“Fundamentally faithful”: PM pitches to SA voters
Prime Minister Tony Abbott hit the Adelaide airwaves this morning, defending his budget strategy.
In what appears to be a response to yesterday’s negative poll results, the PM chose several commercial radio outlets around Australia to remind listeners that fixing the budget would be a long-term process.
On the question of the GST, Abbott said he would leave any decisions on the rate and scope of the broad-based consumption tax to the states.
He also wanted to focus on federal funding for health and education, insisting that there no cuts, just a “slowing of the rate of growth”, suggesting the budget should not have been a surprise to the state premiers.
“Before the election we said, yes, we would honour the Rudd/Gillard health and education funding commitments for the then current estimates years (2013-207),” Abbott told FIVEaa.
“The growth in funding in the out years (2018 onwards) will be at a slower rate.
“The premiers knew exactly what they were in store for.”
Abbott repeated the message that the slowing down of expenditure growth did not amount to a cut.
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“There are no cuts to pensions in this budget.
“No cuts to health, no cuts to education; in fact we put back $1.2 billion into education funding that Labor took out.
“We have been fundamentally faithful – we have stopped the boats, will build the roads of the twenty first century, axed the carbon tax and we’ll fix the budget.”
When asked about the GST and debate on whether the rate should be increased or its scope widened to raise extra funds for the states, Abbott had a two-pronged response.
“The states are the sole beneficiary of the GST; if they want to change the GST, it’s up to them,” he said.
“I want taxes to be lower, simpler and fairer.
“I want more efficient government.”
The co-payment charge of $7 for a visit to the GP, however, wasn’t in the list of “to-do” commitments prior to the election and last night Treasurer Joe Hockey accepted that it amounted to a new tax.
This morning, Abbott told South Australian listeners he wasn’t the first PM to come up with such an idea.
“Bob Hawke brought in a modest co-payment for the PBS and one for Medicare.”
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Abbott, however, admitted that the Hawke decision contributed to the move by Paul Keating to challenge the long-time Labor Leader.
“Paul Keating scrapped it when he became PM,” he said.
The 20 minute interview ended with Abbott reminding listeners that “we aren’t doing it because we wanted to do it, we’re doing it because we have to”.
Audiences can expect more appearances by the embattled PM as he tries to get his message across.
A former State Premier added to the mixed messages today by declaring the GST increase a necessity.
Former Victorian Premier John Brumby urges state and territory leaders to make a “courageous” push for a hike in the GST.
Brumby, who chairs the soon-to-be-abolished COAG Reform Council, said GST reform was inevitable and “looks more and more like the best option that we’ve got”.
“The real debate is about the nature of the increase,” he said in a speech at Melbourne University on Monday night.
“Is it base? Is it rate? Is it both?”
Compensation for low income earners and pensioners also needed to be considered, he said.
Brumby admitted that lobbying for a GST hike would be a “courageous” and “difficult” decision for premiers to make.
“If I was a state premier I think I’d be putting up my hand to say `I’ll have the GST, thank you very much’,” he said.
– with AAP
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