E&OE….
Topics: Pensions, Operation Sovereign Borders, wind turbines
TOM ELLIOTT:
Lots to talk about with our next guest. He is the Federal Environment Minister, a regular guest on this programme. Greg Hunt, good afternoon.
GREG HUNT:
And good afternoon, Tom.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Now Bill Shorten has come out today, the Leader of the Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition and said that they will oppose your pension reforms. What’s going on?
GREG HUNT:
Well this is a very strange thing to have done because what we’re proposing is 170,000 pensioners, the lowest in income, the lowest asset pensioners will get a $30 per fortnight increase. This means that the absolute vast majority of pensioners will either get an increase or no change and those that are in the most difficult situations, those with the lowest asset base are going to get a very significant $30 per fortnight increase, so…
TOM ELLIOTT:
And to pay for that you are going to reduce the entitlements, that part-pension, for wealthier pensioners?
GREG HUNT:
Look, the honest answer is for those who have very, very significant assets or what are sometimes called people with a house and the equivalent of nearly a million dollars for couples, we are looking at making some changes. But overall this is about balancing so those with the least get significantly more and those who are well-equipped in relative terms will bear a different share of the load.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Well a higher share of the load. How much money are you hoping to save? So you’d be giving less wealthy pensioners more money but taking away the pension or reducing the pension for those with more money. What was the overall saving going to be?
GREG HUNT:
Look, the overall saving was $2.4 billion over four years to the Budget, or over what are call the forward estimates…
TOM ELLIOTT:
So $600 million a year.
GREG HUNT:
These are the honest assessments but for the least well off, for those most at risk, for the very people that you would think the ALP when they talk about helping and social justice would want to focus on, this is a tremendously significant and important package for them and why we would deny those least well off, why we would deny a fairer balance in the system, it beats me, it really does.
TOM ELLIOTT:
So what happens now? I mean, can you go and talk to the Greens to get this through the upper house or Clive Palmer or someone like that? Is that the next step?
GREG HUNT:
Sure. There are always three ways through on legislation. There’s the ALP, there’s the Greens or there are the eight crossbenchers and we would need six of them. I know for myself that in the environment the carbon tax repeal went through with the crossbench, the Renewable Energy Target is set to go through with the ALP. We did one piece of legislation, environment legislation, with the Greens and all up, of the six of the significant pieces we’ve got through, three have been with the crossbench, two with the ALP, one with the Greens, so…
TOM ELLIOTT:
So there’s still some hope. Ok. Now second issue – this question of whether or not people smugglers were paid off by agents of the Federal Government. Now, earlier on in the programme I quoted from a thing called the Intelligence Services Act of 2001and amongst other things, section 14 part 1 of that Act says a staff member or agent of an agency like the Australian Security and Intelligence Service, or ASIS, is not subject to any civil or criminal liability for any act done outside Australia if the act is done in the proper performance of a function of the agency.
So my interpretation of that is Mr Hunt – I’ll ask you for your comment in a moment – is that we are allowing ASIS agents to pay off people smugglers to turn boats around, as per Operation Sovereign Borders, that to me suggests that according to our own Act, they are not subject to any civil or criminal liability, therefore it is technically a legal act. What do you think?
GREG HUNT:
Sure. So look obviously I’m not going to comment and nobody does…
TOM ELLIOTT:
I’m just speaking hypothetically here, hypothetically.
GREG HUNT:
…and the second thing is on this particular national security topic, I just haven’t been briefed because I’m not a member of the National Security Committee. What the Prime Minister said today was that he was and I’ll quote this because I think it is worth re-quoting, he was absolutely confident that at all times Australian agencies had acted within the law. So, have I been briefed? No. Has the Prime Minister formed a judgement? Yes and he was categorical in that today.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Was Bill Shorten in Parliament this afternoon, was he a bit less vocal on this? Because it’s come out via The Age newspaper that the Labor government also might have paid off people smugglers. Is it something that’s sort of disappeared as an issue now?
GREG HUNT:
Well look I’m not sure if your listeners heard or saw his press conference but it was one of the, I’m sorry to say, one of the great train wrecks of the last decade…
TOM ELLIOTT:
A train wreck?
GREG HUNT:
…of a political leader having a press conference (inaudible) because yesterday there had been all of this fulminating, self-righteous anger and, you know, the government was going to fall and today, in response to a story in one of our major dailies, he just stopped and said well we don’t talk about what happened in terms of national security matters. Which actually has been the long-standing position of successive and successive and successive governments, but yesterday he was full of righteous indignation and outrage and today he just crumbled on stage. It’s a very unusual thing to see a would-be national leader do that.
TOM ELLIOTT:
And finally, Mr Hunt, you are of course the Federal Environment Minister and part of your portfolio is wind farms, in particular, you know the big windmills that dot parts of our landscape. Now the Prime Minister has said he finds them ugly. On Sunday I drove through your electorate, through Hastings and I notice that the big windmill that doesn’t work to the rear of the local pub there is still standing. It is ugly. Will you have it knocked down?
GREG HUNT:
Look, I don’t actually have the power to determine what’s built or not built in an urban environment, somebody’s backyard, but I know what you mean. This one is the Kings Creek Hotel. The owners actually met with me a little while ago and they were saying that they were having trouble getting their turbine to work. I remember meeting them and as far as I can tell, nothing has happened since. The – so I don’t want to stray into local planning matters, let alone state planning matters, but I know that these guys haven’t had much success in getting their turbine to work.
TOM ELLIOTT:
No I’ve never seen the wind turbine actually turning, no matter how strong the wind.
GREG HUNT:
It did a few years ago but I think it’s been a while since its seen action.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Greg Hunt, thank you for your time.
GREG HUNT:
Thanks Tom.
(ENDS)