TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW WITH DERRYN HINCH RADIO 3AW

25 January 2010

TRANSCRIPT OF THE HON. TONY ABBOTT MHR

INTERVIEW WITH DERRYN HINCH,

RADIO 3AW, MELBOURNE

Subjects: Immigration and population policy; ageing population, republic.

E&OE……………………….………………………………………………………………………………..

DERRYN HINCH:

On the line now, the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Tony Abbott. Good afternoon.

TONY ABBOTT:

G’day.

DERRYN HINCH:

Your speech at the weekend, it seemed to be a combination of – as I said in my introduction – we need more migrants and there was a touch of the old ‘populate or perish’ but there’s also a bit of John Howard’s ‘we’ll decide who comes here’. So, give it to me in a nutshell.

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, it was a modern defence of a traditional policy – a high immigration intake, but an intake which is pitched to support Australia’s national interests.

DERRYN HINCH:

Alright. So, a selective input?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, I think we’ve always been very good at making the most of the people who come here and I think that as long as the people who come here are pretty keen to join the team, there’s no limit on what they can achieve.

DERRYN HINCH:

There have been headlines lately saying Australia could have a population of 30 million, 35 million. Sydney and Melbourne could get to 7 million, 8 million. I don’t see what’s wrong with that. I mean, our population at the moment is about the population of California.

TONY ABBOTT:

I don’t see what’s wrong with it either, Derryn, as long as we plan for the infrastructure we need to make it all work and I think that the problem at the moment is that a lot of people are concerned that we’re bringing 180-odd thousand people in a year and we’re projecting on doing that for the next four decades but we don’t look like we’re planning at the same level for the infrastructure we need and that’s one of the reasons why I think people are quite concerned about high levels of immigration stretching out for the kind of years that the Prime Minister seems to be assuming.

DERRYN HINCH:

But you guys on both sides of the House, I mean, you keep telling us that as we live longer we get more pensioners and we have a smaller workforce to pay the taxes to fund those pensions, so we’ve got to get more people in the workforce, we’ve got to have more migrants.

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, more migrants is a part of it. It’s not the only part of it. I think it would be great if we had a higher birth rate and people who read my book Battlelines out in the middle of last year would know that one of the things that I’d like to see is a better deal for families with kids. So we need more migrants, we need more kids, so I think what we also need is to try to make better use of people across the age ranges and one of the problems of modern times, Derryn, is this assumption that once you hit 55 or 60 or 65 you’re useless in the economy. Well, the truth is that some people would be better at their job at the age of 65 than they ever would have been before and yet we tend to assume that it’s time to put them out to pasture.

DERRYN HINCH:

Well, two quick things there you raised: one, you seem to be supporting the Peter Costello idea of one for mum, one for dad and one for country; and the second part, you seem to be supporting the Henry idea, one of the proposals put forward for taxes, that maybe people over 65 get tax breaks so that they can prepare for their retirement better.

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, this is actually a Howard idea; it’s not a Henry idea. It was one of the innovations of the Howard Government. Now, that’s not to say it can’t be done better in the future but certainly the first government, to the best of my knowledge, that tried to introduce incentives for people to keep working past 65 was the Howard Government and let’s hope that all subsequent governments do it too.

DERRYN HINCH:

Okay, final question because I know you’re very busy today and it is Australia Day tomorrow and we are two of the few people working today…

TONY ABBOTT:

We didn’t take a sickie.

DERRYN HINCH:

No. What will it take, Tony Abbott, to finally realise the inevitable, that finally Australia will become a republic?  

TONY ABBOTT:

Oh, mate, I don’t think anything would persuade me that. I just think that we have done magnificently as a country as we are and until such time as someone can convince me that there is a better system of government than the one we’ve go then I’m happy to stick with what we’ve got.

DERRYN HINCH:

Yeah. Alright, Mr Abbott, good to talk to you again. Thanks for your time.

TONY ABBOTT:

Thanks Derryn. Thank you so much.