Topics: bureaucracy increase, inflation, ASIC takes Cbus to court, Australia-US relations

E&OE   

MATTHEW PANTELIS: But in the studio with me now is the Shadow Federal Treasurer, Angus Taylor. Mr Taylor, good morning.

ANGUS TAYLOR: Good to be with you, Matthew. Thank you for having me.

MATTHEW PANTELIS: Welcome to Adelaide. So, let's start off with a report in The Australian today on the front page. The wages bill for Federal public servants has increased by, ready for this, $5 billion with some 26,000 new public servants appointed during the term of the Albanese government. That's a lot of coin.

ANGUS TAYLOR: It's a lot of coin. It's a lot of coin. And it means that total spending now on Canberra-based bureaucrats is approaching the same as NDIS, Medicare. I mean, this is an extraordinary number. I live near there and I've seen it. I live only an hour from Canberra and we have seen the massive increase in the size of the public service. As far as Labor is concerned, bloated bureaucracy is the answer to every problem. But when you've got inflation and interest rates running hot, when you're at the back of the pack in beating higher inflation and interest rates compared to peer countries around the world, this kind of reckless spending and bloated bureaucracy makes the situation worse. It is exactly the opposite of what we need.

MATTHEW PANTELIS: Surely, we need them. Why else are they there? They must be needed, surely.

ANGUS TAYLOR: No, no, we don't need a bigger public service to bring down the cost of living. We don't need a bigger public service to make Australia safer. We need a better government, not a bigger government and this government has got it all wrong. I mean, Labor's instinct always is to have a bigger government, not a better government. And Canberra-based public servants are not the answer to our problems right now, Matthew. Look, Australian households are struggling to pay the bills. They're struggling to pay the bills and this government is spending like a bunch of drunken sailors. It's completely unacceptable.

MATTHEW PANTELIS: Do you know what departments they've gone into? Are some bigger than others benefiting more?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, they need to be more transparent although it's across the board. We know there's been big increases across the board. And we know there's further to go. There’re 26,000 additional public servants so far. We know they're planning on another 10,000.

MATTHEW PANTELIS: What are they doing?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, it's a good question. These are questions for the government, and we'll keep asking them.

MATTHEW PANTELIS: Does that mean the other public servants there already have been overworked? Is that the assumption we can all make from this?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, I mean, we know what they're doing. Ask any small businessperson, ask any small businessperson, they'll tell you what they're doing. They're making life harder for people out trying to run their businesses, run their lives out in the private sector. And that's why what we're seeing is an economy now where most of the jobs growth at the federal level is coming from public service, not from the private sector. We've seen a record rate of, or number of insolvencies in the business sector in the last two years. We've never seen anything like this, approaching 24,000. And anyone in business right now, particularly small businesses, is suffering badly. They're really struggling. We've seen customers now really tightening, they've tightened their belts. Costs have gone through the roof, energy costs for instance. And so if you're in small business, you're sitting there and saying, you know, I can't afford to hold on to my current employees, but the government seems to be able to employ whoever they like.

MATTHEW PANTELIS: Okay. In government, should you win next year? Are they gone?

ANGUS TAYLOR: No, we've been very clear on this. This is an unacceptable increase in the size of the public service, we'll get it back to the right sort of levels. I mean we've obviously got to protect frontline jobs, so people who are helping veterans for instance at the frontline, but you've got to remember at the federal level unlike state there's a relatively small proportion of the public servants who are at the front line. Most of them are bureaucrats sitting doing bureaucratic things and we have a bloated bureaucracy.

MATTHEW PANTELIS: So, 26,000 more, $5 billion, that doesn't help inflation, does it?

ANGUS TAYLOR: It makes it worse. I mean this is the key to inflation and I'm old enough to remember the last big bout of it we had in Australia which started in the 70s and went into the 80s and 90s. Is the key is government has to manage its spending. Government cannot afford to bloat. And we went through a period where both sides of politics worked this out and both sides of politics understood that they needed to contain the reckless spending. Labor hasn't got that. This government, this Treasurer, this Prime Minister are out of their depth, they're out of touch, and to allow that kind of growth of public service and growth of spending going alongside it at a time like this is completely unacceptable and we all pay for it. You know the old mantra was you pay for it in the future because your kids and your grandkids pay extra tax. Now with inflation running hot you pay for it now with higher inflation and higher interest rates.

MATTHEW PANTELIS: We've had a lot of migration, are the public servants these extra people helping in that in any way?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, we're seeing record levels of migration. I mean through the roof we've never seen migration levels like this. I mean maybe they're letting lots of people in, that's what they're doing, but hang on, you don't need a lot of public servants to do that. They've got their policy wrong in this area, they've got their policy wrong in migration as well, and we're seeing the cost of that right now. Every household is seeing the cost of that when they pay their bills every week, every month, every year.

MATTHEW PANTELIS: Alright, 500,000 coming in per annum has been the situation of late. What would you cut it to?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, we've been very clear that permanent migration needs to come down by around 25% in the non-similar sort of number and that that will get us back to the sort of settings that we were at prior to the current surge in the current government.

