LEIGH SALES: Joining me from Canberra is the Finance Minister, Penny Wong. Thanks for joining us.
PENNY WONG: Good to be with you again, Leigh.
SALES: The WA result and all recent polls seem to show that Labor is headed for electoral Armageddon come September. Do you share the increasingly despondent view of many of your colleagues that Labor just can't win this election?
WONG: Well we're certainly in for a very tough fight. This is going to be a very tough election for the Labor Party and these are difficult circumstances we face. But I'd make a couple of points. The first of them is that you don't improve your position in a tough fight by talking about yourself and making yourself the issue. We need to be focusing the issue - making the focus very much Tony Abbott, his plans for cuts to services, making sure this man is accountable to the Australian people, because so far, he's avoiding that scrutiny.
SALES: You say that the issue is that you shouldn't be talking about yourself, but the reality is people in your party are constantly talking about what's going on in your party, what's going on with the leadership. How do you make that go away?
WONG: Look, I think if we - if I had a magic wand on that front, I'd certainly use it, Leigh, because I don't think it helps us and I think what it says to voters is: we are more interested in ourselves than about them and that's never a good place for a political party to be. And I also don't think it reflects the truth. I think this is government that has done a lot of things which are very important to people. We have more people in jobs, we have more people in university, we have more apprenticeships, the economy is bigger by 13 per cent than just before the Global Financial Crisis. And it's very frustrating, isn't it?, that a lot of those statistics which show our economic resilience as a country are sort of disregarded or not the focus because we make ourselves the focus, so we need to be more disciplined.
SALES: Do you share the view of the former RWA Labor minister Alannah MacTiernan, who we just heard from before, who says that Julia Gillard is not the leader that Australians want, not the person to sell those messages you're trying to sell tonight and that she must step down if Labor has any hope of trying to - of winning the election?
WONG: No, I don't share the views that Alannah put in those comments to you. And I think it's also - we have to face up to the fact if the Government is not getting its message out, it's not connecting sufficiently with people, that that's a collective responsibility for the whole of the federal caucus and the federal cabinet.
SALES: But you can't underestimate the role that the leader plays, surely, in that they are the absolute frontperson for your policies and it seems that a lot of Australians aren't listening to or don't like Julia Gillard.
WONG: Well, what I'd point to is what the Prime Minister has delivered and what she is intending to deliver and they're important things about the nation. We've delivered, as I say, more jobs, more kids - more people in apprenticeships, more people at university - they're very good things for Australia's future. An economy that's bigger, and we're very focused now on things like the disability insurance scheme and of course our plans for school reform. They are key things about Australia's future. And what we need to do is to make sure the focus is on those plans which are about the things that matter to Australian families rather than ourselves.
SALES: Has the Prime Minister spoken to you in the past 48 hours or so about how things are going for Labor?
WONG: I speak to the Prime Minister regularly.
SALES: And has she sounded you out on how things are going at the moment and whether her leadership is working effectively?
WONG: Look, we have regular conversations about what's happening and what we need to do, how we need to respond to different economic circumstances.
SALES: Well I'm asking about the past 48 hours specifically.
WONG: And in your program introduction there was a discussion about meetings today. Can I be really clear with you? It's perfectly normal for there to be meetings held ahead of a parliamentary sitting fortnight, and, yes, I've been part of those meetings.
SALES: Can I just ask very bluntly: did she sound you out about whether her leadership is the way the party should be going?
WONG: Well, no, the Prime Minister knows my views on these issues and I've made those views very clear. The leadership issue has been resolved.
SALES: Have you been sounded out by your colleagues in recent weeks regarding a possible return to Kevin Rudd?
WONG: Look, Leigh, I am not a person who's going to discuss what might've been said by whom to whom in the hothouse of Canberra, including for example to members of the press gallery. I am a person who's going to talk to you about what we're doing, what we plan to do and I'm very happy also to talk to you about what Tony Abbott plans to do, even though he doesn't want to talk about the cuts he would impose on Australians were he to be elected.
SALES: Well, in terms of what you're doing, are some members of your caucus actually doing this to you, are they handing around internal polling results trying to demonstrate how dire things could really be for Labor?
WONG: Well, look, I'm not - I haven't been privy to internal polling and I would say, if that were happening, that that's not an appropriate way to deal with polling. We have a lot of challenges as a party. And surely one of the things we've learnt over these last years and nationally is that that kind of internal behaviour is not helpful to the cause of Labor, or more importantly, Leigh, to the people who elect us. People elect Labor governments because they understand we don't leave people behind. They understand we work hard at not leaving people behind, at providing for those who don't have much. That's why people elect Labor governments.
SALES: Well, let's talk about one thing that you are doing, which is on 457 visas. Labor's legacy is about modernising and opening up the economy. Paul Keating and Bob Hawke were about that. Wouldn't a mature Labor government, instead of demonising foreign labour, say, "Well, we need these foreign workers to help our economy to keep growing and we thank them for their contribution"?
WONG: Well we're supporters of skilled migration, which is why the majority of permanent migration places under this government go to the skilled migration streams. The point that is being made, which is a sensible point, is that temporary visas for skilled migration should only be used in circumstances where there is a genuine skill shortage.
SALES: That is how they're used.
WONG: Well, that is the policy point and that is a reasonable policy proposition.
SALES: Senator Penny Wong, thank you so much for joining us tonight.
WONG: Good to speak with you.
ENDS