NEIL MITCHELL: Mr Morrison, good morning.
PRIME MINISTER: Good morning, Neil.
MITCHELL: Prime Minister, thanks for your time. Health, health in Victoria. People are dying, waiting for ambulances. They’re in pain and dying, waiting for surgery. They’re sitting in emergency departments for days. The system, according to doctors and nurses, is broken and needs urgent funding. If you agree to this state government request for 50/50 funding, instead of 45/50, how much more money would we get?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, it’s not clear that the Victorian public would get anything more because what we’re talking about is just the Commonwealth paying more and the State Government paying less. I mean, the same amount would be spent, it would just be the Commonwealth paying more.
MITCHELL: Okay. Well, can’t can’t can’t that be negotiated? We’re in trouble here and it’s all our money.
PRIME MINISTER: And that’s we’ve, and that’s why, Neil, we’ve been significantly increasing our investment on health in the states. We’ve increased our investment year on year on year. We’re at record levels of investment on public hospitals, mental health, as well has been an area that Premier Andrews and I have both increased our investment on mental health, which is a very serious issue here in Victoria. We have the Royal Commission here and we’ve worked together strongly to increase our investment in those areas and on the pandemic as you know, we have had a 50/50 arrangement.
MITCHELL: Well, how does that work? Did that mean more money or not? Did that mean more money or not?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, that was just the sharing of the total costs.
MITCHELL: So did more money go in? Did more money go in during the pandemic or was it, as you say, you just paid more of the same bill? Or did more money go in?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, there was the total bill and we just shared it 50/50.
MITCHELL: So it wasn’t more money. Why can’t we simply negotiate a deal? So this is all our bloody money and people are dying. We don’t care if it’s state or federal. Why can’t a deal be negotiated? Where you say, okay, we’ll give you 50/50, but we increase the overall bill. We do not re-
PRIME MINISTER: Okay.
MITCHELL: Yes, sorry.
PRIME MINISTER: This is what we have done since we were first elected. We used to spend $13.3 billion on hospitals in Victoria. That has risen, this next budget year, to $27.2 billion and out to 2025-26, this is right across the country, I should stress, that it goes to $32.7 billion. So we’ve already more than doubled what we’re spending on public hospitals all over the country.
MITCHELL: But it’s not working. It’s not working Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER: And so I get that point. So that’s why it just doesn’t stop there, Neil. Out to 2025-26, it goes from $27 billion to $32.7 billion. So we keep increasing every single year what we’re investing –
MITCHELL: So –
PRIME MINISTER: … in the states on delivering –
Okay.
PRIME MINISTER: … to public hospitals and that has seen our rate of growth – I mean, if the states had matched the increase in the funding we’ve been providing the public hospitals, there would be even more money available.
MITCHELL: Okay. So we’ve –
PRIME MINISTER: The Commonwealth has been spending more and more and more and state governments have been increasing their spending on public hospitals at a much slower rate than the Commonwealth.
MITCHELL: So this dysfunctional system we’ve got with people dying and people suffering, that is the fault of the state government, is it?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, they run public hospitals.
MITCHELL: Not your job?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, no, no that’s not that’s not fair, Neil. As I said, our funding increases to $32.7 billion. We’ve already doubled it and we’ve had our rate of increase in spending on public hospitals has outstripped state governments right across the country. So we’ve increased our heavy lifting on hospitals every single year we’ve been in government and will continue to over the course of the Budget.
MITCHELL: So does that really mean there’s nothing you can do? We’ve got this crisis in health that is worrying the medical profession and is worrying the patients. And I just keep saying people have died and there’s nothing the Prime Minister can really do.
PRIME MINISTER: No, I wouldn’t say that. I mean, I’ve just told you we’re increasing it –
MITCHELL: But it’s not working, why can’t, why can’t we just sit? Can you sit down with Daniel Andrews and work out some sort of deal where more money gets spent whether and you fund some of it?
