Friday, 16 April 2010 14:20
ISSUES: Asylum seekers; BER; Health and Hospital Reform; AEU boycott of NAPLAN testing; School Funding Review; President Obama’s visit to Australia
LISA WILKINSON: As we welcome back to the studio Julia Gillard.
JULIA GILLARD: Hello.
LISA WILKINSON: Good morning to you, Julia and to you, Tony Abbott.
TONY ABBOTT: Morning, Lisa.
LISA WILKINSON: What do you reckon, Tony? Good likeness there?
TONY ABBOTT: Look, I was amused and I think the Prime Minister has lots of paranoid thoughts and so yes I found it quite lifelike in that sense.
LISA WILKINSON: Julia?
JULIA GILLARD: Just don’t take your jacket and shirt and tie off to try and prove the likeness. We don’t want that to happen, not on morning TV.
CAMERON WILLIAMS: Tony, in all seriousness, congratulations on the Pollie Pedal again, lots of money raised, big ride, Sydney to Melbourne, but even your growing number of fans would like you to have spent some time out there formulating policy. Let’s talk about for instance immigration, boat people situation which is developing, are you suggesting that we should go back to the Pacific Solution?
TONY ABBOTT: Well I’m suggesting that the Government was wrong to have dumped the Howard Government’s policies and certainly what we need immediately is a temporary protection visa because that would deny the people smugglers a product to sell. But, Cameron, look, whether it be hospital policy, whether it be Julia’s school rip-off policy, whether it be boat people, I was available everyday to talk about these issues as well as to meet with ordinary people on the route and some of the people who I met with on my trip were very concerned about Julia’s school hall rip-off policy and they were white-hot with anger in fact about just how much money had been wasted.
CAMERON WILLIAMS: But when are we going to see your policy written in paper so we can scrutinise it and catch you on the bike again sometime?
TONY ABBOTT: Well I think I’m being scrutinised all the time, Cameron.
CAMERON WILLIAMS: But we don’t know what you stand for, Tony.
TONY ABBOTT: I think you do clearly know what I stand for.
LISA WILKINSON: But when are we going to see some policy, Tony?
TONY ABBOTT: Well on boats for instance we will have temporary protection visas. We will talk behind the scenes rather than through megaphones to countries like Indonesia. We won’t be bringing asylum seekers onshore to be processed and look, we will be prepared if necessary and if safe, to turn boats around so you know where we stand on these issues. We won’t waste money on Julia Gillard’s school halls and the other thing is we won’t make false promises to private schools about maintaining their funding as Julia did last night which echoed the false promise they made about private health insurance before the election.
LISA WILKINSON: OK, well there are quite a few issues around, let’s start with health. It is shaping up as the big issue this weekend, Julia. John Brumby, Victorian Premier saying no way, Kristina Keneally it appears is going to say no as well unless a miracle happens you’ve got this meeting on Monday, this health plan is just not going to get up.
JULIA GILLARD: Well there is the big meeting on Monday of the Prime Minister and the Premiers and the Prime Minister is absolutely to determined to deliver health reform.
LISA WILKINSON: But he can’t do that without New South Wales and Victoria.
JULIA GILLARD: Well I think the phones will be running hot over the weekend because he is absolutely determined. Now what he’s always said and what the Government has said is if we can’t get this done at COAG then we will take it to the people.
But we’re focused on getting an agreement. People have waited too long for health reform. We want to deliver it on Monday. We’re working overtime, certainly the Prime Minister’s working overtime to drive it towards a deal on Monday.
CAMERON WILLIAMS: Talk about the BER, just briefly because finally you’ve announced an inquiry, took a long time, Julia. I mean, you denied that there was an issue for a long, long time. Now you’ve got the teachers piling up on you. Do you really think, are you sticking by your assertion that parents should step in and take their roles?
JULIA GILLARD: On Building the Education Revolution, this is a program that’s rolling out round the country. I’ve been to five schools myself this week, projects – everybody’s delighted with them.
What I announced was an Implementation Taskforce because I want to make sure every dollar spent gets the maximum value for schools and it’s been headed up by a major Australian businessman, Mr Brad Orgill, because he’ll bring that commercial expertise. So I think that was the right thing to do, building that level of insurance.
On the national testing, it’s the right thing for us to have national testing of kids and have the next version of My School and we will deliver that and all the state education ministers yesterday stood with me and said we’re determined to make sure the national testing goes ahead.
