THE HON. BILL SHORTEN
LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION
MEMBER FOR MARIBYRNONG
THE HON. CHRIS BOWEN MP
SHADOW TREASUER
MEMBER FOR MCMAHON
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
PRESS CONFERENCE
SYDNEY
TUESDAY, 15 DECEMBER 2015
SUBJECT/S: MYEFO; 12 month anniversary of the Sydney Siege; Malcolm
Turnbull’s 15 per cent GST on everything
BILL SHORTEN, LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION: Good afternoon everyone.
Just over 12 weeks ago, Malcolm Turnbull proposed new economic leadership for
Australia. 12 weeks on, today is the first test of Malcolm Turnbull and his economic
team on new economic leadership and it is not a great outcome at all for Australians.
The deficit is up, debt is up, spending is up, growth is down. These are the results of
the last two and a half years of Abbott-Turnbull Government. Two and a half years
ago, the Liberal Government called the economy wrong. We were coming out of the
mining boom, prices for commodities were falling, and there was a time where it was
necessary to make a transition to beyond the mining boom. But the 2014 Liberal
Budget did exactly the wrong thing, it called the economy wrong. We were told then
there was a budget emergency which justified harsh and terrible cuts, broken
election promises, some of which still ricochet around the Senate as the Liberals try
and persist with these harsh and unfair measures. Then in 2015, the same Liberal
Government to which Treasurer Scott Morrison and Prime Minister Turnbull were
senior cabinet ministers declared the budget emergency was at an end. But now
today, we hear that the deficit's up, that indeed wage growth is stalling just above
inflation, that we are seeing confidence down, we are seeing capital expenditure
down. So this Government is taking us in a path of cuts now which is not what
Australia needs at the moment. Put simply, the Liberal Government's Budget is on a
road to nowhere with no prospect of improving. Today we see the suggestions of the
Government to improve the budget emergency. Instead of looking at multinational
taxation, or superannuation tax concessions, the Liberals are at it again. They are
proposing the harshest cuts to the people least able to protect themselves. Some of
the specific measures which the Liberals are proposing to hurt Australians include a
$650 million cut from Medicare by slashing bulk billing and diagnostic imaging
services for people who are receiving cancer treatment. In addition, there will be cuts
to radiation and oncology programs. Also, for aged seniors with complex needs, they
will receive hundreds of millions of dollars of cuts. Why is it that the Liberal Party,
when in Government, their only idea for the future of Australia when there is a
problem of their own making, is to force cuts on to those least able to protect
themselves.
Now, I'd like to hand over to my Shadow Treasurer, Chris Bowen, to talk further
about today's statement.
CHRIS BOWEN, SHADOW TREASURER: Thanks very much, Bill. Today's midyear economic update is a report card on the progress of the Liberal Government in
meeting their promises when it comes to the economy. And the report card is a great
big failure. We know that according to the Government's own figures, we face a
future of higher deficits and lower growth. What we are seeing is two years of
economic and budget mismanagement by the Liberal Government, as Bill has said.
This update shows that Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison have presided over a
budget deficit blowing out at the rate of $120 million a day since the last Budget. The
deficit has blown out by $26 billion over the last seven months and of course, the
Budget deficit for 2015-16 has blown out by $33 billion since the time of the last
election. And the blowout in the budget deficits over four years of $26 billion of
course comes on top of this Government already doubling the deficit. Now, deficit
reduction and returning to surplus was at the heart of this Liberal Government, and it
begs the question - if they have no plan to return to balance, what is the point of the
Turnbull Government? Now, the Government's fiscal strategy lies in tatters today.
The Liberal Party promised a budget surplus of 1 per cent of GDP by 2023-24. That
was the centerpiece of Tony Abbott's policy speech. That commitment has been
included in every Budget and every update since the election. It's been the
centerpiece of their fiscal strategy. Today, it was dropped. Today Treasurer Morrison
has been reduced to promising a return to surplus "as soon as possible", when
revenue exceeds expenditure. Their fiscal strategy is simply non-existent. Now, of
course, the Liberals promise to turbo charge our economy, to drive growth and
reduce the deficit. The Treasurer keeps talking about real momentum in the
Australian economy. The fact is today's update includes yet another down grade of
growth, falling 0.25 per cent in the current financial year, and 0.5 per cent in 201617. These come on top of the downgrades in growth at the last Budget. Of course,
under the Liberal Government, we have seen a consistent downturn in living
standards, falling by 3 per cent under this Government, when they rose by 6 per cent
under Labor. And nothing's been more ridiculous than the spectacle over the last
couple of months of Scott Morrison, our rookie treasurer, saying Australia doesn't of
a revenue problem, when he has presided over a revenue write down of $33.8
billion. As Bill said, there are some savings announced in this statement, and let me
turn to the matter of spending versus savings.