PRIME MINISTER: But, Neil, I don’t know if you’re picking up my point. We are increasing the spending. The overall amount of spending increases, it’s going to increase from $27 to $32 billion –
MITCHELL: When’s it coming?
PRIME MINISTER: … was given (inaudible) year. Well it goes to –
MITCHELL: Where’s it going?
PRIME MINISTER: …run their hospitals. That’s where it goes. So –
MITCHELL: Well, it’s not working.
PRIME MINISTER: … we are there. We are investing. We have increased our investment. Now we don’t run them, but we certainly fund them.
MITCHELL: Well, do you remember Kevin Rudd in 2007 famously said on health, the buck stops with me. The buck stops with me. Where does the buck stop on health now?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, the public hospitals it stops with the state governments, on issues like Medicare and on mental health and things like that, there’s shared responsibility. And when it comes to funding, you know, the NDIS and aged care and all of that, that’s a federal responsibility and that’s what we fund. But you know, the thing about our federation is we’ve all got to take responsibility for the things we do and we’ve increased our funding for public hospitals, we’ve already doubled it, and it’s going from $27 billion to $32.7 billion. So we’re increasing our investment. Now, that’s on top of the significant investments of over $40 billion we put in extra just during the pandemic alone to ensure that our hospital system has survived this pandemic. And I’ve got to say here in Victoria, like in New South Wales and many other states and territories, but particularly in the two big states where the biggest pressure from COVID came, we shared that burden 50/50 and that enabled the Victorian hospital system to come through. So I –
MITCHELL: So, why can’t we do that all, I don’t, I don’t understand why that can’t be done again? Why you can’t say, okay, we’ll give you this extra money, but it goes straight into hospitals.
PRIME MINISTER: Yeah, well at the moment we’ve got a plan that takes us out which increases our investment by more than $5 billion a year. So I think that’s a very big investment. And the growth in our investment deal, as I’ve said a few times now, has greatly outstripped the increases we’ve seen from state governments. See it’s important we both do our share and we’ve been, we’ve been doing that our increases in funding for many years now.
MITCHELL: I take your point there, but I also come back to the point it’s not working. How do we fix it? It’s not working for the people, the patients, the medical staff. It is not working. How do we fix it?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, state governments obviously need to ensure that their hospitals are run well and we’ll keep increasing the funding, which we are doing each and every year. One of the things that state governments don’t welcome from federal governments is when we give them money they don’t like us to tell them how they should be running the hospitals. And, you know, I mean, they sort of want the funding, but then they want complete autonomy about how the money is spent. And that’s often one of the big challenges we have with working with the states. They’ll take the federal taxpayer’s money, but they won’t take any suggestions about how the money should be spent and how we can improve the hospital system.
MITCHELL: What about you get you get that if you get back into Government, you have some sort of summit or something with all the health people, the people involved, and try and restructure the system and make it work better. State, federal nurses, doctors, ambos, everybody.
PRIME MINISTER: This is what happens, I’ve got to tell you, Neil, almost every single day. The Secretary of Health, our Health Ministers, meet on a very regular basis, always trying to improve this, always trying to improve this. And the demands on the system they’re very strong. And in some states, it’s managed managed better than others. And I’m not making any criticism.
MITCHELL: Well –
PRIME MINISTER: Our job is to continue to increase our investment in the hospital system, which we are. That that investment growth has outstripped what has been done by the states. And I can tell you why we can do it Neil, and this is the key point. If we don’t keep our economy strong, then you can’t fund hospitals. If you don’t keep your economy strong, you can’t support Medicare. And so my job, particularly as Prime Minister and this is where the buck does stop, is to ensure that we continue to have an economy which is shielded from the massive economic pressures that are coming from all around the world. So we can pay for hospitals because that’s what’s at risk at this election, if our economy does not continue to be strong, then the states won’t have the GST revenue, the Federal Government won’t have the income tax revenue. Small businesses will be dealing with customers that won’t be able to spend as much as they are and that means we can’t guarantee the essential services that Australians rely on. That’s why this election is about the economy.