CAMERON WILLIAMS: Are you determined to ignore the teacher’s wishes on this?
JULIA GILLARD: Well it’s the Australian Education Union executive that has issued this call for a boycott and I’m asking them to reconsider to not put teachers and parents in this position. National testing gives you a report card about your own child, it also feeds into My School and it feeds into teachers’ teaching plans because they know where a kid’s starting and what more needs to be done to get them to read and write and do maths the way we want them to.
TONY ABBOTT: Just on the school hall rip-off, have you received the Auditor General’s draft report yet, Julia?
JULIA GILLARD: Well as you would know, Tony, under the Audit Act, the law of this country….
TONY ABBOTT: I’m asking you a straight question. Have you received the draft report?
JULIA GILLARD: Yes, and I’m explaining to you the laws of the nation, Tony, so maybe you want to look them up at some point. But under the Audit Act, the laws of the nation, every stage of an audit is confidential and I’m simply not legally able to answer that question.
TONY ABBOTT: But have you received the draft report? Well no you can say whether you’ve received the draft report.
JULIA GILLARD: As you well know as a minister…
TONY ABBOTT: Well no, you can say whether you’ve received the draft report.
JULIA GILLARD: No, Tony, that’s not true.
TONY ABBOTT: Because I think your inquiry…
JULIA GILLARD: Tony, that is not true, it’s all a confidential process.
TONY ABBOTT: Your inquiry is designed to whitewash a very critical Auditor General’s report.
JULIA GILLARD: Tony, that’s an assertion that you would make and of course you would for political advantage.
LISA WILKINSON: Julia, Tony’s point is fair, though. The announcement of the inquiry after week after week after week, the Australian, Ray Hadley, we here on the Today Show, we’ve been asking you to focus on this and understand there are a lot of people who feel there are rip-offs going on, you haven’t acted on it. This week you did, it was around about the time that everybody thought the Auditor-General’s report was going to land in your hands.
JULIA GILLARD: Well everything to do with the audit report is legally confidential so I’m not at liberty to talk about that.
LISA WILKINSON: Of course.
JULIA GILLARD: But I can talk about…
TONY ABBOTT: I’m not asking for the detail of the report. Have you received it?
JULIA GILLARD: I can talk about the timing. Building the Education Revolution had auditing and monitoring at every level when we first announced it. I’ve been saying for some time if I became persuaded we needed to do more, then we would. There were some value for money examples I was concerned about. That’s why I announced the Implementation Taskforce this week because I also wanted to brief the ministers of education from around the country on it and we met yesterday.
So that’s why we put it in place this week, but we’ve got to remember with Building the Education Revolution, yep, there’s been some criticism and I’ll take that on the chin but I would rather be out there investing in schools and supporting jobs…
TONY ABBOTT: Doesn’t justify wasting money, Julia.
JULIA GILLARD: …than doing what Tony has urged which is he voted against this program, not one cent into any school with all of the job losses that that would have implied and if he’s elected, he’ll stop it.
TONY ABBOTT: We didn’t need to waste money, Julia.
CAMERON WILLIAMS: I think we’ve covered that, Tony.
JULIA GILLARD: You’re going to stop it, though, if you’re elected. You’ve been very clear about that.
TONY ABBOTT: We won’t waste money, we won’t waste money the way you have.
JULIA GILLARD: Because you’ll stop the whole program. There’ll be no more school building.
TONY ABBOTT: We’ll do it the way we did it under the Howard Government to the investing in our schools program which parent communities around the country rejoiced in. There were no rip-offs there.
LISA WILKINSON: I think people want more accountability, Julia.
JULIA GILLARD: Your commitment is to suspend this program and your economic spokespeople are talking about stopping it so that there would be no more investment in schools. You can’t walk away from that.
TONY ABBOTT: We would do it the way we did it under the Howard Government.
CAMERON WILLIAMS: Let’s move on because you did flag an overhaul of funding for schools last night in a speech.
JULIA GILLARD: Yes.
CAMERON WILLIAMS: You can understand that the Australian public may have a degree of trepidation about how you’re going to handle this.
JULIA GILLARD: Well I don’t see why, when our track record, look at the scoreboard – we’re a Government that has almost doubled the amount of money that the national government invests in schools. I think that’s a pretty good track record.
LISA WILKINSON: Who’s going to get more and who’s going to get less before we go to Tony?
