MARK LEVY, HOST: I’m delighted he’s made himself available, we don’t get a chance to catch up with many of the Labor ministers; I speak of course of Senator Tim Ayres, he’s the Minister for Industry and Innovation. He’s also the Minister for Science and he’s on the line from Melbourne. Senator, good morning to you.
SENATOR TIM AYRES, MINISTER FOR INDUSTRY AND INNOVATION AND MINISTER FOR SCIENCE: G’day Mark, Yes, it’s a miserable day here in Melbourne I can tell you.
HOST: Give it 10 minutes it might clear up (laughs).
AYRES: (Laughs) Maybe, maybe.
HOST: We’ve got something in common, we both support the South Sydney Rabbitohs so there’s a nice start.
AYRES: Yeah, what a wonderful club and it was such – I got to tell you – it’s pretty unusual to go to a game between South Sydney and the Roosters, have all those fans turn up and everybody leave the stadium happy. Like that is an unusual thing for a Rabbitohs-Roosters game. It was a ripper and for those of us who are Rabbitohs fans that have followed Alex Johnston’s career for so long it was a pretty emotional moment really.
HOST: Yeah, did you see my comments about the boss and they seem to have gone viral, and I didn’t see, but you were in the background there, you got on to the field too, Tim? Was it the right thing to do?
AYRES: I was there stretching my legs on the paddock. I tell you what, this PM, it would be a wonder if he didn’t go on to the paddock in that event, you know, just like every Souths fan.
HOST: Yeah.
AYRES: Plenty of Roosters on the paddock too.
HOST: Did you get to the other end of the field though and realise, hang on, everyone is back in the sheds, it was probably pointless to do anyway?
AYRES: We were there with the fans sharing a moment, you know, and for Anthony, when the club was kicked out of the competition there were few people who stood by the club who actually did the work. People like Anthony, George Piggins, the other loyal Rabbits fans who stuck by the club and were on the board, that fought to get that club back into the NRL was a massive people power achievement.
HOST: Yeah it certainly was.
AYRES: And Albo was part of that and he’s just genuinely emotional about it. Had a brief chat with some of the players including Alex after the game, you know, I mean the game result wasn’t what we wanted but what people are going to remember is his achievement and really looking back, all that way to the fight back to get the Rabbitohs back in the NRL, that’s a people power Australia and it’s a Sydney achievement.
HOST: Yeah, it’s a night I’ll never forget that’s for sure. Let’s get into the politics, Tim. This National Cabinet meeting today to address the fuel problems, so the Prime Minister is going to have a chat to the Premiers, the Chief Ministers of the respective territories. Is it a case of too little too late though, Tim?
AYRES: No, it’s making sure – all the work that we’re doing at the Commonwealth level and you’ve seen the states have their own processes – so Chris Minns has convened a process there in New South Wales, I think Roger Cook the Premier of Western Australia was the first Premier leading off the state level processes, focussed on fuel, diesel in particular but petrol as well, but also questions like fertiliser for our farming sector. Working through all that, it’s just going to be so much more effective, there’s been good communication already but so much more effective if we’re doing it together. I’ll leave announcements that come out of that to the PM and Premiers, but what Australians want to see is every level of government and the business community, everybody working together in the national interest. If you’ve seen the news overnight, escalations in the crisis in the Middle East keep occurring. We are determined to work effectively as a government, not complacent about any of this, to deliver the best response for Australians.
HOST: Well that’s the thing, isn’t it, there are a lot of people out there hurting at the moment, Tim, and we talk about cost of living, we talk about power prices, we’re now talking about petrol prices, the farmers need diesel, we’re at a time when they’re sowing crops and harvesting, and the like. I just want to pick you up on something you said there, mate, effective communication. Two weeks ago you essentially said right wing politicians like that of One Nation were blowing this fuel issue up making a bigger deal of it than it needed. Do you regret those comments, Tim?
AYRES: Well, no. I don’t level off on regrets about these things, Mark. I say what I mean, and people can make their judgments about it. There was a political policy reason that I advanced our view and also a personal one. From an Australian Government perspective, what I wanted to do and the rest of the Government want to do is to assure Australians that we should only be buying the fuel that we need. It is true that the shock on the system has meant while we’ve got better fuel reserves than we’ve had for a generation, for 15 years at least, that is not the same as fuel arriving everywhere in the system particularly where there’s independent and smaller retailers. But that situation is made worse if farmers or miners or businesses are buying more than what they need, so an individually rational decision, I’m worried about this so I should go and buy more fuel, hurts your neighbour, hurts businesses, hurts other farmers, so it’s the right thing to do for the Government to say, hang on, we’ve got enough fuel, we’re working hard on this issue, Australians should work together. Personally, the reason I reacted so angrily to that question is because I’ve been around manufacturing for 30 years. When two thirds of our refineries closed down under the last Government I wasn’t a passive observer, I was fighting with the previous Government about those questions. I was up and about on the side of blue-collar workers and our refinery capability and people like Angus Taylor were telling us not to worry about it.