Firstly, the Treasurer was boasting today that he got spending down from 2 per cent
to 1.5 per cent per year; patting himself on the back, talking about how hard it was.
Well, he's being extremely mendacious. If you look at the last Budget, table one of
statement 10, it showed spending was increasing at 1.1 per cent, now this Budget
update shows it increasing at 2 per cent and the Treasurer's patting himself on the
back that he's got it down to 1.5. He's only reducing it after he doubled it. The has
Government claimed to have provided savings to off set their spending since the
Budget. Well, this claim is as dodgy as Serena Williams in a charity fun run. What
the Government has done, has changed its accounting when it comes to free trade
agreements, and it has then announced a whole range of savings measures. Some
of these were worse than what was contemplated by Joe Hockey and Tony Abbott.
We are deeply concerned, as Bill said, by the changes to cancer, pathology funding,
Medicare, aged care workforce. And, of course, the biggest save is increase
compliance when it comes to social welfare. Well, of course, Scott Morrison is a onetrick pony. We have heard it all before. This Budget update, these are from the
Budget when Scott Morrison was the Minister for Social Security. When it comes to
finding savings, he's got one trick and he rolls it out every time. And that is increase
compliance when it comes to social security. Well, Scott Morrison can talk up a
storm, but he delivers a light shower. He can talk up rhetoric when it comes to being
tough on people on welfare, but as Bill said, when he has the opportunity to get
tough on multinational tax evasion, when he has the opportunity to get tough on
things like high-income superannuation concessions, he squibs it every time. That's
why it's very clear that treasurer Morrison is WTH - worse than Hockey. Of course,
the Government had alternatives today, they have could have adopted Labor's plan
for multinational tax, higher income superannuation, tobacco, they could have
adopted those plans. They would have received bipartisan support, yet they have
chosen yet again to simply preside over blowouts in the budget deficit while attacking
those who can least afford it the most.
SHORTEN: Just before we make questions, I'd also I think it's appropriate today
being the one-year anniversary of Martin Place, just to make some comments about
this sad anniversary. A year ago, 17 people, some of whom were friends, some of
whom were strangers, were thrust into an unimaginable nightmare of one madman's
making. For 16.5 hours the world watched, waited and prayed for a safe ending.
Sadly, that was not to be. Today, we remember two remarkable people - Katrina
Dawson, barrister, mother, daughter, wife, and Tori Johnson, manager, soul mate,
son. Today, we stand with all of those who love these two precious people and all
those who were loved by these two precious people. I don't think any of us will forget
in the days after this terrible event, when the eyes of the world were on Sydney, and
on Australia, Australians came forward to Martin Place not with hate in their hearts,
but with flowers in their arms. And this precious patch of Sydney, became a field of
flowers. Now it's a more permanent memorial, as befitting that field of flowers. But for
me, for my family, for the Labor Party, and I think for all Australians, the world saw
that Australians will greet evil with love, that we will combat violence with bravery,
and we won't change who we are, but we do remember the sad and terrible events
of a year ago.
Thank you, now perhaps if there are questions going back to MYEFO.
JOURNALIST: Mr Shorten, has the Government got the balance right when it comes
to protecting growth and cutting spending?