JULIA GILLARD: We have given a funding maintenance guarantee. I gave it last night. This is not about taking money off schools and your question is only relevant if you assume somehow this is a zero sum game; I don’t and the school funding review that I opened up last night is about all schools. We currently have a system where we don’t look across at all schools and say how are they being funded. I want to do that, I want to get it right for every child in every school.
LISA WILKINSON: Tony?
TONY ABBOTT: What’s the point of having an inquiry if it’s just more money for everyone. If it is of course more money for everyone, where’s the fiscal responsibility in that? But you just can’t trust these people, Lisa. I mean, before the last election Julia put her hand on her heart repeatedly and said we will not means test the private health insurance rebate, we like private health insurance – wrong, they hated private health insurance, they’re now trying to means test it. They don’t like private education, they will, after the election if they’re re-elected, as sure as night follows day, they will try to cut private school funding.
JULIA GILLARD: Tony, it’s pretty hard to explain then, why the representatives of private schools, the Independent Schools Association welcomed this funding review which they did yesterday and I’m happy to fight the next election on the question of trust about school funding. Who do you trust? The Government that’s almost doubled the amount of money going into school education….
TONY ABBOTT: The Government which has repeatedly broken its commitments.
JULIA GILLARD: ….or your government which neglected schools for 12 years.
LISA WILKINSON: Wasn’t that John Howard’s line, Julia?
JULIA GILLARD: Well exactly, I’m happy to fight the next election on the question of trust. School funding; we have almost doubled the amount…
TONY ABBOTT: They couldn’t trust you on private health insurance.
JULIA GILLARD: ….of money going into schools.
TONY ABBOTT: But they couldn’t trust you on private health insurance. Why should they trust you on private schools?
JULIA GILLARD: Well scoreboard, actual action, 12 years of neglect
TONY ABBOTT: But they couldn’t trust you, you lied.
JULIA GILLARD: We came to Government and we are investing in schools
TONY ABBOTT: …about private health. Why aren’t you lying now about private schools?
JULIA GILLARD: at record rates and we’ve been opposed by you every step of the way, every dollar of investment.
LISA WILKINSON: OK, I think we’ve done that.
CAMERON WILLIAMS: Just moving on again, Barrack Obama of course everyone’s looking forward to his visit Down Under. I’m sure you are too, Julia.
JULIA GILLARD: Yes, coming here to Sydney as well so that’s good.
CAMERON WILLIAMS: Yes, he appeared on the 7:30 Report, started quoting from Spiderman we believe; take a look.
BARRACK OBAMA: With great power comes great responsibility.
SPIDERMAN: With great power comes great responsibility. This is my gift, my curse. Who am I? I’m Spiderman.
CAMERON WILLIAMS: Spiderman fans will know that Peter Parker was told those immortal words by Ben Parker, his uncle, so everyone needs a mentor.
LISA WILKINSON: We should apologise to John-Jacques Rousseau who actually originally said that line first.
JULIA GILLARD: Well I don’t understand President Obama’s going to be here in a Spiderman suit, that’s not my understanding.
LISA WILKINSON: He was very complimentary about the Prime Minister last night.
JULIA GILLARD: Well he was and I think they’ve got a really strong rapport and that’s, you know, great for relations between our two countries. Whatever the cycle of politics, whoever’s in or out on both sides, here in Australia or in the States, we’ve got a great relationship but it’s good to see such a strong rapport.
CAMERON WILLIAMS: Will you ever get to shoot hoops with him?
TONY ABBOTT: I’m a pretty lousy basketball player but you’re right, Julia’s right. I mean, American presidents tend to say nice things about Australian prime ministers. It was said about a former prime minister by a former president and it is good that it’s a strong relationship and let’s hope that we can build on that strength.
JULIA GILLARD: Tony, it pays to say nice things back and the Liberal Party hasn’t always said nice things about President Obama but that’ll be a lesson I think.
LISA WILKINSON: Come on, you two like coming in here every Friday, we know you do. You can’t hide it anymore.
JULIA GILLARD: We like seeing you two.
CAMERON WILLIAMS: You go and share a mintie in the green room now I’m sure.
LISA WILKINSON: Thanks Tony, thanks Julia.
CAMERON WILLIAMS: Thanks very much.
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A bit long interview if you ask me, but this interview can give us more info when it comes to health and hospital reform with other issues.
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