GARY ADSHEAD, HOST: The Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister and of course, the Member for Perth federally is Patrick Gorman and he joins us now. Thanks very much for your time, Patrick.
PATRICK GORMAN, ASSISTANT MINISTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER: Thanks for having me on the programme.
ADSHEAD: There's lots for people on welfare in this Budget, but what do you say is in this Budget for everyone else who holds down a job, struggles to pay a mortgage, to pay the grocery bills and all the other costs of living?
GORMAN: Well, I'd point those people to firstly what we're doing when it comes to the energy rebate, $350 rebate for half a million households in Western Australia and for 90,000 small businesses in Western Australia. And it was really important for us that for whether they be Synergy or Horizon customers, that we invest in small businesses as well, giving them some instant relief when it goes to some of those other pressures on cost of living. One of the things we're responsible for is Medicare and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. To have made really big changes, the biggest ever change to bulk-billing incentives to make sure that more GPs can see a patient without them having to pay any gap fee. For my electorate of Perth alone, about 63,000 families will be eligible for that benefit. Now, when it comes to questions around the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, what we've done, and we've had quite a bit of feedback about this, I'm sure you've spoken about on your programme, but what we have done is make sure that when people go to fill a script, they can fill it for two months, not one. That's halving the cost of prescription medicines for millions and millions of Australians, including here in the West.
ADSHEAD: Okay, obviously one of the headlines is the surplus. What do you think, though? I mean, in all honesty, given that we're going to go back into deficits, according to the forecast in the Budget papers, was that just for a headline?
GORMAN: We're really conscious that we had to be very careful in what we spent. And you heard from the Treasurer last night that we also went and looked for savings to make sure that the Budget we put forward for the 23-24 Financial Year wasn't adding to inflation. And so delivering that small surplus, and we acknowledge it is modest, but we know that's important as well in showing that we are committed to spending restraint. But we also know that there are people who need support and that's why we've been pleased to provide a little bit more when it comes to those on Youth Allowance and Jobseeker, and for those who rely on Commonwealth Rent Assistance, which is about for my electorate, about 10,000 households rely on that payment. And so that will help them.
ADSHEAD: Just on Jobseeker: obviously $2.85 a day it works out to. I mean, how is that really going to help someone?
GORMAN: This is a significant increase of $40 a fortnight for those on Jobseeker. Now, we acknowledge that it is very tough for people who are surviving on those payments. It's one of the reasons that for those who are long-term unemployed, and we know that it becomes harder to find a job once you sort of get over that age of around 55. It's why we've lowered the threshold for those additional payments that come in previously for people who are over 60. We know that there's pressure on people and this was what we could afford to do in a responsible way, but also to show that we recognise that those people on those payments, the indexation that had been there, wasn't enough to keep up with their cost of living. So we've put that extra $40 a fortnight in.
ADSHEAD: But it's a bit I mean, a lot of people are saying it's just a token gesture because your Government set up a committee which recommended a much bigger increase to those people on Jobseeker. Why haven't you done it?
GORMAN: We've done what we thought was responsible. And if I look at some of the other recommendations of that committee that you refer to, there was also recommendations about making sure that we do more for single parents of children over the age of eight. We've done that. Again, making it easier for single parents. Really, that is tough. If you're parenting, that is one of the toughest jobs. If you're doing it solo, it's harder. If you're doing it on income support, it's harder again. And so we wanted to support those people. And so when we had to make the tough choices, and this is a Budget where we've had to make difficult decisions, when we had to make those tough choices, we've tried to support those who are most vulnerable and need it most, but also doing it in an economically responsible way. Because one of the other things we know is that if we just add to the inflation pressures, if we just add to inflation, then that actually erodes the living standards of those on the lowest incomes the most. Inflation hurts those on low incomes the most. And so we didn't want to be fuelling inflation pressures, which actually makes these problems even worse.
ADSHEAD: And you're confident this hasn't done that? Because clearly, with about $21 billion spent on welfare and other areas, including, of course, Medicare, and it will free up people's money somehow. So won't that go into the economy and therefore hit inflation?