SHORTEN: Let's face it, this is a Government who doesn't know what they want to
do and doesn't know how they are going to do it, other than slap a 15 per cent GST
on everything, and now it appears they are worse than Hockey. They are putting in
cuts now which are harsher than anything which former Liberal Prime Minister Tony
Abbott could have dreamed up. Let's recognise that Malcolm Turnbull and Scott
Morrison, they were ministers, senior ministers at the cabinet table of Abbott and
Hockey for the last two years before they took over. Over two years ago, the Liberals
said there's a budget emergency. They used that remember to justify the
Commission of Audit and the terrible cuts, the cuts to Medicare, to schools, the cuts
to family payments, the $100,000 university degrees, making people go six months
without any Government payments at all. But then in the 2015 Budget, the Liberals
declared budget emergency mission completed, all good and they still called the
economy wrong. We said in our reply to the Budget in 2015, that the Government
had heroic assumptions. They projected growth would be here and we said it would
be here and it turned out to be here. We said that the Budget was based upon dodgy
optimistic figures about the price of iron ore and other commodities. The Government
said they'd be up here, the truth is we said they'd be down here and they are down
here. So now we are back to a emergency debate again by the Government to justify
these horrible cuts. The lesson of today's MYEFO statement is that Malcolm Turnbull
and Scott Morrison are proposing cuts which are harsher than those of Tony Abbott
and Joe Hockey. After two and a half years the Budget's going nowhere. The Liberal
Government have achieved precisely nothing and Australia's going backwards.
JOURNALIST: Mr Shorten, do you see any evidence in this MYEFO that this might
be a pre-election MYEFO? Are you expecting that we'll have a Budget handed down
by Mr Turnbull or do you think it's readying for an early election?
SHORTEN: It would be political cowardest of Malcolm Turnbull and the Liberals not
to bring down a Budget in May. I say that because they have made such a dreadful
mess of the last two and a half years. Malcolm Turnbull likes to pretend that it's the
most exciting time to ever be an Australian, it's not exciting if you are receiving
cancer treatment now under Malcolm Turnbull's Australia, it's not exciting if you have
your children and family day care under Malcolm Turnbull, it's not exciting if you want
your kids to work hard and school and go to university and not pay $100,000
degrees. Malcolm Turnbull needs to pass the test of economic leadership. The whole
case for Malcolm Turnbull dumping Tony Abbott, was new economic leadership. But
as my colleague Chris Bowen has said, under Malcolm Turnbull's new economic
leadership, we are going backwards faster than we even were under Tony Abbott.
JOURNALIST: Mr Bowen or Mr Shorten, do you think the Government's done
enough to retain our AAA credit rating?
BOWEN: Of course, keeping the AAA credit rating is important, it's a bipartisan
objective. It is appropriate that both Bill and I as alternative Prime Minister and
Treasurer be very responsible in our remarks about the AAA credit rating. Certainly
the ratings agencies can speak for themselves, they often provide further
commentary after updates of this nature. But it's appropriate and important, of
course, the three AAA credit ratings with a stable outlook were achieved by Labor
and of course we want to ensure and see their continued existence.
JOURNALIST: We had a meeting between the Federal Treasurer and the State
counterparts last week, which seemed to be quite warmly received from both sides
of the aisle, including Labor state treasurers and it seems there was an agreement
that the focus must be on for any taxation reform, not raises the overall portion being
paid towards taxation, not to address it as just getting more revenue, but coming up
with a more efficient tax base. Do you agree with that, that we should be actually
looking at raising the overall rate of tax that Australia is paying?
BOWEN: Well I don't think I can share your assumption about the meeting, because
the Liberal Premiers also went to that meeting asking for funding for their health
challenge. And Gladys Berejiklian, the Treasurer here in New South Wales said we
face a funding crisis for health and it's caused by Canberra. Of course their proposal
is to increase the GST to 15 per cent to fund health. That involves an increase in the
tax ratio. So I can't share your conclusion that everybody sat around and shook
hands and said yeah, we know what we can do, we won't increase the tax to GDP
ratio because I don't think that's what happened. Obviously, I have said unlike Scott
Morrison, who continues to claim there's no revenue problem, despite presiding over
these massive downgrades in revenue, that you've got to have proper revenue
measures on the table and spending measures on the table. Scott Morrison is all
things to all people - all over the shop when it comes to his commitments when it
comes to tax. He says an increase to the GST without increasing the tax to GDP
ratio, that means (a), no money for States for their health and education and
certainly, no compensation for pensioners, veterans and carers because all that
implies that every single dollar raised out of an increase in the GST goes to tax cuts.
The only way you can do that is for the first two propositions not to be not true.
JOURNALIST: What about the argument though that if you get a more efficient tax
base in order, in place, that you'll see a higher economic growth, which in turn will
see greater revenue to the Federal Government and to the States and that seems to
be the focus of the Federal Treasurer, by changing the tax mix you don't need to
raise the overall proportion, but to actually get higher growth.