MITCHELL: Yeah. Well, I’ll get to that in a moment. The State Government here does say, though, when the 50/50 COVID agreement ends and you go back to 45 per cent funding, it’s going to cost the state $1.5 billion.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, that’s rubbish.
MITCHELL: $1.5 billion. Sorry?
PRIME MINISTER: I’m sorry, that’s rubbish. I mean, as long as there are COVID expenses, you know, we have, we’ve taken this quarter by quarter through the pandemic to see what the COVID related additional expenditure is in our public hospital system and across the health system. We’ve extended it out till the end of September and then we’ll make further assessments before we get to the end of that deadline about what happens next. That’s what we’ve done.
MITCHELL: So the funding isn’t but it hasn’t definitely gone and it could continue? Because the pandemic’s not over.
PRIME MINISTER: Exactly it’s possible, but we look at this every you know, every period. And one thing we learnt during the pandemic and the pandemic continues, you’re right Neil, is that you can’t make assumptions out into the never, never. I mean, this thing could change. I mean, we could have another wave. We could, any number of things could happen, and so we just assess that closer to the time.
MITCHELL: Okay. Interest rates likely to go up later today. Now, all governments, including yours sort of bask in the sunshine of low interest rates and say that’s part of your policy. Isn’t it fair you cop the pain when they go up. You have to wear some of the blame, surely?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, it all depends what’s driving those changes at the end of the day. I mean, we all know now the interest rate’s at 0.1 per cent cash rate. I mean your average discount mortgage rates is around 3.6. And they’ve been low. We haven’t seen a rate rise in over 11 years. And when you look back over the last 30 or 40 years, the average cash rate is about 4.5 per cent. It’s currently at 0.1 and any movement in rates obviously is going to put pressure on people. I mean, on your average mortgage of around $600,000, new mortgage, that, you know, a quarter of a per centage point increase, would be about 85 bucks a month.
MITCHELL: Do we accept, do we accept the Reserve got it wrong? I mean if you if you were buying a house in January, you were buying, buying something of the belief the Reserve Bank had told you there would be no interest rate rises till 2024. The Reserve got it wrong, didn’t they?
PRIME MINISTER: Well one thing has dramatically changed in the last 12 months, and it’s this –
MITCHELL: No but that’s actually their job to assess that.
PRIME MINISTER: Look, hang on. Well, well, let me tell you what’s happened the last 12 months. The IMF, the International Monetary Fund, a year ago was predicting inflation globally would be 3.2 per cent, their most recent estimate is 7.4 per cent and that’s happened in the last 12 months. Now the reason for that is of course the global energy price shock that we’ve seen coming out of Europe with the war in Europe. And in addition to that, there are other factors such as the COVID situation in China, which is severely constraining supply chains. And then you’ve got the broader hangover of the pandemic affecting transport costs and supply chains all around the world. So the issue in terms of- What Australia has been able to achieve over the last few years is we’ve put up a very strong economic shield and protected the Australian economy from the worst of the impacts of these pandemics. That’s why inflation is higher in Europe, New Zealand, North America, Canada, United States and UK. It’s why we’ve been able to get employment up and unemployment down and as we go into this election, I mean, this is this is a reminder, I think, the pressure that’s on interest rates right now. It is a reminder of why the economy is so important. I mean, it was only a three weeks ago the bloke who wants to be Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese –
MITCHELL: Yeah, yeah, yep.
PRIME MINISTER: … didn’t even know what the cash rate or unemployment was.
MITCHELL: Yeah. Yeah, but see you’re doing it again. You’re telling me that the interest rates have been low because of you. Now they’re going up. It’s not because of you.
