, I think, be fairly clear, I imagine you’re referring to the Victorian election?
MARK PARTON:
Well the Victorian election, this Deloitte report on the mire that we find ourselves in, in terms of finding a surplus because it looks as though it’s a long way down the track.
GREG HUNT:
Well let me actually start with the issue of the Budget. The big picture for Australia is that the Budget was largely wrecked under the previous Government, having inherited a really good, world-leading financial situation.
The absolute national imperative is to put that in place and the very people who a) wrecked it and b) blocked it are the last people who should be standing up on this as if to claim there’s some moral piety in where they’re at. They really did enormous intergenerational damage to the country and what is our number one task now, as a Government and as a country and that is to repair the Budget.
You know, this year we’ve made enormous strides but there’s still a huge amount of work to go and we need both sides to be part of it. They’re evening opposing their own savings.
MARK PARTON:
Greg, the problem is – this is the great problem you face – is that when the other mob were in they kept on changing the numbers, you know, they’d forecast ‘a’ and then we’d get around to the next point and they’d be forecasting not just ‘b’, but ‘c’, ‘d’ and ‘e’. It looks as though you guys are going to be doing similar.
GREG HUNT:
Well there are always two things. There are internal factors and external factors…
MARK PARTON:
But they had internal factors and external factors, I mean…
GREG HUNT:
Yeah, no, no, no. I was going to say nobody can control the global markets. They will make their own changes which will have a positive or negative impact on the Budget. But the internal factors are our control of Government expenditure.
Their expenditure went up by $140 billion whilst revenue, which they said collapsed, actually went up by over $70 billion during their life. In other words, their expenditure went up by double the rate of revenue. Now what’s happening here is we are controlling our expenditure, but they are opposing the legitimate steps which are attempting to ensure that we have fairness between the generations.
That this generation isn’t effectively stealing from the next generation. It’s a deep, profound, moral question of ‘do you consume the next generation’s resources?’ We don’t want to do that and I would ask the Labor Party to come with us because you’re in Parliament not just for politics, you are above all else in Parliament to try to do the right thing by the next generation.
MARK PARTON:
In – it’s not quite breaking news – but I thought I’d share with you that Jacqui Lambie’s confirmed that she did meet with Clive Palmer at, I think they were at Hotel Hotel, last night. I saw some pictures floating around online that were taken by iPhone spies.
But anyway that’s by the by. The – I mean it’s going to be a fascinating day today and I’m sure you guys almost wish that it was over, that we didn’t have this final week, despite the fact that…
GREG HUNT:
No, not at all. Let me…
MARK PARTON:
…there’s some pretty important things to get through.
GREG HUNT:
Look, this week we are really working to try to get in place higher education reform which is supported by universities such as ANU and Melbourne and Monash, which is about giving regional universities a chance to be in a better position to compete.
It’s so Australia can be right at the global forefront so you’re training the professors, the engineers, the leading medical researchers, the businesspeople of tomorrow in a way which allows us to be one of the world’s most effective countries.
Now we really have a good higher education system, but it can be better. That’s right at the forefront. The Budget savings – just even getting through the savings Labor wanted when they were in Government, but didn’t pass, is bizarrely difficult.
So these are deep and profoundly important things. On our own front we are very close to the last of the One-Stop Shop agreements with the different States with the Northern Territory.
And so that’s the big task for me between now and Christmas and the more Parliament, the better, as far as I’m concerned. If we are putting the Budget in a position which allows us to leave young people without a debt, that’s good.
MARK PARTON:
Greg, you’re a Victorian – how do you feel about what went down on the weekend? It was not unexpected?
GREG HUNT:
No, it wasn’t unexpected. That’s the way the numbers had been tracking for a long while. I’m deeply disappointed for my own home State because the Budget had been repaired, the East-West Link was going to be built and what’s going to happen now is that there will be millions and millions and millions of extra hours of idling time with all of the local pollution and the emissions and the lost time and the lost productivity if that contract is torn up.
I accept the Victorians voted so we as a party have to look at the reasons why and be honest with ourselves but there is a real risk for Victoria’s finances, again that just adds to the weight on the next generation. But we will work with Government’s of whatever persuasion. That’s our duty as a national Government.
MARK PARTON:
I guess finally, Greg, one of the things that shone through for me out of this last week in these, you know, this Deloitte forecast that’s come out, is that everybody who watches the political news seems to believe that it’s a pretty easy thing to run a state or to run a nation and it’s actually not. It’s really, really hard.
GREG HUNT:
Well, let me put it this way, of all of the countries in the world, Australia continues to be one of the absolute best placed. The point now is there’s a fork in the road.
That if we make the savings and the productivity gains things such as the One-Stop Shops which Labor supported in Government and opposes in Opposition – if we make the changes to the Budget which actually mean we’re not stealing from the next generation then we’re placed to still be – and even improve – as one of the world’s two or three best places, if not the best place, to live.
If you don’t make these changes then you threaten the next generation. And so there’s a really strong message of upbeat, realistic hope in that, that we are well placed but there’s a fork in the road and that’s why I would say to the Opposition, now is your chance to be part of the higher form of parliamentary life rather than to be engaged in the destructive part of leaving the next generation with the bill.
MARK PARTON:
Thanks for your time this morning. Good luck today.
GREG HUNT:
Thanks a lot Mark. Cheers.
MARK PARTON:
Greg Hunt is the Federal Environment Minister.
(ENDS)