INTERVIEW WITH MADONNA KING, 612 ABC RADIO.

Tony Abbott, good morning and welcome to Brisbane.

TONY ABBOTT:

Nice to be with you, Madonna.

MADONNA KING:

Let’s start with Australia Day and this morning Ray Martin is leading a national charge to change the flag. Do you like the flag the way it is or do you support some change?

TONY ABBOTT:

Look, I’m very happy with the flag that we’ve got. It’s a flag of stars and crosses and I like it very much. I think it represents our history, I think it represents our future. I think that it’s a flag we can be proud of. It’s certainly a flag that a lot of Australians have cherished over the years and I don’t see any reason to change it.

MADONNA KING:

It’s stars and crosses, certainly. It’s also the Union Jack.

TONY ABBOTT:

We shouldn’t be in any way embarrassed about the fact that we were once upon a time a British colony, and to this day some of the most important things about our country are inherited from Britain: our language, our parliamentary system, our democracy. So much of the way we think is all shaped by the fact that we’re part of that great English speaking family.

MADONNA KING:

So is it tied to the fact that we are a monarchy? If we became a republic it would be time to change the flag?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well it’s interesting that Canada changed the flag back in the 1960s without scrapping the monarchy. The Canadians rather like the monarchy and I think that monarchy is a great system of government. That’s the real issue…

MADONNA KING:

But that didn’t answer my question…

TONY ABBOTT:

Well I’m a politician, Madonna, and sometimes I choose not to answer questions in quite the way that questioners want.

MADONNA KING:

Well let’s just talk about the republic. There’s reports this morning of Labor sources saying that if Labor wins the next election we will go to a referendum. You are a strong monarchist. Are you going to make that fight very public?

TONY ABBOTT:

Look, if Kevin Rudd wants to bring on a fight on the republic, let him have one because I think it would confirm in the public’s mind that this is a guy who really doesn’t have a clue about the practical day-to-day issues that concern them.

MADONNA KING:

You say that but look where he is in the polls compared to you.

TONY ABBOTT:

I think that Kevin Rudd’s honeymoon is rapidly coming to an end.

MADONNA KING:

Just back on that flag issue and the republic issue, so do you believe that the Australian public are opposed to becoming a republic?

TONY ABBOTT:

I think that the Australian public – if they’re asked about it – are probably inclined to say ‘oh hell, why not have a republic’, but I don’t think they regard it as a particularly important issue and I think when the chips are down they tend to think that we’ve done pretty well under the system we’ve got.

MADONNA KING:

Okay, while we’re still on Australia Day issues, Dick Smith this morning has said politicians are actually letting Australia down and that we need to curb our population or we’ll run out of food. This is what he had to say:

Dick Smith: Our politicians are completely letting the Australian public down. Nine out of ten Aussies I speak to don’t want 40 million people here, but there’s no discussion, there’s no debates. There has to be because what’s the use of bringing kids into this world who even in a modern Western country could starve to death and that’s what could happen.

MADONNA KING:

Is Dick Smith right or is he being sensationalist?

TONY ABBOTT:

I think he’s drawing a pretty long bow to think that starvation is a serious danger here in Australia. Look I made a speech in Melbourne on Friday night, Madonna, where I talked amongst other things about population policy. I think that the important thing is that we don’t do anything that will give us a population which is unsustainable.

MADONNA KING:

What is that level, though? Kevin Rudd is saying 36 million, isn’t he, by 2050? Is that too many?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well what you need… you can’t count on that kind of a population if you aren’t also planning on the infrastructure that that kind of a population will need. Now, I’ve got no problems with increasing Australia’s population as long as we’ve got the infrastructure and the other facilities to cope and my problem with Kevin Rudd is that he talks glibly of an extra 13 or 14 million people but he isn’t doing anything to give us the health infrastructure, the education infrastructure and the economic infrastructure we need.

MADONNA KING:

We’ll come to health in just a moment. You’re in trouble for some of those comments you made in the lead-up to Australia Day…

TONY ABBOTT:

Only by people who haven’t read the speech.  

MADONNA KING:

Alright, but you said Australian citizenship is not sufficiently appreciated and the exact quote is it’s given away too lightly. Just explain why you said that, why you think that.