PRIME MINISTER: No, well, I didn’t say that, Neil. What I said was, is we’ve been in a rather extraordinary global environment. I mean you –
MITCHELL: True. True.
PRIME MINISTER: … got cash rates at 0.1 per cent and the average over 30 or so years is 4.5 per cent, I mean what has been driving those rates being so low for so long is what’s been happening predominantly in the global economy. I’ve never argued against that. I mean, there have been a lot of things that have been forcing cash rates down because of the situation of the global economy in the pandemic and the global recession it caused. Now Australia’s economy is is coming back very strongly and employment is strong. I mean, we’ve got 400,000 more people in work today than before the pandemic, and there aren’t too many advanced economies in the world who can say that.
MITCHELL: Prime Minister, I’m not one for free kicks, but I’m having trouble getting to the bottom of the detail on this Labor plan for assisting housing, assisting, you know, buying a share of a house. And I’ve got it –
PRIME MINISTER: You’re not alone.
MITCHELL: … it’s been, it’s been, it’s worked, but they’ve had it in the UK and it’s failed dismally. Have you yet got, through your sources, any details on it?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, there was an interesting interview done by Richard Marles this morning and here is the most unbelievable part of this. If you’re one of the lucky ones who get one of these 10,000 places where the Government can own 40 – Labor Government can own 40 per cent of your house – if your wage goes above, you know, your household income goes above $120,000 a year, Anthony Albanese will put a for sale sign on your lawn. You actually have to dispose of the asset and pay back the Government. I mean, this is insane. I mean, on top of that, if something terrible happens and, you know, your property is passed to your children, the children have to sell the house if their income is not eligible for the Scheme. And then on top of that, you’ve got the situation that you know, where do you sit in the conga line when it comes to owning your own house? First there’s the bank, then there’s the Labor Government, and then there’s you. And this is the, and then there’s this one. Every time you go to Bunnings and you want to do an improvement on your house, you’ve got to check with Canberra because –
MITCHELL: Yeah, well.
PRIME MINISTER: … they share in the capital appreciation of their house. They take a cut.
MITCHELL: Enough free kick. I, I have concerns about that. I don’t like governments meddling in areas like this and we’ve seen that in the past. Can I ask you about something else?
PRIME MINISTER: The point, Neil.
MITCHELL: Yeah.
PRIME MINISTER: Sorry, what I’m trying to, they don’t think these things through. Their aged care policy that they announced on the Budget Reply fell apart in about 48 hours. Their health policy wasn’t costed and now we have their signature policy as their launch fall apart within about 48 hours. That’s just in three weeks of a campaign. Imagine three years of a Labor Government.
MITCHELL: Can I just just quickly get this out of the way? I’ve been campaigning, as you might have heard, on the hidden army of pensioners, who I think should be encouraged to work to fill the shortage of staff we’ve got. And that means allowing them more, earn more without being punished on their pension. Is that under consideration or not?
PRIME MINISTER: Well let me tell you what we’ve done first, and we’re always looking at these issues. Okay. What we did is we created a thing called the work bonus. Now, what that means is pensioners can earn up to about $12,800 a year without having their pension touched. And that comes in two forms. The first one is the income free area, which is $180, and then there’s a $300 bonus on top of that, which they can earn a fortnight. And it’s not just done every fortnight. So here’s a good example, when pensioners do go and work, they don’t just want they don’t work necessarily every single week. They might go and do two weeks work here, three weeks work there, maybe a couple of months around, maybe if they’re a retired accountant or something like that and they do it around tax return season.
MITCHELL: Yep.
PRIME MINISTER: What we do is we set up a bank for them of credits and they can earn up to that amount and nothing has changed on their pension. Now, the take up of this Scheme is very low because most pensioners –
MITCHELL: You know, if it was higher, it’d be better –
PRIME MINISTER: … they want to retire.