MATTHEW PANTELIS: So, 400,000 a year?

ANGUS TAYLOR: It's back, well, we need to see the numbers back to the levels they were at prior to this government, prior to COVID.

MATTHEW PANTELIS: Shouldn't we have a freeze for a few years to...

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, we are saying there will be a big cut in the first few years, there's no doubt about that. And we need then to get back to those sorts of levels we were at prior to COVID, which was sustainable when we were in government. You might remember there was a big surge of illegal immigration before we got into government back in 2012/2013, and we managed to get that back under control. And we need to get it back under control. That means a reasonable number on humanitarian intake. It means a permanent migration which is very focused on skilled migrants and a number that's sustainable and we've got to have a sustainable number of people here on temporary visas, particularly student visas and we've seen those numbers absolutely blow out in recent times and it's putting enormous pressure on the cost of housing, on our infrastructure, on all of our services. We can cope with a reasonable level, but we can't cope with the sorts of levels we've seen in the last two years.

MATTHEW PANTELIS: We've got a bi-election coming up on the weekend here in South Australia, the seat of Black former Liberal leader David Speirs seat. And a report today in the Times, a front page in fact, the Albo factor might be impacting the vote, Labor's vote, in that bi-election. Have you had a chance to study that? Did we see that recently in Queensland? Is that partly the result of what happened there?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, there's no doubt we've got the most incompetent and weakest government we've seen in this country since Whitlam. And Albanese, he's a weak Prime Minister and he's seen that way by Australians. I hear that everywhere I go now because he hasn't made the hard decisions.

MATTHEW PANTELIS: Do you think the polls reflect that?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, I certainly think what I see when I talk to Australians reflects that. There's no question about it. I'll leave commentary on the polls to others, but there's no doubt that people are seeing Albanese for what he is. He's a Prime Minister who hasn't been prepared to make the hard decisions, the hard decisions on migration, the hard decisions on government spending, the hard decisions that get inflation and interest rates down. I mean instead everything he does is focused on looking after his union official mates and putting Band-Aids on bullet wounds. I mean, they don't solve the underlying cost of living crisis. They give a few dollars here and a few dollars there. But meanwhile, Australian standard of living has been in free fall.

MATTHEW PANTELIS: So, you think the state by-election might be a litmus test on the federal situation?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, I mean, I'm not close enough to the state bi-election to know how much federal issues come into it. I think people are smart enough to see the difference between state and federal. That being said, there is no doubt right now and I've heard this even in the time I've been here in South Australia, there is no doubt that Albanese is on the nose and for very good reasons.

MATTHEW PANTELIS: The Australian Securities and Investment Commission taking Cbus, which is a union super fund to court over the, it seems slow, I don't want to say non-payment, but certainly very slow payment of superannuation to the families of deceased people. Are there questions there for how union funds are run, particularly Cbus in this case?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, absolutely there are. There's no doubt about that. I mean, the first principle for any investment fund, whether it's an industry super fund or any other fund, is are you looking after this money, recognising that it's not your money, it's the money of the investors, it's the money of Australian families, Australian households. It's their money and you need to treat it as such. And we see time and time again instances in the super sector where the funds are not treating it as though it's their money. We see the Labor Party think it's their money to use for their purposes. The union movement, some parts of the union movement, and the CFMEU of course is linked to Cbus, not all of your listeners will know that, but that's the deep links there. They're treating the money as though it's money to be used by the union movement for their purposes. No, it's Australians’ money. And to see that hard-working Australians who have a need for this money because of something that's happened in their lives can't get access to it, and a right to it, by the way, that's the most important thing, absolutely got a right to it, and they can't get access to it, it's completely unacceptable. They are serious questions that need to be answered here by Cbus, by Wayne Swan who runs Cbus and of course there's no secret that Wayne Swan has deep links into the union movement and the Labor Party. Is he looking after this money on behalf of Australians or looking after it on behalf of the Labor Party and the union movement?

MATTHEW PANTELIS: Would you seek to regulate industry funds in any way?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, the thing we did when we were in government, and we've been pushing this in Opposition too, is more transparency about how they perform and about how they spend Australians' money. Labor took away some of that transparency as soon as they came to government under pressure from union officials. We have pushed to re-establish that transparency to make sure Australians know that their money is being treated with respect. And sadly, we're seeing a failure on that, and we'll continue to hold those funds to account for those failures.

MATTHEW PANTELIS: Angus Taylor is my guest, the Shadow Federal Treasurer who's in the studio this morning.

I want to talk about AUKUS and the nuclear-powered submarine deal that we have with the US. We've got Richard Marles in Adelaide today on signing an agreement to start work at the shipyard. This involves recruiting workers, developing schedules, setting the basis for what is to come. Now the agreement’s in place, signed by Scott Morrison, Joe Biden and the British PM at the time, Boris Johnson. Donald Trump, what does that do? Should we be spending money and before we know what Trump's intentions are?