TONY ABBOTT:

Well what I said was that there is an anxiety amongst some people that this might be the case. Look, I think when people see questioning of what might be described as core Australian values, I think when people see boat people being let in in ways which look like the Government has backed down, I think this whole population issue feeds into an immigration debate. We’ve always had our anxieties about immigration. I have to say that by and large we’ve managed a really successful immigration programme despite those anxieties but the important thing, Madonna, is to be able to have a mature and intelligent debate about immigration without the instant issues are raised, important issues are raised, people are rushing around with accusations of racism.

MADONNA KING:

Is it a little bit politically incorrect now to talk about these issues? The moment you do, you’re branded a racist?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well I think that’s one of the real problems that we’ve got here. We do tend to have a politically correct media, and the instant anyone suggests that the important thing is that we are all part of the one team. We come from all sorts of places and we come with all sorts of attitudes but once we get here, I think it is important that we remember that we are part of the Australian team. Now, I think that’s stating the obvious. I think that for decades Australians were happy with the immigration programme because they were under the clear understanding that it was in Australia’s national interests. I think a couple of decades back that started to change and I think we did get understandable public anxieties about it.

MADONNA KING:

I’ll let you be as politically incorrect as you like, but do you share some of those anxieties you’re referring to?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well I think when you hear people making comments about the place of women which are quote out of step with contemporary…

MADONNA KING:

…like?

TONY ABBOTT:

…well, look, you heard, we all heard, Sheik Hilaly from time to time making comments which I think many people will think were pretty outlandish. Now, I don’t want to particularly single out any one individual but I think it does concern people and I think it’s important that people understand that the essence of this country, or one of this country’s essences, is that everyone gets a fair go. We don’t discriminate, and one of the reasons that the former Government brought the Citizenship Test in was because we wanted everyone to have a pretty good idea of the ethos of this country.

MADONNA KING:

How concerned are you about the attacks on Indian nationals we’ve seen?

TONY ABBOTT:

I think it’s quite a worry because anyone who is being targeted because of his or her race is an affront to the Australian ethos, which is colour blind.

MADONNA KING:

Last question on Australia Day. Australians are expected to en masse take a sickie today, costing the national economy something like $250 million. You’re an employer, a small business employer, do you think you have the right, do you think you should be sacking them when they front up on Wednesday?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, no one will be taking a sickie in my office because political staff work incredibly hard.

MADONNA KING:

Yes but we’re saying half a million workers are expected to ditch their job today.

TONY ABBOTT:

I’m not in favour of people taking sickies. If people want a holiday, I think they should go through the usual channels.

MADONNA KING:

In your younger days, can you hand on heart say you have never taken a sickie?

TONY ABBOTT:

I personally can, but look I’m probably a bit unusual because it takes a fairly unusual person to enter politics.

MADONNA KING:

Eighteen minutes to nine, salt and pepper squid has taken over from fish and chips as being Australia’s national dish according to one chef this morning. What would you call our national dish?

TONY ABBOTT:

Gee whiz, is it barbecued lamb chops? Is it…

MADONNA KING:

I’m the one asking the questions…

TONY ABBOTT:

… chips and sauce?

 MADONNA KING:

You’re on 612 ABC Brisbane. That’s Tony Abbott, the federal Opposition Leader on Australia Day issues this morning. You can ask him a question on 1300 222 612. Overnight Kevin Rudd has declared 2010 a year of major health reform. Should the Commonwealth Government just take over health now?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well I think the important thing is that Kevin Rudd shouldn’t tell fibs and in 2007 he said that if public hospitals weren’t fixed by the middle of 2009, he’d take them over. Well no one in Queensland or in New South Wales for instance would say that public hospital problems are anything like fixed. So, why isn’t Kevin Rudd taking action? I mean he’s much better at…

MADONNA KING:

…but do you think he should? Would health for our parents, our grandparents, be better if the Commonwealth ran it rather than the states?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well the important thing is how the hospitals are run rather than which level of government runs them.

MADONNA KING:

But that avoids the question again. If you’re sitting at home listening, the question is does Tony Abbott actually support a federal takeover of health or doesn’t he?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, whichever level of government runs them, they need to be much less bureaucratised than they are now. Now, I think that if the states are continually stuffing this matter up, sure, the federal government has a responsibility to get active, but in the end, it’s not which level of government is running them it’s how they’re run and I don’t trust Kevin Rudd, frankly, to run public hospitals very well.