GORMAN: I refer to what I said earlier. The advice we've got is that our cost living measures, our energy price relief measures, the earlier action we took to keep energy prices low last year, opposed by those in the Coalition, including the West Australian Liberal MPs, they will actually contribute to a lowering of inflation by about three quarters of a percent. Now, we can't grab every good idea or every worthy initiative in every Budget, but we think for this one, we've got the balance right, prioritising important investments in things like Medicare, which benefit all of us because we all benefit from a healthy society. If we're fortunate enough to have good health, then that is good. But it's also good when people can get the healthcare they need, when they need it. A more productive workforce, a more harmonious society. It's a good thing. So I think those investments, again, are good for your listeners, good for our economy, and the sort of thing that where governments have a choice of where to put additional revenue, it's a reasonable place to invest.
ADSHEAD: Obviously, you talked about tough decisions. Wouldn't one of the tough decisions in this Budget been to have scrapped the stage three tax cuts? Now, there's no real reference to them in the Budget, but they kick in in 2024. And as a comparison, we give $2.85 a day to those on Jobseeker. But though the stage three tax cuts will give anyone earning about $200,000 a year a $9,000 tax break, is that fair? In a 'cost of living' Budget.
GORMAN: And those tax cuts have been in the Budget Forward Estimates for a number of years now. They are in our Forward Estimates as well, as you would see. And you know that I and the Labor Party supported those stages one, two and three tax cut proposals. Our position hasn't changed on that. I know there are others who are putting forward ideas, but the ideas that we have grabbed and the direction we have chosen is in this Budget.
ADSHEAD: Okay, so do you expect that that will be reviewed before the next Budget?
GORMAN: No, our position hasn't changed on those tax cuts.
ADSHEAD: Do you think it will change? Could it change?
GORMAN: You could ask me every way you want, Gary. Our position hasn't changed. And again, those measures are in the Forward Estimates of the Budget that we handed down last night. And so while people might have other ideas about revenue measures, the revenue measures we've adopted, and we've been very upfront about this, is where there has been an increase because of strong wages growth and strong employment, we've had an increase in revenue. We've put most of that back into the Budget bottom line. 82% in this financial year alone. That's a sensible thing to do. So where we've had those choices, that's what we've done. Where we've had extra money, we've been able to find through savings and careful financial management, we've invested in priorities such as helping the most vulnerable, investing in Medicare and investing in those big opportunities of the future, such as renewables.
ADSHEAD: Alright, so you don't have a view that perhaps stripping out $60 billion in costs on third stage tax cuts over the next four years might actually help in terms of the trillion dollar debt that it'll hit around the same time?
GORMAN: Well, I think I'm pretty proud of what we've done on that trillion dollars of debt that you mentioned that we did inherit. We inherited trillion dollars of debt and no plan to pay for it. When Scott Morrison, Peter Dutton and the Liberal Party handed over the books. What see in this Budget is a $300 billion improvement in the bottom line between now and 2033. That's a huge change. That means that taxpayers in Western Australia will be spending less of their taxpayer dollars servicing the interest of that debt. It means that we have more capacity on the Government's books. It means that we can make sure that we can continue to do that repair job while investing in things that are important to the Government and to your listeners.
ADSHEAD: All right, last question. There's about $160 billion in there for resourcing staffing in politicians' offices in Canberra. Why is that?
GORMAN: What we want to make sure is that when people come to any Government agency, be it my office on Beaufort Street in Inglewood or Centrelink or the National Disability Insurance Scheme or indeed Department of Veterans Affairs, that people get the service they expect, that's important to me as a local member. It's important to us as a Government to make sure that people get those services. I'll leave the Special Minister of State, Don Farrell, to announce the exact details of that policy. But it is important to us that frontline services, and I think about the work that I do as a local member for Perth, it's important that we do that to the absolute best of our ability. Whether it be that people need help getting a passport on time, getting help with family reunion, getting help with accessing the National Disability Insurance Scheme, that's work that I do day in, day out. It's work that I think my community values and I want to make sure that myself and my colleagues can do it to the best of our ability.
ADSHEAD: Assistant Minister Gorman, thank you very much for joining us this morning.
GORMAN: Thank you very much, Gary.