HOST: But Tim -
AYRES: I was furious, right…
HOST: I think the problem here Tim is – and I’m pointing the finger here at the Opposition as well because yes they were in power during a time when we needed to do something about our fuel security and our fuel reserves and you know the late great Jim Molan used to talk about it. But I think it’s unhelpful at the moment when we have Chris Bowen the Energy Minister – surely you would concede this – standing at the dispatch box in question time saying, no crisis, no crisis everything is sweet, but then all of a sudden come the Thursday we’ve got a national emergency, we need to have a National Cabinet meeting, all the while people are pulling in to servos, in parts of New South Wales they’re paying over $3 a litre, we’ve got farmers ringing up radio stations like this one saying, Mark I can’t get diesel, I can’t do my job, I can’t provide the food for the supermarkets and from the food bowl that keep this country. So when we talk about effective communication, Tim, do you think we’re being a bit all over the place or what?
AYRES: Well, we’re working through this as best as we can with the national interest in mind. You mentioned Jim Molan, I think that’s right, I mean Jim and I didn’t agree on much, but even before I was in the Parliament, you know, Jim was the only Liberal, the only one during that period of Government who took that argument up to the Government and Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison and Angus Taylor ignored him. You know he was just a voice in the wilderness. I was leading one of the key blue collar unions in New South Wales and we were laughed at for arguing that we needed to focus on resilience and refining capability and fuel reserves and for that matter, gas reservation, something that this Government announced before Christmas, I mean it was just seen by those Liberals in Government there saw it as their job to protect the gas industry and not Australian manufacturing.
HOST: All right. Let’s canvass a few other issues because I know we are pressed with time and there’s a fair bit to have a chat about, and again I want to thank you for jumping on. The interest rate decision this week, the RBA said local factors were the key in their decision to increase the interest rate to 4.1 per cent or the cash rate to 4.1 per cent. There’s potential for further increases. I had a read of the front page of The Australian, the Treasurer will be delivering a speech today. It sounds like there’s a concession that, yes, the Government needs to do something about spending, is that right?
AYRES: Certainly this budget, like every one of our budgets, will be a cost of living budget but inflation matters. We will be – I’ll leave Jim to speak to that of course – but this will be a budget that is framed around those cost of living issues. It is very tough for households who are facing increases in mortgage interest payments as well as increases in fuel costs. The Treasury analysis that Jim was talking about earlier this morning does, you know, a range of scenarios does say that the impact of the crisis in the Middle East is not going to be good for inflation. And that means, you know, the Labor approach here is, let’s be disciplined about our approach to spending and we’ve retired more Government debt than anybody else. We’ve delivered Government surpluses. We have banked savings rather than spending 100 per cent of the savings which is what the previous Government did, so I’ll argue that we’ve been disciplined on those issues. But also we’re delivering cost of living support for households. You know, extending Medicare.
HOST: What about electricity bills?
AYRES: And rental supports.
HOST: What about electricity bills, what about you know everything else that’s going up and up and up? Supermarkets, you know Tim, I’m a single bloke, live by myself, I usually spend about 150 bucks a week on some groceries, meat, veggies and the like. I’m now spending over 200 bucks. So the thing that really frustrates me, Tim, and admittedly I’m a conservative commentator and a conservative radio station, and we’re going to agree to disagree on things, but one thing that really gets my back up, mate, and what I think really gets the backs up of the listeners is when the Government of the day tells us they’re doing something to address cost living pressures and I look at my bank balance and I think to myself, I have never spent more money on the day-to-day necessities of my life. So I just hope the Government understands that. While you’re saying that we’re acting, we’re providing cost of living relief, the general consensus and in the real world, mate, we’re saying to you in response, no you’re not, because everything is getting more and more expensive.
AYRES: Well can’t both things be true too, Mark? Like I could go through a long list of all of the cost of the living supports that we’ve provided, and I won’t do that, but they are material and they have a real effect. The work that we’ve done in the industrial relations system to lift wages particularly for low wage workers has a real effect. But you’re right, when you go to the supermarket check-out, you know, it costs more than it used to. And electricity bills are a challenge for every household. I get that completely.