MADONNA KING:

But you’re not going to. You run the Opposition. If you were the Prime Minister of the country, if you were made Prime Minister later this year, would the federal government run hospitals or would the States?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, the federal government, if I was leading the federal government, the federal government would take effective action to ensure that hospitals were run by local boards. Now, if I could do it without taking them over, fine. If that wasn’t effective, well then we’d look at other ways.

MADONNA KING:

On giving answers, can I just ask you about this? Health was a subject to a lot of debate at the 2020 Summit. Has the Opposition kept a track of how many of the 2020 Summit recommendations have actually been implemented by Labor?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, I think even the Government only wanted to take forward about a dozen of them and I suspect that none of that dozen have actually been implemented. I mean it was a shocking talk-fest, it really was. The format was wrong. Basically what it was all about was Kevin Rudd trying to co-opt a whole lot of celebrities and other people to his cause and I’m surprised so many of them fell for it.

MADONNA KING:

The Henry tax review will become public before the Budget. What does the Opposition expect in that? What are you gearing up for?

TONY ABBOTT:

He’s softening us up for higher taxes. He said as much the other day.

MADONNA KING:

Who’s us?

TONY ABBOTT:

The public. He is softening us up to pay higher taxes and, let’s face it, with the sort of debt and deficit that we’ve got over the last two years, it’s going to he hard to avoid higher taxes but the problem is whenever Labor sees difficulty, their instinct is to whack on a new tax. I mean, climate change is a typical example, Madonna. Instead of reducing emissions, they’re whacking on a new tax.

MADONNA KING:

When are you going to release your policy on how you would reduce emissions without a tax?

TONY ABBOTT:

Before parliament comes back.

MADONNA KING:

Parliament’s back in a couple of weeks, isn’t it?

TONY ABBOTT:

Tuesday week is the first parliamentary sitting day.

MADONNA KING:

You, when I asked you about the Henry tax review, you say it’s very difficult to bring in reform with and pay for everything without increasing taxes, will you under circumstances support a tax increase?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, no. The Coalition is against new taxes. We are the low tax party. Our preference is always to reduce taxes and…

MADONNA KING:

Well, how do you pay for an ageing population and everything else and a health system without increasing taxes?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, look at what happened under the Howard Government. I mean, under the Howard Government because we were better at reform, we were prepared to take tough decisions, we had a more productive economy, we had higher revenue, we had more spending and we had lower taxes, but you can only get that if you’re prepared to make the tough reform decisions and Kevin Rudd is not.

MADONNA KING:

And what is the big tough reform decision you will make if you were made Prime Minister that he’s not making?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, I’m not the Prime Minister, Madonna…

MADONNA KING:

Yeah I said if you were made Prime Minister…

TONY ABBOTT:

…I want Mr Rudd to live up to his promises and before the election at the end of the year people will know exactly what we are going to do. Just to give you, I suppose, two tough decisions that I have already talked about – one is overriding the Queensland Government on Wild Rivers because if we’re going to have a more productive Australia we’ve got to give people the chance to use their land productively; and the second is a referendum, if necessary, to give the national Government full power to manage the Murray-Darling basin. Murray-Darling water issues are a disaster basically because no one is in charge who is accountable to everyone.

MADONNA KING:

Just before we leave that whole issue of tax reform, how old are you when you’re too old to work? When is too old to work?

TONY ABBOTT:

Too old to work is when you can’t do a good job and I think there are lots of people who are forced prematurely into retirement.

MADONNA KING:

Do employers have to wake up to this and value more people in their sixties and seventies and the wisdom they might bring to a job?

TONY ABBOTT:

I think that a lot of people who are past the age of statutory senility, so to speak, are more than capable of making an economic contribution.

MADONNA KING:

Questions coming in for Tony Abbott on Twitter. You can do that at 612Brisbane, taking your questions shortly. 1300 222 612 is the number or you can SMS your question on 19922612. You’re listening to the Opposition Leader Tony Abbott here on 612 ABC Brisbane.

[Traffic update]

MADONNA KING:

You’re with Tony Abbott the Opposition Leader now. Dave’s from Alexandra Hills. Hi Dave.

CALLER:

Good morning Madonna.

MADONNA KING:

What’s your question for the Opposition Leader?

