SYLVIA JEFFREYS, HOST: To discuss, I’m joined by Minister for Aged Care and Seniors, Sam Rae, and Nationals Leader Matt Canavan. Morning to you both. Sam, I’ll go to you first. The private sector and households are cutting back everywhere they can. How do you justify $860 million on consultants?
SAM RAE, MINISTER FOR AGED CARE AND SENIORS: You’re right, Sylvia. Australian households are doing it tough. They’ve been doing it tough for a while now, so we need to make sure that every expenditure decision we make is a prudent one, one that’s good for our Budget and good for our national interest. And of course, we inherited a public sector that had been hollowed out, that didn’t have the capacity. We couldn’t even process claims for veterans. So, there’s been significant investment in the Australian public service to make sure that we’ve got the people and the skills that we need. Our frontline services – this is Centrelink, it’s Veterans’ Affairs, it’s the aged care system. These are people who are looking after people across our community. They’re worth investing in.
JEFFREYS: I think there are plenty of veterans who'd say the $860 [million] on consultants hasn't helped to expedite their claims.
RAE: Well, we've seen consultant bills come down over time.
JEFFREYS: $860 million?
RAE: It is a reduction from where it was previously. The reality is that we've got a very large public service in order to meet the needs of the Australian public. The investments that we've been making have been in those front-line services, as I said. It's about healthcare. It's about making sure that people can access the services that they need.
JEFFREYS: OK, let's bring you in now, Matt. Jim Chalmers has sent out an SOS to his Treasury searching for new ideas on productivity measures, which conjures scenes of utopia with whiteboards and lanyards. doesn't it? Would a Coalition government be looking here at consultants and the amount of money that's being spent there?
MATT CANAVAN, NATIONALS LEADER: Look, absolutely we would. At the last election we said we should reduce the size of the public service over time, not by sacking people, but just by natural attrition, because it's grown too much. This Government's been addicted to wasteful spending. The public service bill now is $10 billion higher than when they inherited. To put that in context, there's about 10 million households in Australia, so that's $1000 every household. So, every home that's watching this show today. You are spending, your taxes are going extra to the tune of $1000 a year for extra spending in Canberra. And now you can understand why we've got inflation and interest rates out of control.
We've got high inflation not because people are living too well, it's because your wasteful Government in Canberra is living too well. They haven't tightened their belt like every other household has had to do in this country. And it's about time we got a Government in there that can show some discipline, can take some tough decisions, because otherwise we're just going to get poorer and poorer and poorer. And now we have this joke of a Treasurer, asking for ideas about productivity. He had a productivity roundtable 18 months ago, but it didn't tackle the real issues. That's why productivity has continued to fall.
What we would do is scrap net zero and get energy prices down. That will increase productivity because energy is the economy. We'll cut taxes. This Government's increased them massively. We’ll cut taxes, that will attract investment, get small businesses some confidence. That's the kind of hope we need for our country. This government is not providing it.
JEFFREYS: OK, let's get to this win this morning for One Nation leader Pauline Hanson. The High Court agreeing to hear her appeal against a ruling that she engaged in racial discrimination against Green Senator Mehreen Faruqi. Matt, I'll go to you on this one. Pauline says it's always been bigger than her. Mehreen says bring it on. What do you say about this?
CANAVAN: Well look, I don't like it when these types of political disputes are settled through our courts. You know, I'd prefer that to occur through the Parliament and through political debate, like we're having this morning, and then, ultimately, every three years, the people get their say. I’m sort of uncomfortable with judges having their say about these things. But look, this is a case before the courts, I'll leave it to that. As I say, I'm happy to engage in robust debate out in the political square and happy to take the slings and arrows that come with that.
JEFFREYS: Okay Sam, your thoughts?
RAE: I tend to agree with Matt to some extent here, Sylvia. These are matters before the courts. None of us want to get involved in a legal process, but I do think we've got a healthy, robust debate here in our country, we want to protect that. This is where Matt and I like to debate things, we like to get on telly, we like to get in front of the Australian people and have a discussion about important ideas. I think that's a good place to do it.
JEFFREYS: Were you offended by the language that Pauline Hanson used against Mehreen Faruqi?
RAE: I don't want to get involved in something that's before the courts at the moment, Sylvia. I think we can all engage in public debate in a respectful way.
JEFFREYS: Okay Matt, let's get to this taxpayer bungle in Queensland now. Reports senior police negotiated a $240 million lease without funding approval for a building that was never fit to be a police station. As a Queensland Senator, what's your thoughts or what are your thoughts on this amount of public waste?
CANAVAN: It's got to be looked into. I don't have a lot of the details, it being a Queensland Government decision, but it would appear that it's squarely at the feet of the former police commissioner, a police commissioner that had to resign in disgrace over a bungled decision on vaccine mandates. They seemed much more interested under Annastacia Palaszczuk in controlling the lives of Queenslanders than dealing with crime, and the current LNP Government have had a big mess to clean up in that regard. This might be another mess they have to deal with. But crime is coming down in Queensland and I hope it can come down here in Victoria in a few weeks’ time as well with a government that will get tough on crime, because it's out of control down here.
JEFFREYS: OK, let's stay in Queensland. And Sports Minister Anika Wells has conceded that Brisbane could have to move sports like rowing and tennis to Sydney and Melbourne during the 2032 Olympic Games if budget pressures demand it. Sam, do you support this move? Would you be happy to see some events go to Sydney and Melbourne?
RAE: It's up to the Queensland Government to make decisions about where events are held and how they're held. The Brisbane Olympics obviously presents a massive opportunity for Australia. In previous Olympics games, we've seen events held in different places. The Queensland Government will make some decisions about where those events are best held within their budget constraints. We saw events around the country in the Sydney Olympics, we've seen it at the Paris Olympics. I think we all know that the majority of events will be in Queensland and a lot of them in southeast Queensland. You know, we shouldn't get bogged down in some of these ugly debates when we've got such a fantastic opportunity for our country.
JEFFREYS: Well, I suspect Matt disagrees because he does not want to lose the rowing from Rocky.
CANAVAN: Anika hasn't even been to Rocky. She said yesterday she didn't know the difference between freshwater and saltwater crocodiles. Well, I can show you, Anika, I was in the river just the other day. It's perfectly safe. Come and join me for a row.
JEFFREYS: You'd be yes to pineapple on a pizza too today, wouldn't you, Matt?
CANAVAN: Yeah, I'm from the pineapple capital too. I'm all for it. And that shows, despite having to go to the High Court because I was a suspected Italian, I'm actually not because I have no problem with pineapple being on pizza.
JEFFREYS: I mean, there's the proof right there. Forget the blood test. Thank you both for joining us.