Hon. J.B.

HOCKEY
Treasurer
TRANSCRIPT
ALAN JONES ON 2GB
MONDAY, 31 MARCH 2014

E&OE.
ALAN JONES:
Treasurer good morning.
TREASURER:
Good morning Alan.
ALAN JONES:
Well, where do you start?
TREASURER:
Well the fact is that everyone, everyone in the community has to help to do the heaving
lifting and if the heavy lifting is left on the shoulders of one group or one age group or one
demographic, then it will crush them. So we all need to do the heavy lifting and that is
effective.
ALAN JONES:
We know that we need to but youve seen the polls today. 56% of those polls said to you the
Treasurer, dont touch welfare.
TREASURER:
Well I suspect if we go to every individual and say, look would you be prepared to receive
less welfare? theyd say no. If went to them and said would you be prepared to pay more
for healthcare or pay higher taxes or whatever the case might be, every individual will say
no and this is a call to arms for the country.
ALAN JONES:
Thats why I am talking to you today; this program is going around the country, thats why I
am talking to you today. It is a call to arms; were all going to have to cop it.

TREASURER:
That is the only way we can just maintain our quality of life Alan. I mean of course the
numbers are terrible, and the legacy left by our predecessors is quite awful and horrific in
some cases but the fact is, we are now forming a judgment about the quality of life that we
want, not just for our children but for ourselves and the dignity that we want to have as we
age and as we raise our children, the quality of education, the quality of healthcare and it is
not about aspiring to be better; its about aspiring to maintain what we have because Labor
locked in programs that are in their current form unsustainable so
ALAN JONES:
So what are you going to do with these? In the forward estimates, I was just explaining to my
listeners, Joe Hockey is going to bring down a Budget and then in that Budget he has to
budget for the next four years so you can see where it is all going. Well of course this other
lot have written educational expenditure which will increase three and a half per cent above
inflation, health spending 4.2 per cent above inflation. This is down the track, defence
projected to grow in real terms by 13 per cent, the NDIS to grow by 125 per cent. Now these
are all unaffordable. What do you do?
TREASURER:
Well you start making the hard decisions. So now for example in that final year, as you
correctly say Alan, what happens is, the Government publishes the year, the four years of
budget forecasts and projections and the bottom line over those four years. So now the fifth
year, which has never been published is coming into our budget cycle. The fifth year was the
year that Labor kept, they basically created a tsunami of expenditure in the fifth year. So what
they say to everyone is they promise all these programs like NDIS and Gonski and hospital
funding and theyd only show you four years of funding but in the fifth year was the massive
increase and in effect what they have indicated is that there is, what the truth is now that we
have identified, is that the deficit actually blows out substantially in the fifth year even when
you have taxes, income taxes at a higher than average rate, even with above trend growth and
even with an assumption that all the trends will continue. So the Budget worsens even though
the economy gets better.
ALAN JONES:
Well lets, you are dead right. Lets just take the current one, which is a big enough headache.
You currently have got expenditure at 26 per cent of GDP, way above the average of the last
20 years because you have inherited this expenditure from the Gillard and Rudd
Governments but your receipts are projected at 23.1 per cent, I mean this does not add up,
expenditure at 26 per cent of GDP, receipts at 23 per cent of GDP. How do you fill the gap?
TREASURER:
Well theres two things here. Its not only just about filling the gap, which is a challenge
because Labor increased, massively increased expenditure during the Global Financial Crisis.

The problem was they didnt bring it back. They never decreased it the way they promised
and theyve just maintained it at around similar levels over the long term but the revenue as
youve correctly pointed out, is an increase. Now weve got to get the balance right between
the rise in revenue but weve got to reduce government expenditure and we have to do that
across the board
ALAN JONES:
By billions, by billions
TREASURER:
Of course by billions. I mean
ALAN JONES:
Well the health budget. Health all around, tens of billions, tens, hundreds of billions the
health budget is $130 billion. Let me start with a simple proposition, you and I shouldnt be
getting one cent of taxpayers money for health.
TREASURER:
Well I accept that. I often, if I go to a doctor for, just a bulk bill doctor, I offer to pay and they
wont accept it.
ALAN JONES:
Yeah they wont accept it. Theres a chance to do something about that. I mean aged
pensions, okay, $40 billion a year, rising by almost 7 per cent a year. Should someone with a
million dollar house get the aged pension?
TREASURER:
Well Alan I know where you are coming from. I cant respond before the Budget but I think
these are debates that need to be had. I mean the aged pension, we are ageing as a population
- thats a good thing, we are living longer but the challenge for us, as I said to you just before
that G20 meeting and certainly the comments took off then, the question for us is how do we
age with dignity? How do we give people the chance, if they want to, to keep working or to
retire with dignity but at the same time ensure that aged care services, health services and
importantly for those most in need, the aged pension, continue to be affordable for the nation.
ALAN JONES:
See Bob Hawke on my program all those years ago, I remember him clearly when he stopped
the notion of free university education and imposed a HECS, he said Alan why should
someone from Mt Druitt be taxed to the eyeballs to pay for someone whose going to
university when these guys wont even make it through the university gate? So a HECS, you
go and you are going to pay. So where is the HECS for example in healthcare?

TREASURER:
Well thats right. I mean there is private health insurance and people are paying their way and
we welcome that and we support private health insurance. Of course the previous government
was effectively trying to close private health insurance down but we want private health
insurance to flourish. But as I said Alan, it is not just about the Budget. The second part of it
is the economy, how do we keep the economy growing? How do we actually improve growth
to get unemployment down because unless we improve economic growth, unemployment is
going to keep on rising.
ALAN JONES:
Well thats what Reagan did. Reagan decided hed cut taxes and everyone said, Oh god you
are going to go broke cutting taxes and he said, but if I can grow the economy and increase
productivity, well pay our way. So its that balance isnt it?
TREASURER:
Well it is a balance and one of the things we have to do, which I came to - I think a historic
agreement with the States on Friday was, Governments can no longer afford to have all their
capital invested in assets that are mature and that mums and dads through their
superannuation or directly, have the capacity to buy, so that it still remains in Australian
hands, it is still done for Australia, the asset is still providing it, but the Governments can take
their precious capital and put it into new infrastructure that is going to build the new economy
and that new economy is going to grow at a speed that allows us to make our lifestyle
affordable. This is hugely important Alan, but we have got to make those hard decisions.
ALAN JONES:
Alright now, we have got to go, we will talk to again you before the Budget but this is going
around Australia. What is, if you had a one sentence message for all Australians of all ages
listening to this now, on today, and well talk to you again before you bring down this budget,
but it is now March because the public have got to get ready for this, youve got a mess and
we have to tidy it up? What would be your one sentence message?
TREASURER:
If we want to maintain and improve our quality of life, then all of us, without exclusion, all of
us need to help to do the heavy lifting.
ALAN JONES:
Okay well talk again soon; well keep talking between now and May.
TREASURER:
Thats cool, thanks Alan.
ALAN JONES:

Joe Hockey.
[END]