Higher Education Policy Package, Uday and Qusay Hussein, Job Network, Proposed ABC Review Panel, Medicare, John Howard’s Birthday Simon Crean - Leader of the Opposition

Doorstop Interview

Transcript - University Of Western Sydney, Penrith - 25 July 2003

E & OE – PROOF ONLY

CREAN: The reason I'm out here today, of course, is to remind people of the education package that was launched by us two days ago.

I came to this campus a month ago and said I would return with Labor's alternative to the Howard Government's package for education. I've done that today.

It's a package that is good for students; a package that's good for this university and all universities, but this one in particular; and it's a package that's good for the nation. It's a package that will see 20,000 additional places created by the year 2008 – each year, there will be 20,000 places. That is the unmet demand that current policies have created.

We will also make education more affordable for the students. Not only will we oppose the massive hikes that the Government is proposing to put in place, but we will actually ease the burden for students. We've got to make university affordable and available.

When I was out here last, the figure that struck me most of all was the fact that this university has, in its cohort of students, two-thirds of the people that come here are the first members of their family ever to have attended a university. I don't want them to be the last.

Think about it. Two-thirds of the students on this campus are the first members of their families ever to have attended a university. My package will ensure that they're not the last. I will make the places available. I will make it affordable. This is an investment the nation must make, because it's not just the students that benefit, it's the nation as a whole. This is a nation-building agenda. This is investing in the fundamental driver of economic growth – skills, education, cleverness. That is what the nation has to invest in; that is what my investment is in. I have faith in these students. I have faith in all the students in the country, but if you're going to have faith in them, you've got to be prepared to back them – back them by investing in them, and investing in the nation's future.

JOURNALIST: Are you expecting any backlash from the mining industry, given that is where the money is coming from?

CREAN: Some of the money is. I think the mining industry and the Australian public needs to understand what we are doing here. It's not scrapping an incentive that they had, or subsidy that they had. It's simply taking it back to where it was three years ago. We've had a mining sector in this country that hasn't had to rely in the past on 100% subsidy. And that's all it does – it takes it back to 90% where it was three years ago.

In the end, it is a question of choice. And if it's the difference between the mining companies …

[tape break].

And by the way, the mining companies will benefit from it as well, because what it does for them is give them a better skill base. It's investing on their behalf in the very thing they know investment has to take place in – their human capital, their people. That's what this package does.

JOURNALIST: The Prime Minister has actually backed the release of the photographs of Uday and Qusay Hussein. Do you also support that?

CREAN: I haven't seen the photographs, and I do support them being released in Iraq if it is an important part of bringing peace and stability to that region. What I would urge, though, is serious caution about their publication and use in this country. The same imperative does not exist here.

JOURNALIST: On the Job Network, we've had a 50-year-old woman told that she has to apply for a job as a logger. It's all a bit of a joke, really, isn't it?

CREAN: Well, it is. I think these examples just demonstrate how badly the Government has mismanaged the employment placement system in this country. If you're going to give people real opportunities, you've got to match them properly. You've got to match their desire - what they want to offer - with what they're capable of and what's seriously being demanded.

It's this matching that employment agencies are supposed to be good at, but if we're getting these examples it shows that the run-down in the system, the withdrawal of funding that this Government has introduced is having, not just serious consequences for the nation, it's having ludicrous outcomes. And that's just one of them.

JOURNALIST: Do you support the dedicated review panel that the Communications Minister wants to set up for the ABC?

CREAN: I think what the Communications Minister wants for the ABC is, effectively, for it to go out of existence if it doesn't toe the line with what he says.

I think the suggestion is outrageous. This is a Government that doesn't like criticism. It needs to be criticised on many fronts, but when the criticism comes they don't want to hear it. And then they want to try and take away the independence of the ABC.

Not content to stack the ABC Board, they now want to tell the broadcaster how it should report. Well, that's not the Australian way. That would see the debasement of the ABC - a great Australian icon. I have my differences with the ABC. There are things I don't like reported on it, but that's true of all sorts of news networks.

A vibrant democracy needs an independent broadcaster. This Government is taking that independence away. And that statement by Senator Alston, that initiative - which I understand has the Prime Minister's backing - is just another indication of how their independence is being stripped away.

JOURNALIST: He says that he doesn't need the Parliament's approval to get it through. Will you be seeking input if it does go ahead?

CREAN: We will be seeking to ensure that it doesn't go through. I don't know whether it needs parliamentary approval or not, but this has to be resisted. We need an independent public broadcaster. Not only will we oppose this initiative, we will be ensure proper independence on the ABC Board – not political hacks, but proper, independent representation of people who know the industry.

JOURNALIST: The Prime Minister says our Medicare system is superior. Health Minister Kay Patterson is trying to make doctors not allow queue jumping, she's trying to rein that in. Doctors, however, admit that while they don't support queue-jumping, they think that the reason for that is because of our poor Medicare system. So is Mr Howard, I guess, dreaming when he says things like that?

CREAN: Mr Howard's out of touch. Mr Howard has presided over a Medicare system that has been in decline in every one of the years that he has been in office. Bulk billing now is at an appallingly low level, and that's why people can't afford to go to a doctor. It's why doctors are introducing an auction system - you can get attended if you are prepared to pay more.

I have never argued that a health system comes for free. People pay for their health. They pay for it through their Medicare levy. They shouldn't have to pay again when they go and see a doctor.

Labor's proposal restores bulk billing. It saves Medicare. And that's the initiative that the Australian people want to get behind. The parliamentary inquiry is going to be a very important mechanism for revealing the failings of the health system under John Howard.

My proposal demonstrates it can be fixed. There is a better way. We can save Medicare. It's a question of better priorities, better alternatives. And on both fronts - health and education - John Howard's view of life is to say, `The Government should invest less, and the individual should pay more'. I'm saying the individual pays enough, and the Government has to invest more in both of these vital areas.

JOURNALIST: Speaking of the Prime Minister, it's his birthday today. Have you got a message for him?

CREAN: It's his birthday tomorrow. I, in fact, yesterday on the plane on the way back from Townsville wished him happy birthday in advance. But I will be seeing him, I think, tomorrow night because we'll be both going to cheer on the Aussies in the Bledisloe Cup. So, I'll get another chance tomorrow. You should be asking Peter Costello whether he's wishing him a happy birthday, though - and then see if he looks sincere with his answer.

(ENDS)