AARON KEARNEY: We’re joined now by the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard. Welcome to Newcastle and welcome to 1233 Breakfast.
JULIA GILLARD: Good morning and thank you.
AARON KEARNEY: What are Community Cabinet meetings designed to achieve. You’re not really going to hear anything today that you’re not really aware of, are you?
JULIA GILLARD: Well, I certainly wouldn’t agree with that. Each and every time we’ve had a Community Cabinet, we have all learned something. The main thing here is to recognise that the view from Canberra is not necessarily the view from every other part of the country. Every community’s different, every community’s got its own voice and its own needs and Community Cabinet is a way of making sure we stay in touch and able to hear that voice. We’ve had them in major cities, we’ve had them in Mackay—so a regional centre. We had a Community Cabinet in an Indigenous community in the Northern Territory and I’m very much looking forward to the one today. And each and every time we have heard things that have made us think about government policy what else we need to do.
AARON KEARNEY: Do you get an agenda flagged—obviously you do for the broader Cabinet meeting—but for the Community Cabinet meeting tonight, do you get an agenda flagged? In other words, do you know what problems these people are going to bringing to the table tonight?
JULIA GILLARD: It’s pretty much ‘Cabinet Unplugged’, if I can use that terminology. [Laughs]
AARON KEARNEY: Sure.
JULIA GILLARD: The way it works is we start in a community hall, of course we’re at the Lambton School here this evening. Around 500 people will be in attendance, I understand that the spots were snapped up very quickly in Newcastle. And we start with a meeting in the broad hall with everybody and the Prime Minister basically just asks for questions and the people can ask about anything that’s on their mind. And either the Prime Minister will answer it or he will direct it to the relevant Cabinet Minister. And, of course, you see the full range on display, people will raise their concerns about a huge global topic. I anticipate probably this evening people will be asking us about the global financial crisis. But then you also have the person who stands up and says that they’ve got a really individual personal problem, that a member of their family or they are experience when they deal with Centrelink or the Department of Immigration, or whatever, and can someone help them out. So you get the full range.
Then we break up and each Cabinet Minister sees a range of people who have asked to see that Cabinet Minister individually, and we do have some information obviously about who’s coming to see us at that point. But in the broad community meeting anybody can raise anything that’s on their mind.
AARON KEARNEY: You mentioned the various locations you’ve already had these meetings. Do you know why Newcastle was chosen at this stage?
JULIA GILLARD: Well, Newcastle is a very special place. I think this is a region that’s got great members advocating for it. Certainly, Sharon Grierson is a very active local member and makes sure that as Cabinet Ministers we always understand what’s happening in Newcastle. We wanted to come to Newcastle because this is a community that has faced so much change and done it so well—a community that combines into its life, the university, a hospital that is often doing things at the cutting edge of healthcare. It’s a great place to come and hear what people are thinking and feeling.
AARON KEARNEY: I mentioned at the start that often the ALP, at least the corridors of the power of the ALP, are accused of taking this region for granted. The ALP candidate polled less than 20 per cent in the Newcastle local government election a couple of weeks ago—barely won power did the ALP in the last state election. Is it time the ALP started taken the Hunter more seriously?
JULIA GILLARD: The Federal ALP has always taken the Hunter very seriously. I’ve been a very frequent visitor here. When I was Shadow Minister for Health, I’d have to say I learnt a lot about innovation in healthcare by coming to Newcastle and talking to some of your wonderful health professionals, including your Division of General Practice where your GPs have been doing things that the rest of Australia have looked to as a model. So this is a place that I’ve visited frequently, my colleagues have visited frequently. And even when we can’t be physically here in person, we’re always kept in very good touch by the local member, Sharon Grierson.
AARON KEARNEY: Wall to wall ALP in this region, with the exception of the marginal seat of Paterson, which has gone both ways in the last few elections and yet, only Joel Fitzgibbon is on the front bench in this current ALP Government. Are you happy with the output of Hunter ALP members? Are they underperforming?
JULIA GILLARD: No, certainly very happy with our ALP members. Joel is serving in an incredibly important role. Indeed, there can hardly be a more important role in Government than being Minister for Defence. Sharon is a great local advocate for this community. And, of course, when you look at the surrounding members—Greg Combet serving as a Parliamentary Secretary; and once again in the defence area, Jill Hall, serving as a Parliamentary Officer, she’s one our whips, but also a great local member in touch with her community. So this is a region that’s well served by very strong local representatives.
AARON KEARNEY: 20 past seven on 1233 Breakfast. Our guest, Julia Gillard, the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia; Minister for Education; Social Injustice; Employment and Workplace Relations. I think that’s the full set, is it? Is that’s the full set?