CALLER:

Can I just say welcome back on air and you’re setting a cracking pace for 2010.

MADONNA KING:

Thank you.

CALLER:

I’d also like to say I think I’m politically balanced. I dislike both sides of politics at the moment as I think they’re both letting us down in this great country and…

MADONNA KING:

So what’s your question, though?

CALLER:

Why did Tony Abbott – if it’s true – take a billion dollars out of the health budget when he was Health Minister? 

TONY ABBOTT:

Well it’s not true. I didn’t. Back in 1996 there was a reduction in the forward estimates for the healthcare agreements. It was a reduction in the rate of growth, it wasn’t an actual cut, but when I was the Health Minister between 2003 and 2007 we significantly increased health spending but more importantly we got better health outcomes. It’s easy to spend money; it’ hard to get results, but under the Howard Government, in part because of the good policies pursued, life expectancy increased by three years in Australia.

MADONNA KING:

Do you accept that, Dave?

CALLER:

I would like to know further as to what sorts of better outcomes could have been got if further money was allocated because in Queensland we’re in dire trouble with the amount of people moving to Queensland and our health budget can’t cope.

MADONNA KING:

Hey, and Dave, can I just ask you, when you say – and we do the health crisis almost daily – do you blame the state government for that or the federal government?

CALLER:

I blame them both. I blame bad management by the state and poor funding by the federal.

MADONNA KING:

Tony Abbott?                             

TONY ABBOTT:

The trouble with the current system is that one level of government provides the money but the other level of government provides the actual authority. Now I would argue that, at least when I was the Health Minister, those parts of the system that the federal government ran, namely Medicare, the PBS, the aged care system, were in reasonable shape. I don’t say they were perfect but I think they were in reasonable shape.

Now, what’s happened since then is that the feds have done nothing to help public hospitals and they have neglected the PBS, they’ve neglected Medicare and they’ve neglected aged care. There are no significant improvements that have been made by this Government in any of those areas.

MADONNA KING:

On the same issues, Claudette from the Gold Coast says “I don’t seem to be able to access your listeners’ comments section” – we’ll see what we can do about that, I’m sorry – “but as Mr Abbott is your guest this morning, I’d appreciate hearing his view on the ageing population and the drag they are on the health system. I’m fed up listening to Mr Rudd’s continuous mantra of the ‘problem’ of the ageing population. I seem to think the newer ageing population is more physically fit, look after their health better and are able to stay in the workforce for longer. It’s all very well for these pollies to talk – they can access healthcare easily because they can afford it well into their old age.”

TONY ABBOTT:

Well yeah, I think it’s important that older people stay engaged and stay productive and anyone who read my book Battlelines which came out in July of last year and which has recently been updated, which we spoke about on air one morning, Madonna, would know that I think one of the solutions to the so-called demographic time bomb is to keep people in the workforce for longer.  

MADONNA KING:

Is there a sense of blame, though? Are we attributing blame to our elderly? You hear that very often now. Kevin Rudd said overnight we either have to do something about the old age and pensioners or we have to go massively into debt or we have to boost productivity.

TONY ABBOTT:

And isn’t this typical Kevin Rudd? I mean, he talks about the problems without talking about the solutions and I think he would be a more effective Prime Minister if instead of talking about 2050 he talked about what he was going to do in 2010.

MADONNA KING:

Before we go to more of your calls, can I quickly ask you, the federal Government’s My School website which will compare various schools will be up and running on Thursday? That will include a disadvantage rating for schools. Are you behind this? Do parents deserve more information about their children’s schooling?

TONY ABBOTT:

I’m all in favour of parents getting more information about schools but I’m also in favour of schools having more capacity to improve and that means giving local school communities and local school principals a lot more autonomy than the state Labor governments give them.

MADONNA KING:

So you support this website but you would like more autonomy given to the schools, too? So I understand you.

TONY ABBOTT:

Well yes but just saying ‘this is the school’s performance without giving the school the capacity to improve its performance is pretty hopeless.

MADONNA KING:

Jim from Cleveland, good morning.

CALLER:

 Good morning, Madonna.

MADONNA KING:

Your question?

CALLER:

I’d like to ask Tony Abbott the biggest factor facing a lot of the happiness and security of people in this country in the future is the high cost of homes and how home ownership has fallen severely over the past decades. How would he encourage the public to get home ownership?

