05 April 2011 in Media
GILBERT:
Joining us on the program, Liberal MP from Adelaide, Jamie Briggs. Good morning Jamie.
BRIGGS:
Good morning Kieran.
GILBERT:
And with me here in the Canberra studio, Labor MP Andrew Leigh. Andrew, good morning to you.
LEIGH:
Good morning, Kieran.
GILBERT:
Now sources close to the budget process have told me that the foreign aid budget in DFAT will be spared any cuts in the May budget, due to an attempt to avoid a stoush with the Foreign Minister, Kevin Rudd over his patch. Is that reasonable?
LEIGH:
Well Kieran, I think this is too much politics and an area where the policy is very clear. There is a bipartisan commitment to take our aid contribution up to 0.5 percent of gross national income and that is reflected, going to be reflected in the budget. There is no secret there and that’s something that I know Jamie is pretty supportive of as well. And so the foreign aid share will continue to increase because that’s in our interest to be generous and also because in is in our national security and our trade interests to be generous.
GILBERT:
So the department of Foreign Affairs and Trade as well, is set to be spared cuts apparently?
LEIGH:
Look Kieran, I don’t have any inside knowledge on that, you would be aware of the general process though, which is that ministers come before an expenditure review committee and they make the case for their department to get an appropriate level of funding and that’s what’s happening here. I’m sure Foreign Minister Rudd is a great activist Foreign Minister, very much in the tradition of Jock Evett, Gareth Evans coming off the back of a lethargy of Alexander Downer, will be making a strong case for Australia being a big player in the world and I will be arguing that to cabinet colleagues.
GILBERT:
Are people worried that Kevin Rudd will kick up a stink, you know is that the sense within the Government that there worried he’ll jump up and down if he doesn’t get exactly what he wants?
LEIGH:
No Kieran, this isn’t sandpit stuff this is serious politics, this is Kevin Rudd I’m sure will be making a case that Australia ought to have resources to get involved in many of these international things. Kevin Rudd has been out there, for example on the Libyan No Fly Zone, making case for a seat on the Security Council, working very hard to make the G20 a major peak body. All of those sorts of arguments that Kevin Rudd is making I’m sure will part of his budget bid, how that will go, I don’t know.
GILBERT:
Jamie, the foreign aid commitment is a bipartisan one, do you welcome the fact that it looks like the aid budget will be spared any cuts in what is shaping as a pretty tough budget apparently?
BRIGGS:
Well I think what you’re revealing this morning Kieran, is just how split the government is, where you have got absolute paranoia about what the Foreign Ministers up too. We saw for a couple of weeks there you know, Channel Kevin, where we had Kevin Rudd 24/7, flicked on what ever channel network you liked and Kevin Rudd was there. Obviously Julia Gillard and some of her senior colleagues are very concerned about what the Foreign Minister’s up to, whether the Foreign Minister is trying to garner support again, to reverse the knifing that happened last June and I suspect this is part of that ongoing battle within the Cabinet and the outcome for the country is very bad, of course because if you’ve got a government so completely split then the country is suffering because it is not being governed properly and that is what we’ve been saying for some time now. And that is one of the reasons I think along with the major breach of promise with promising not to deliver a carbon tax before an election and then immediately after back flipping, we that believe Julia Gillard should do the right thing and she should visit Yarralumla and she should call another election.
GILBERT:
But Jamie, you do back and the Coalition does back that bipartisan commitment to increase aid, to meet the millennium development goals.
BRIGGS:
Well our policy is very clear in that respect and aid does have its place, absolutely. I think that some of the aid spent at the moment in relation to our Security Council bid could be re-calibrated and we’ve seen recent examples highlighted in News Limited papers, about just the waste that is involved in some of these programmes and it’s important that we get our aid right, the Australian people expect that and I’ve made comments about that before. But I think what you’re revealing this morning is more to do with the internal dynamics within the government than it is to do with the aid program or funding for DFAT.
GILBERT:
Well, lets put that to Andrew, what about those elements like the, you know the UN Security Council bid, things that many people suggest are a waste and that there is no prospect that Australia will win that anyway, it’s just money being thrown away?
LEIGH:
Well Kieran, I guess the question is, do you want an Australian foreign policy that’s in the tradition of being activists, being out there at the major world councils, making a case for a seat on the Security Council? We may not win it and that’s absolutely true. We would never say that we are guaranteed it but why not take a shot at it? Why not have a Foreign Minister that’s there, when the worlds crises hit? We don’t need this kind of fishnets approach that we saw with Alexander Downer. We want a Foreign minister that’s going to be in the world’s councils, making the national interest case for Australia and that’s exactly what Foreign Minister Rudd is doing.
BRIGGS:
That’s appalling; I mean that’s an appalling analysis, I mean that is just the politics of personal destruction, that is just so typical of the Labor Party. What you saw with Alexander Downer as a Foreign Minister, Australia’s place in the world far superior than what it was when he came to the office in 1996. Particularly in relation to our engagement in Asia and for Andrew to make those suggestions is just purely wrong. What we have seen in recent days of course, is a Foreign Minister in Australia willing to spend every last United States troop on this exercise in Libya, with no exit strategy, something that Kevin Rudd used to jump up and down about when he was the Shadow Foreign Minster, not one suggestion about how exactly the international community is going to withdraw itself.