BOWEN: With respect, there are two separate things, can you have more efficient
taxes, discussion about more efficient taxes? Of course you can, of course you can.
But then you have the other discussion about the State's funding needs, caused by
the $80 billion worth of cuts to health and education, which Tony Abbott and Joe
Hockey may have introduced but Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison now own.
They are their cuts. They are defending them. I note that going into that meeting,
Scott Morrison said, "I'll be walking out if they want to talk about the $80 billion worth
of cuts to health and education". Well that's did last very long. That's when he was
dragged to these other discussions about percentages of income tax, etc. Let's see
how that process unfurls, but very clearly, when Scott Morrison claims Australia
doesn't have a revenue problem, he is just plain wrong.
JOURNALIST: Where would a Labor Government find the kind of savings
announced today?
BOWEN: We have got more measures on the table than the Government. We have
announced a multinational tax plan, we've announced a high income superannuation
plan, we have announced a tobacco plan, which is not universally popular with
everybody, but we recognise that tough decisions are necessary. We've announced
we would not proceed with the Government's emissions reduction refund, there is a
big pot of money that the Government is spending which we would reverse. We've
announced we would not proceed with the reintroduction of the baby bonus. They
say there is all this need to cut spending and they are going to deal with the National
Party, and isn't that going well, Liberal and National relations just at the moment,
deal with the National Party, they want to reintroduce the baby bonus for $1,000 for
the first year of a child's life. We oppose that. So we have been leading the debate
when it comes to measures to improve the Budget bottom line. We have dragged the
Government kicking and screaming on multinational tax and high income
superannuation in particular.
JOURNALIST: Do you think Labor's made a mistake by explicitly ruling out a rise to
the GST? Government keeps saying everything for them is on the table, they are
happy to have a discussion no matter what it is, and to have that discussion with the
States to try to get the most efficient tax system possible. Has Labor ruled itself out
by even that discussion by so quickly knocking back any suggestion that you can
have a raising of the GST but with enough compensation to make sure that people
aren't worse off?
SHORTEN: Let's be really clear here - if people vote Labor they know what they are
getting. They know they won't get an increase to 15 per cent in their GST. We will
live with the consequences of ruling it out because we think it's a bad idea. But it
goes to a bigger economic story in Australia. For the last two and a half years you
have a Liberal Government who doesn't actually know what they are doing. They find
it impossible to stick to one course of action. The 2014 Budget was all about budget
emergency and the harsh cuts and breaking election promises. 2015, there was all
the fist pumping in the air, the puffed up triumphantlism of Tony Abbott and Joe
Hockey and the whole cabinet saying we have dealt with the budget emergency and
now we are back at budget emergency again. But that's not the only example of a
Liberal Party who don't have economic leadership. They don't know where they are
taking this country. Because you've got Malcolm Turnbull, I think now arrogantly,
engaging saying everything's on the table, including the GST. A GST increase to 15
per cent is just nuts. It's a bad idea. Why is it this Government, they say they know
what they are doing. But when it came to infrastructure, they were happy to pay a
billion and a half dollars to the Victorian Liberal Government and it turns out that
wasn't the right thing to do. They persist with attacking higher education. They are
going after cancer treatment victims and the payments that they get for radiation and
diagnostic services. You've got a Government who says on the one hand there's a
budget emergency justifying those terrible cuts I just referred to, but on the other
hand, when it comes to multinationals, they give them a leave pass. They are not
chasing multinationals to get them to pay their fair share. They are still persisting
with direct action, which is an international joke, they still have a Windfarm
Commissioner. This is a Government who will have a windfarm Commissioner on
one hand, but chase down payments going to people requiring Medicare support for
our diagnostic images and pathology for the treatment of cancer.
JOURNALIST: Given your answer that you won't be supporting the incentives that
have been proposed, is it a [inaudible] to be going after preventive tools such as
diagnostic, pathology and radiation services?
SHORTEN: I have to say, we weren't admitted into the lock-up. We'll study what they
say carefully. But all of my instincts and indeed all of my decency tells me that if you
have got to make a tough decision and the choice is getting multinationals to pay
their fair share of taxation, or starting with people who are battling critical medical
treatment, like cancer, I know which one I'd pick. I'd go after the multinationals first.
Thanks everyone.
ENDS