Interview with Tim Webster, Radio 2UE

Subjects: Broadband; infrastructure spending; industrial relations.

E&OE


TIM WEBSTER:

How are you holding up?

TONY ABBOTT:

Look, it’s been a pretty tough four a half weeks but I keep saying to myself and to the world that I’m fit for office so that means fit to campaign.

TIM WEBSTER:

Ok, couple of things and this one comes directly from my listeners today. I had a couple of calls and a couple of emails about advertising, now A. Both sides of politics are saying well, seeing these ads are simply not true and my listeners are asking why aren’t you matching the barrage of advertising coming from the other side?

TONY ABBOTT:

Tim, I can understand your listeners frustration and what I saw a bit of tv last night, I felt pretty frustrated myself because the Labor ad campaign is exclusively negative and is based on lies, absolute lies about WorkChoices, about my record on health and the economy. These are rolled gold lies, no doubt about that, but the Labor Party just has a stack of money, I mean, they are the big money party. They are the big faction, big union party and they’ve got rivers of gold pouring into their warchest and I’ve got a run a kind of grassroots peoples revolt against them.

TIM WEBSTER:

My listeners, though, are refusing to believe that you’re not cashed up as well and they’re wondering why you’re not spending like they are. We’re told they’re going to spend like $35 million this week.

TONY ABBOTT:

I wish your listeners were right and we were that cashed up, but we’re not. These days Tim, big business either doesn’t donate or in many cases it donates far more to the Labor Party than it does to us because they know that its hard to do business in New South Wales without giving money to the Government and I think other states are a bit the same, so big business doesn’t give much to the Liberal Party anymore. Unions give overwhelming, well, they give exclusively to the Labor Party and manage the Labor Party and that means that we really are dependent on the private donations and there just aren’t that many of them.

TIM WEBSTER:

Alright now, obviously in a few minutes we haven’t got time for a huge big policy announcements but there’s a couple of things I did want to ask you and the first one and I asked, I’m really starting to think, from what I’m getting from the listeners too, this broadband issue is going to be a major issue. I’ve already said, I think it’s an awful lot of money and I’m reading people who know a lot more about it than me, like Terry McCrann and a lot of the tech writers and the economics writers saying, look, it’s too much money, it’s a bad investment, regardless of the technology.

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, I certainly agree with them. I think that a competitive market is much more likely to give us fast, affordable broadband services than a government monopoly. The Government’s proposal which was put together without a business plan, don’t forget, basically involves spending $5,000 per household. Massive, massive amount. $5,000 per household and that’s just to build the thing and then you’ve got to pay more to use it. So I just think it’s a crazy scheme and sure, they’re trying to sell it as some kind of vision, but I think what we’re likely to end up with is a nightmare of just vast government spending to do something which might turn out to be obsolete before it’s even built.

TIM WEBSTER:

Ok, if the voters go with you and you spend your six or seven billion on a variety of delivery systems, would you assure the Australian people that if the technology advances into the future, you’d spend the money because we will be disadvantaged internationally if we’re not competitive with the rest of the world on internet services, won’t we?

TONY ABBOTT:

That’s true, but the question is how do you deliver the same level of internet services here as in other countries and no country in the world has gone down the path that they’re proposing with this massive spending to re-create a government telecommunications monopoly. In fact, it’s the Coalition which is proposing spending per head by government on a par with the spending of countries like Singapore which obviously are very good at this.

TIM WEBSTER:

Yeah. Alright, now, another thing and I must confess it’s a hobby horse of mine but, I certainly get lots of calls about this too, even just ignore the Epping to Parramatta rail link because that’s pork barrelling at its best, but yes, the Howard Costello Government, you’re a member of it, had us with terrific economic credentials and we paid all our bills and we had a surplus, but Tony, we didn’t build anything and particularly in this city of Sydney, we have to start building thing whether that’s the extension of the M4 or the M5 or M7 to M3, we’ve got to start doing it because if we don’t, we are going to be in so much trouble if we’ve got a population of six or seven million in 20 years.

TONY ABBOTT:

That’s a fair point but you’re not right, Tim, about the Howard Government not building anything. I mean, I’m currently on the M7 and the M7 was built with a very substantial contribution from the Howard-Costello Government.

TIM WEBSTER:

We love the M7.

TONY ABBOTT:

It’s a great piece of infrastructure and it only happened because the federal government put in what was necessary to build it. So, please, don’t anyone think that the Howard Government didn’t build infrastructure. Of course, what Prime Minister Howard did and did often was say, well, in the end these are mostly state responsibilities and the states have been derelict in their duty, as they certainly have been here in New South Wales and in Queensland. But there were very substantial federal contributions to all the major new bits of infrastructure in Sydney; the M2 was built with federal assistance, the Eastern Distributor out to the airport was built with federal assistance. The M7 was built with federal assistance.

TIM WEBSTER:

So why have we stalled now then? That’s the thing. In Sydney, there’s a prang on the M4, you might not have heard, but there’s a prang on the M4 today causing a huge amount of chaos. It’s only got to be one thing Tony, M4, M5 or M2, and we’re gridlocked and we’re a mess either in the morning or the afternoon.

TONY ABBOTT:

Look, what we’ve had from the Rudd-Gillard Government is basically a lot of talk and no real building. I mean, it’s impossible to think of any major new piece of infrastructure that’s come online in the last three years. There’s been lots of announcements but the only real infrastructure has been the school halls which have been a rip-off, mostly, and the pink batts.

TIM WEBSTER:

School halls and pink batts were a disaster.

TONY ABBOTT:

Absolutely right. Look, the Howard Government did not blow its trumpet much when it comes to infrastructure. Largely because, as I say, we felt that it was mostly a state responsibility but we sure did make big contributions. If I get elected on Saturday, I’ll continue to make contributions out of the AusLink fund. But it’s got to be to infrastructure which is carefully planned and prioritised, not something that’s dreamt up on the way to an announcement, scribbled down on the back of a ballot paper because the Government’s suddenly in a panic about losing seats in western Sydney.

TIM WEBSTER:

Alright, now the other thing that’s going to haunt you this week is going to be WorkChoices and of course, all of the union advertising campaigns are about that and you’ve said, ‘look that’s it, finished, dead and buried.’ I’m getting, again, a lot of calls and emails from small business people, let’s even leave big business out of the equation, saying ‘look, if WorkChoices was unfair, Fair Work Australia’s not that much fairer to us.’ Surely, why can’t we get industrial relations right, Tony? Why isn’t there a middle ground somewhere between WorkChoices and Fair Work Australia?

TONY ABBOTT:

I think we did have industrial relations in reasonable shape prior to WorkChoices. We did have things under reasonable control but the message that I am getting from business is that, sure the present system is not perfect but above all else, they want stability. They can live with an imperfect system, what they can’t live with is constant upheaval and that’s what they’re going to get. They’re going to get stability from me. They’ll get further change, probably counter-productive, harmful change from the Government should it be re-elected.

TIM WEBSTER:

I’ll give you a minute. Tell the Australian people why they should vote for you on Saturday.

TONY ABBOTT:

They should vote for me because what they’ll get is competent government that respects the taxpayers’ dollar and will treat the Australian people with courtesy and consideration. You won’t get broken promises, you won’t get wasted money and you won’t get big new taxes. That’s what you’ll get from the Labor Party and that’s why the Labor Party are just so ridiculous when it comes to this claim to be a competent economic manager.

TIM WEBSTER:

Good on you. Thanks for your time and all the best.

TONY ABBOTT:

Thanks so much.

[ends]