MITCHELL: Well…
PRIME MINISTER: They don’t work, they’ve retired. But the schemes we’ve put in place enable them to do that. Now where there’s more is required and it’s not so much about sending pensioners back to work, that’s not what we’d be trying to achieve. It’s just to ensure that people get a fair go, the fair go they’re getting right now is they can earn up to $12,800 a year and not have their pension touched at all.
MITCHELL: Okay. Okay. You said you won’t negotiate, but do I get this correct, you’re not going negotiate with minor parties. Will you negotiate with independents to avoid a hung parliament?
PRIME MINISTER: No and this is a real question for the people who are voting at this election. Voting for the independents is a vote for chaos.
MITCHELL: So hang on, that means you would give up Government rather than try and negotiate with Monique Ryan or the likes if she gets in to form a government? You would rather give up Government than do a deal with the independents?
PRIME MINISTER: What possible policies that they’re talking about? How does that actually –
MITCHELL: Well, is that correct though? You, you would give up Government while Anthony Albanese negotiates a deal with the independents. Would you do that?
PRIME MINISTER: Why would we run a Government based on the policies that we don’t agree with?
MITCHELL: Well, I agree with –
PRIME MINISTER: (inaudible) risk by voting for the independents, you’re voting for a Labor Government. By voting for the independents (inaudible) –
MITCHELL: But Prime Minister, you say that during a campaign because you don’t want people voting independents. And I can agree with this chaotic scenario you’re painting, but are you seriously telling me that you wouldn’t negotiate with them if that was the only way you could form a Government?
PRIME MINISTER: Why would we, why would we want to enter into a Government where they’re calling for a 60 per cent reduction in emissions? I mean, we’re not going to do that. I mean, that would be (inaudible). That would destroy the economy. That’s not something, that’s not something that people would have voted for us to do. And this is why at this election, voting for an independent, whether in Victoria, New South Wales or anywhere else, I mean, what you were voting for is instability and chaos, when what Australia needs right now. Because I mean it comes down to this with these independents, they want people to vote for them but they won’t tell people who they’re going to vote for or what they’re going to vote for. You can’t run a government in the middle of the economic and security challenges we’re facing, where you have to negotiate for your existence every single day. I mean, one of the things the advantage is we’ve had Neil in the last three years is that as a majority government, we’ve been able to make decisions like JobKeeper, cashflow boost, ensuring that we get on with these –
MITCHELL: Yep.
PRIME MINISTER: … security decisions and nuclear power submarines and all of this, because we haven’t been negotiating for our existence every day.
MITCHELL: Just finally and quickly, I know you enjoy campaigning, but you ever get sick of those silly photo opportunities? You know with haircuts and buzz saws and all that? I mean, what’s on the agenda today for silly photo opportunities?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I don’t see them those ways, Neil.
MITCHELL: Don’t you? Cutting hair?
PRIME MINISTER: I mean, what I have been doing, out and about and doing what Australians do every day. And I tell you, one of the things I really enjoyed.
MITCHELL: Can’t remember when I last cut hair. Yes, sorry.
PRIME MINISTER: Yeah, well, either it’s cutting hair or whether it’s, you know, working in tool shops or whatever. We’ve got 220,000 trade apprentices in training right now. That’s the highest level we’ve ever had since records began in 1963. What I enjoy doing is standing there with an apprentice who shows me what they’re learning, and then I have a go at it. And that’s really what I’m saying. They’re learning –
MITCHELL: Okay.
PRIME MINISTER: … I’m trying to understand what they’re learning, and I’m really proud of what they’re doing, because if you’re getting a trade in this country, you’re setting yourselves up for a strong future and our country up for a strong future. So, all those young people and not just young people, there’s middle aged apprentices and late in life transition career apprentices, thank you for doing what you’re doing. You’re making Australia stronger and we’re very proud of you.
MITCHELL: And thank you for your time. I hope we can speak again before the election, but thank you very much for today.
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks, Neil. Sure. Look forward to it. Cheers.
