Budget Wayne Swan - Shadow Minister for Family and Community Services

TV Interview

Transcript - Sky News - 12 May 2004

KEIRAN GILBERT: Wayne Swan, thanks for your time. Firstly, does this budget nullify Labor's attack over the family benefit tax trap which you have been nailing for the last 18 months or so?

WAYNE SWAN: No, absolutely it doesn't. It still leaves the family debt trap in place and does very little to reward hard work—that is to provide better incentives when people work overtime or additional hours. You see, what we have here is just a one-off bribe to camouflage the government's failure to fix the family payment system in a long-term way so the family payment system can deliver accurate payments to families on a fortnightly basis.

KEIRAN GILBERT: But you're going to vote for that bribe.

WAYNE SWAN: We've just said that we will pass this government's budget, but we will put up an alternative vision for the future, a long-term plan which will deliver financial relief to hard-pressed Australian families. We're not going to deny them that relief immediately but we are absolutely going to put in place a plan for the future which eases the financial pressure and is sustainable.

KEIRAN GILBERT: Isn't the reality in an election year you can't afford not to vote for the bribe?

WAYNE SWAN: No, that's not the point at all. This government says it has a plan for family payments and for the tax system. We have an entirely different plan. People will get a chance later this year to make a judgment between the two packages—their one-off bribe or Labor's long-term sustainable plan to ease the pressure on families on a weekly basis, on a fortnightly basis.

KEIRAN GILBERT: So if you're going to vote for their package as it stands and still reprioritise, how are you going to fund it? Are you going to eat into that surplus, the $2.4 billion surplus?

WAYNE SWAN: We'll wait and see. We've maintained a commitment to surpluses, but just wait and see. Give us the same licence that everybody has been giving the Treasurer. We can produce a far better, a far fairer package and one which is sustainable in the long term. You see, the government is telling lies with all these tables. They're just not true. If you take, say, a family on $55,000 a year, on 1 July this year they claim a single-income family will get $32—they'll get $7. For a double-income family they claim will get $40—on 1 July they'll get nothing. You see, this is all smoke and mirrors. These tables, published in all of the national newspapers today, give the wrong impression and people out there will be thinking there's a bonanza for them which won't be there on 1 July.

KEIRAN GILBERT: You know as well as I do impressions in politics are crucial and you're saying that's the impression that's been created—of course there's the $600 payment as well. Is there a chance now that this government will use this budget as a kick-start for an early election, say in August?

WAYNE SWAN: This budget is all about an election. It's about one-off bribes to get them through the election. You see, before the last election they offered all families a $1,000 waiver on their family payment debt and then after the election they came back and took it all back.

KEIRAN GILBERT: But you have a big selling job this time round. How are you going to counter this sort of money giving before an election?

WAYNE SWAN: Precisely the way we are this morning. We are going to go out there and explain how this budget is a fraud for many families, will not deliver the long-term benefits that this Treasurer is claiming, and we'll put forward an alternative plan for the future which is fair, which will deliver to families, on a fortnightly basis, accurate payments. This system that the government has maintained in place will deliver debt and provide no incentives for families when they work hard—no incentives for those families in this budget as the Treasurer claims. Many of them will still face very high rates of tax when they work hard or work overtime.

KEIRAN GILBERT: Wayne Swan, thanks for your time.

WAYNE SWAN: Thank you.

Ends. E & OE