HOST: But are they really a challenge to – are they really a challenge though when we live in a country, right, where we’ve got an abundance of natural resources, we’ve got coal, we’ve got gas, we’ve got uranium.
AYRES: Yep.
HOST: But we don’t use it to our own advantage, mate. We put it on ships, we sell it to other countries, we buy it back at a premium. Now, name me a business case where that says to you, oh what a great idea, let’s sell it to other countries and buy it back at a premium. It seems like we’ve gone down the path of, you know, action on climate change, and the transition to renewable energy, which okay I get that’s what you’re doing, but it’s not working at the moment because we’ve never paid more for electricity in this country.
AYRES: Well, two things, two things Mark on this. Firstly, there’s a big national effort here to rebuild our electricity system, that’s a whole of country effort, that’s in the interests of not just households but industry. We want to see prices come down, we’re working hard to achieve that. Our coal exports, we are exporting to countries that don’t have Australia’s natural advantages. They can’t move as fast as we do to low cost solar and rooftop solar. But so household batteries all of those opportunities in your listening area, people taking up solar and household batteries at a rate of knots are not available to these other countries.
HOST: That’s if you can afford the – 7, 8,000 dollars to whack them on the roof that’s the problem.
AYRES: There’s no easy answers.
HOST: Yep.
AYRES: But I just say, those countries if you’re Japan or Korea who are receiving our coal and our gas, they don’t have our natural advantages of space, of limitless and low cost sun and wind. You know, and in a security sense, the Iranian regime can blockade the Strait of Hormuz but they can’t stop the Australian sun shining on Australian suburban rooftops supplying low cost solar for households. Vladimir Putin might blockade gas to the European Union but he can’t stop Australian wind powering Australian turbines –
HOST: All right.
AYRES: – that deliver power to businesses like Tomago Aluminium.
HOST: Yep, all right.
AYRES: That’s the challenge, it’s not so much – I understand what you’re saying – the question is what do we do about it and what we should do about it is deliver the lowest cost, most efficient position so that Australian blue-collar jobs can grow.
HOST: All right. I’ve only got time for one more and I appreciate you’ve given up a fair bit of time this morning. Just on the whole Budget coming up in May, right, so we talk about the Treasurer indicating today with his comments and potentially in this speech that it looks like he’s going to do something on Government spending. Your ministerial portfolio is research and development and on that area that could see cuts. You’re responsible for it so is it a sector that as a nation, Australia has a strong history and great success in, can we afford to cut programs and limit grants in this space when it’s one of the few things we still do on an Australian soil; my final question to you, Tim.
AYRES: Yeah, a quick answer, every Minister has to give in the lead up to Budget, you have to wait until Budget night. The real answer, we spend $15 billion every year at the Commonwealth level on Australia’s research and development system through the universities, CSIRO, research grants, all of that activity. My job is to make sure that is targeted in the national interest to areas that deliver economic growth and more resilience and more national security, that’s my job. It’s not about whether it’s bigger or smaller, it’s $15 billion that’s being spent now, like a billion dollars every year on the CSIRO, they are going through a tough process at the moment of making sure that all of their research programs meet the national science priorities and are about delivering new factories and new investments in suburban and regional Australia. There’s no funding cuts to the CSIRO, in fact we’ve tipped another $233 million in MYEFO just before Christmas. But there is the effort that your listeners would expect that we’re pushing in towards priorities that meet the needs of suburban and regional Australians and meet the national interest test.
HOST: All right. Well, Tim there’s a lot of people who are not happy with some of the answers but good on you for fronting up and answering some of the questions. We can’t agree on everything.
AYRES: Any time, Mark, and –
HOST: There’s a lot of pain out there, mate and you understand that, and I just think we all need to start rowing in the right direction and just wake up to ourselves on a few issues because, mate –
AYRES: And everybody’s – I agree with you – and even where there’s different views we’ve got to do better at people talking to each other and not shouting at each other.
HOST: Yeah, true.
AYRES: I’m very happy to come on your program any time you like and talk about these issues when they are going well and when they’re not.
HOST: Good on you, mate, you’re a good man. Thanks for joining us and we’ll do it again sometime soon.
AYRES: Good on you mate, see ya.
HOST: Thank you. That’s Tim Ayres, Senator Tim Ayres, the Minister for Industry and Innovation and the Minister for Science.
ENDS.