ANGUS TAYLOR: No, I think we should be continuing down this track. I mean, this is an incredibly important alliance. It's an incredibly important initiative. We initiated it in government, and it is bipartisan or has been so. No one should be looking for an excuse here to unwind it. In fact, quite the opposite. We should be reconfirming it and strengthening it, if anything. Trump knows that Asia is incredibly important to the United States, and AUKUS is about making sure we have a secure region. And Australia has an incredibly important role to play in that. So, we'll continue to push down that line. I certainly hope this Labor government does; it will be on the Labor government to make sure that AUKUS remains strong. It must do. It's so important to our safety and security and safety and security is the first job of any good government and so it's on the government to do that. They will need to build this relationship with the new administration in the United States fast. This is in our interest, not just our security interest, but our economic interest and we'll get to tariffs perhaps. But this government needs to make the right moves and have the right people in place to deliver those outcomes and AUKUS is central to that.

MATTHEW PANTELIS: Is Kevin Rudd the right person to have in place? Let me just play a quick snippet of this comment that has gone around the country in the last 24 hours [audio Kevin Rudd] “in the last four years has been run by a village idiot, competent in its national statecraft and the United States increasingly incompetent in its national statecraft under Trump.”

The UK ambassador, the US ambassador, the British one, has resigned after his comments that he made about Trump some time ago. Should Kevin Rudd throw in his white towel?

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, I tell you, the question for this government is can they deliver with the current team in place, including Kevin Rudd. And what we'll be looking to is the outcomes. So, what outcomes should we be getting as we work with this new administration? First, AUKUS, we've just talked about that, our national security objectives, and they should be aligned with the United States because we both want to see a safe and secure region where we live. But the second one is, can Labor negotiate an appropriate outcome on tariffs? It is clear that Trump is going down the path of putting tariffs in place. It is also clear is he's a negotiator and these can be negotiated as we did when we were in government. And so, the test for this government is can they get a good outcome on tariffs which are good for our exporters, good for those who export to the United States, prevent a tariff war around the world that impacts us. It's on Labor to make sure they deliver that outcome. We did it when we were in government with Trump. So that's the test. If Kevin Rudd's not the man to do it, he shouldn't be there.

MATTHEW PANTELIS: So, the rhetoric from Trump, you reckon that's just rhetoric. He's open to compromise. He'll take the deal.

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, that's a question for Labor and for Kevin Rudd. I mean, he clearly has to back away from those completely unacceptable comments. He needs to do that. The real test though is can they deliver the outcomes for the Australian people, a safe and secure region, and avoid imposition of unnecessary tariffs on our exporters who are crucial to this state and this country.

MATTHEW PANTELIS: If the tariffs do come in, what would you, if you were elected next year, how would you combat the inflationary effect of that, the effect to the economy on those tariffs? Because they'd be quite harsh ultimately to people exporting.

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, that's why the first priority has to be to negotiate with the Trump regime to ensure that we don't get tariffs imposed on our exporters. That's got to be the focus. I mean, if Labor fail on that then obviously we'll have to deal with that, but our focus will be…

MATTHEW PANTELIS: To be fair though that’s out of the government’s hands to a degree.

ANGUS TAYLOR: No, it’s not.

MATTHEW PANTELIS: You could talk about it but ultimately Trump's making the call.

ANGUS TAYLOR: You know this is the sort of government who will say it is out of their hands. You're absolutely right about that. There's no question about it. I mean we saw the Treasurer; I mean he's hopeless, isn't he? The Treasurer has come, he's already making excuses for not negotiating an appropriate outcome on the tariffs. Because all he does is commentate. He's a commentator, not an actor. I mean he's supposed to be the Treasurer of this nation. This Prime Minister is supposed to be the Prime Minister of this country, they should get in there and negotiate with a negotiator.

MATTHEW PANTELIS: But you've gone to Trump, say you're the Treasurer in six months' time, and you've gone to Trump and he says no, the tariffs stay, what are you going to do?

ANGUS TAYLOR: I'm not going to accept those sort of hypotheticals. You get in there and you sort it out and you make sure you get a good outcome for the first time.

MATTHEW PANTELIS: Well, that's hypothetical too, isn't it?

ANGUS TAYLOR: No, because we did it when we were in government. I mean, that is exactly the situation we were in in government, you remember there were quite famous discussions between the Prime Minister and Trump at the time exactly and you can do, you know, if you know understand business, my background is in business. I came out of a farming you know farming background and worked in business all of my career and farming is business let's face it and you get good outcomes for your business, you get good outcomes for your country, that's what your job is. This Treasurer and this Prime Minister don't seem to see it that way. They should already be working out how to get a good outcome for this country and if Kevin Rudd is the wrong bloke to help them to do that, they should deal with that, but that's a question for them. We need the outcomes, that's the key.

MATTHEW PANTELIS: Alright Angus Taylor really appreciate your time this morning, thank you.

ANGUS TAYLOR: Good on you Matt.

ENDS.