JULIA GILLARD: [Laughs] It’s actually social inclusion.
AARON KEARNEY: Social inclusion. Well, a …
JULIA GILLARD: But you got all the topics right.
AARON KEARNEY: Perhaps Minister against social injustice, perhaps? Okay, I want to ask you about a couple of the points about the day. First of all, it appears that it is now a done deal, the $830 million Australian US Wall St financial bailout package welcomed by you and your Government?
JULIA GILLARD: The Prime Minister made it very clear when he was recently in New York for high level talks about the global financial crisis, that it was important that the US settled these arrangements. Now we look like we’re on a path for that to be done. The point we’re continuing to make, and it is a very important one, is whilst Australia is not immune from the global financial instability, we are in a very different position than the US. We have a well-regulated financial sector; we have a strong banking sector. And, of course, the thing that triggered it all off, the subprime mortgages, they have been a big feature of the American mortgage market, but they are not a big feature of our mortgage market. So we are in a very different situation.
AARON KEARNEY: Well indeed, ACOSS agrees with you. They’ve came out this morning and said the focus should be on financial relief for those living on welfare and that rising living costs have put those at the bottom end of society, $2 billion behind and you need to take some of that surplus and give it to those most needy. Do you concur?
JULIA GILLARD: We engaged in the last Budget in a range of measures to try and take the pressure off for people who are on low and fixed incomes. For example, for older Australians we paid a $500 cash bonus and we increased the utilities allowance to $500 a year. People in the last few weeks would’ve seen an instalment of that—$128 dollar instalment—and they would’ve seen their pensions indexed by just over $15. Now these things were to take a bit of pressure off. We recognise that more needs to be done. That’s why we have Mr Harmer reviewing the pension system and one of the consultative forums of that review actually came locally to Newcastle. That is going to provide us with comprehensive advice about the pension system for people who are on all different sorts of pension types—older Australians on the aged pensions, carers on the disabilities pensions, and the like.
AARON KEARNEY: Do you understand, though, the frustration that this is taking so long?
JULIA GILLARD: I can understand a lot of frustration built up over 12 years of the Howard Government where there weren’t movements in the base pension rate. I can understand that that built a lot of frustration up and I think we’re seeing that pressure and frustration manifest now and I can understand it. I can understand that it’s very tough for people and that’s why we took steps in the May Budget to take some of the pressure off and that’s why we are looking at the whole question comprehensively. This is not a simple issue. It’s often played as if it’s a simple issue, but once you change pension arrangements then all sorts of allowances, things like rents in public housing can be affected. And you’ve got to make sure that if you are going to make a difference, that it’s a real difference for people.
AARON KEARNEY: You have just been Acting Prime Minister with Kevin Rudd abroad, so you bring a unique insight to this question: what do you think of the Republican vice presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, the woman who, if anything happened to John McCain and he was elected president, could be leader of the free world?
JULIA GILLARD: [Laughs] Well, I’m not acting as a commentator on the US election. Obviously, whoever is elected, whether it be Senator Obama or Senator McCain they’re going to be a good friend of Australia and that’s important—the relationship between our two countries has endured, as prime ministers have changed and as presidents have changed. Obviously Sarah Palin’s caused a fair degree of excitement in the US. But what that means for US politics, I’ll leave to the commentators in the US.
AARON KEARNEY: Let me ask you this: who do you have more in common with? Sarah Palin or John McCain?
JULIA GILLARD: [Laughs] Look, I’m not sure that I would claim a great degree of commonality with either of them.
AARON KEARNEY: Come on, level with me here. You, as somebody who has just been Acting Prime Minister of this country, must have a personal opinion on the woman who could be Vice President of the US. You’re opposite number if you will, you’re counterpart in, arguably, our most important ally?
JULIA GILLARD: Well, can I just say this: whoever is elected, whether it’s Senator Obama or Senator McCain, I will be very happy to meet my vice presidential counterpart. I had the opportunity to meet the current Vice President, Dick Cheney, and I would look forward to meeting the new Vice President, whoever it is.
AARON KEARNEY: Have you ever shot an animal?
JULIA GILLARD: [Laughs] No, I haven’t. Never shot a moose.
AARON KEARNEY: [Laughs] Perhaps that can be your first outing together. Julia, Gillard, welcome once again to Newcastle and we hope that you do hear the voice loud and clear of the local people and that some good can come out of your visit here today.
JULIA GILLARD: Thank you very much.
AARON KEARNEY: Julia Gillard there, Deputy Prime Minister of Australia in town for today’s Cabinet and Community Cabinet meeting.
ENDS