TONY ABBOTT:

The best thing we can do is to have a productive economy with high wages and low interest rates and, look, there is no doubt that owning a home ain’t easy, but home ownership rates have remained pretty high in Australia. We often fear that our kids aren’t going to be able to do what we were able to do, but so far they’re managing reasonably well.

MADONNA KING:

So is our expectation been a bit high? We’ve all grown up think we will own a home and perhaps we have to lower that expectation?

TONY ABBOTT:

I don’t think we have to lower that expectation. I think the government’s job is to try and ensure that the economic conditions are such that people can realise that dream.

MADONNA KING:

Frank from Nambour, good morning.

CALLER:

Good morning.

MADONNA KING:

What’s your question?

CALLER:

My question is that no government has ever actually reduced the bureaucracy. Will Tony Abbott’s government actually reduce the bureaucracy so we’ve got more Indians and not so many chiefs?

TONY ABBOTT:

Look, it’s a fair question...

MADONNA KING:

He wants a fair answer.      

TONY ABBOTT:

And I think all I can say is that I would try. The only way you can effectively reduce the bureaucracy is by getting people to work more efficiently or by reducing the functions that the bureaucrats have and making sweeping promises I think runs the risk of either damaging services or breaking promises, which damages the standing of politicians.  

MADONNA KING:

Kate says on Twitter, “Kevin Rudd admits he’s failed on the issue of homelessness. What can Abbott do while a hundred thousand people including children sleep rough?”

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, I wouldn’t make promises that you can’t keep and homelessness is a serious problem, but homelessness is a function of many things, only some of which are within government’s control. I mean, homelessness is a function of mental illness, of substance problems, or people’s contrary choices as much as it is of lack of services.

MADONNA KING:

Ellen from Sandgate. What’s your question, Ellen?     

CALLER:

Um, yes, I was a registered nurse for many years and because of nursing I’ve got a bad back and I had arthritis and I could see that I wasn’t going to be able to keep nursing, so I went and re-educated myself, spent years doing education. I did two-and-a-half years…

MADONNA KING:

So what’s your question, though, Ellen?

CALLER:

Yeah, well, I’m trying to get there. I was trying to re-educate as a counsellor. By the time I got my qualifications through I was 47 and two years telephone counselling with Lifeline experience – I never even… I wrote a hundred, easy, résumés…

MADONNA KING:

Alright, so are people being reluctant to employ older people, Tony Abbott? 

TONY ABBOTT:

I think there’s no doubt that they are and they shouldn’t be. I mean, it is illegal to discriminate on the basis of age and I hope that employers are conscious of their obligations.

MADONNA KING:

David is from Moorooka. David, you’ve got a quick question.

CALLER:

I’ll try and be quick.

MADONNA KING:

Yes.

CALLER:

Any politician’s perks, I can’t understand why, after they’ve been sacked or resigned, three years after that form the next election, I think, they can’t find a job by then they should be on work for the dole to earn some money.

MADONNA KING:

Do you think politicians get too many perks, though? That’s what the public would think, wouldn’t they? Or do you think they’re not paid enough given the job they do.

TONY ABBOTT:

Look, the public are always going to think politicians are overpaid. I mean, the only way politicians would seem to be getting a fair go as far as the public are concerned is if we got paid nothing, walked to Canberra and stayed in a tent. That’s just the way it is. Nothing that I can say or Kevin Rudd can say is going to dispel the impression that politicians are overpaid and under-worked.

MADONNA KING:

Do you think they are paid fairly? Do you think they’re paid… too little?

TONY ABBOTT:

I think that compared to people in the private sector with comparable responsibilities politicians are not highly paid. But – and this is very important – it’s a different kind of role. I mean we are representatives of the public, we are servants of the public in a sense and we cannot expect to be paid at levels that are vastly in excess of those of the people who vote for us.

MADONNA KING:

Will you come in next time you’re in Queensland and answer calls?

TONY ABBOTT:

Madonna, I will come in every day if you’d like me to, either by telephone or…

MADONNA KING:

No, no, just when you’re in Queensland will be fine…

TONY ABBOTT:

…I mean, wild horses will not keep me out of your studio.

MADONNA KING:

Tony Abbott, thank you.

TONY ABBOTT:

Thanks Madonna.

[ends]

Source: TONY ABBOTT