LEIGH:
Are you arguing that we shouldn’t be in Libya?
BRIGGS:
No no no, I’m arguing that there should be some consistency with Kevin Rudd’s approach. And when it came to Iraq, Kevin Rudd used to jump up and down about an exit strategy, when it comes to Libya we have not a word about an exit strategy and yet that seems to be an inconsistent approach.
GILBERT:
Lets just move on now, I do want to get your thoughts on this, the Greens Labor tiff that we’ve seen the last few days. Andrew, was it smart for the Prime Minister to get out there and say, ‘the Greens are not a party of work and family’. Bob Brown says its ‘a gratuitous insult that will come back to bite her’. Given that you need the Greens in this minority government, was it really clever to do that?
LEIGH:
Well Kieran, the point that the Prime Minister’s been making is that the Labor party is the centrist party in Australian politics. We’ve seen the Liberal party run to the far right with these sorts of extremist rallies, with some of their extremist policies and on the other side, you’ve got the Greens, which are not a main stream political party. Between those extremes sits Labor, a party for work, for opportunity, for better investment in our hospitals and our schools.
GILBERT:
This is just theatrics though, isn’t it? It’s the Prime Minister trying to differentiate Labor from the Greens, after being accused of being too close to Bob Brown, that’s what it is isn’t it? There’s no substance to it.
LEIGH:
Kieran, this is reality. I mean we have the Liberal Party really running hard to the right at the moment; Tony Abbott is taking the Liberal Party to become the party of no in Australia, in Australian politics. And the only point that the Prime Minister is making is that the Greens have typically not held views that place them in the main stream of Australian politics.
GILBERT:
Jamie, is it fair? Isn’t it fair, for the Prime Minister to be able to point out the differences, given the almost daily attacks from Mr Abbott that this is a government that’s been jointly run by Prime Minister Gillard and Mr Brown, Senator Brown?
BRIGGS:
Well, words are one thing Kieran and you know it’s a nicely placed speech, timed I suspect more for the news poll cycle than it is for any other real reason. But you look at actions ultimately to get the indication about where the government is going and of course we know that the Government’s agenda is being driven by the Greens. We’re talking about all the issues that the Greens would want to talk about, we’re not talking about really important challenges facing Australia like, the skills challenge we’ve got, the ways as Tony Abbott talked about last week, addressing one of the barriers of getting a large pool of workers back into the work place. Important policy issues which are really important to the every day Australians, we’re talking about the niche issues that the Greens want to push. We’re talking about things like, a carbon tax which was of course was promised not to be delivered before the last election. Remember, Julia Gillard’s promise before the last election was to have a citizens forum to have a hundred and fifty Australians from everyday life come together and tell her what they thought she should do. Instead after the election you had what the Greens wanted, which is a carbon tax and so its actions not words which are really important here…
GILBERT:
Well okay Jamie, I’ll put that to Andrew in the context I suppose of this skills shortage, because as we know the Government in this budget, they’re talking about lifting workforce participation through two ways, skills and training but also through welfare reform. Is this welfare reform component of it, to try and again differentiate with the Greens in terms of focusing on the work and saying Labor, look we’re tough, here’s the stick, unlike the Greens?
LEIGH:
Kieran, Labor has always been a party of work and that’s what’s driven our record investments in schools, in vocational training and in universities. That’s about providing the skill base for a future on Australian economy.
GILBERT:
It doesn’t hurt that it can also be used to differentiate again with the Greens?
LEIGH:
Kieran, I’ve always believed in the line that good policy is good politics. You get the policy right and the politics will naturally follow. And that’s what we are doing with investments in education; it’s what we’re doing with our labor market reforms. Making sure that work is attractive, providing record tax cuts, Australians have seen income tax cuts over the last three budgets, and that’s ensured that work is more attractive right through the income spectrum. That’s Australian values, and they’re the Labor values we’re bringing into our policy.
GILBERT:
And Jamie that was a bit a politics obviously, last week with Tony Abbott pre-empting that and trying to show that he was leading the way on reform which he was well aware the government and been working on ahead of the May 10 budget.
BRIGGS:
Well, the suggestion that Tony Abbott hadn’t been interested in this policy area for well over a decade is wrong. I mean Tony Abbott has been talking about these issues for a long long time, and their important issues to address. There are three, I think major barriers to getting that long term unemployed pool back into the work force and one of them Tony talked about last week and the other is training and we see that on the front page of one of the major national newspapers today, that there has to be investment in training and skills. And the third is an issue which Heather Ridout, someone that Andrew has got a lot of respect for and I’m sure he will confirm that, last week making absolutely cutting criticisms of the Prime Ministers failed fair work laws, where they will stop ordinary Australians getting an opportunity at work. Laws designed for unions, not designed for Australian workers. Now, Heather Ridout is hardly, well Heather Ridout is hardly being….
LEIGH:
Can I just make one point…
GILBERT:
No, no, no, look guys, I’m sorry I am going to have to wrap this up. Jamie, appreciate your time this morning, I’m being wrapped up but it was a good chat, Jamie Briggs and Andrew Leigh appreciate it.