CAMERON: The federal Finance Minister is Senator Penny Wong. Senator Wong, the Prime Minister said it would be a fast and furious four months, but did you expect it to be anything like this?
WONG: Well, it certainly is a busy time, isnt it? And its a busy year. And this is the year where we are trying to bed down a lot of reforms and theyre big reforms and on top of that, you always have things that come up. But thats the nature of Federal Government isnt it? It should be hard; youre trying to manage the economy and run the country and do the right thing. So you wouldnt expect that it would be a walk in the park.
CAMERON: Its very interesting though to think about you and your role as Finance Minister. Youve got so many things to balance. The Treasurer spoke yesterday about the impact he expects of the carbon tax on the economy and theres a big sales job still to be done there. But so many interests seem to be swarming all over the Budget. I mean just then the live cattle men have said well if this trade has been suspended, we want compensation. Are we in a time of magic pudding economics here?
WONG: Certainly if you listen to the Opposition, we are. Theres no doubt that its always easy to find people who want you to spend money, than those who are prepared to say you shouldnt spend money on them. Thats the nature of politics; its probably human nature.
But we do have to maintain a discipline, a fiscal discipline. Thats why we brought down the budget we brought down, which does contain a range of savings measures, and we want the Parliament to pass them. And the reason we do is one of the things you have to do in an economy thats both as you said growing because of the mining investment, but also needs investment in skills and education is to bring the budget back to surplus and pass the savings measures.
CAMERON: And yet already people are sort of picking at the edges. So Western Australia has said it might impose a new kind of royalties tax. New South Wales appears to be flirting with a similar idea. It hasnt ruled out as far as I know. So you wonder about, with all of these outside forces honing in on your patch, just how certain you are. How firm are the numbers that you have built into the budget? How clear can you hold to the assumptions?
WONG: Weve got to hold the course, weve got to stay the course. And thats our job as the Government because our job is not to try and play a bit of politics with a bit of revenue here or there. Our job is to run a sound budget and bring the budget back to surplus. Because thats the best way to lessen cost of living pressures on Australian families.
It is disappointing that we see a failure by Tony Abbott and the Opposition to deal with this. Its this bizarre parallel universe they live in where on the one hand they say, were not tough enough on the budget. But theyre squaring up to oppose savings measures, which would threaten to wreck the surplus if thats what they did.
Its a very odd position for a conservative party to be in. You may have noticed Nick Minchin who had this job before Lindsay Tanner is actually quoted as talking about the problem with this position in the party room that you cant be fiscally irresponsible, you cant continue to oppose savings measure without actually putting something up.
CAMERON: Lets look at another big element of the Governments case on the carbon tax and altering climate policies to sort of suit the future. The Productivity Commission is to hand down a report tomorrow. The Treasurer has already spoken a little bit about it. In an earlier life of course, you were the Climate Change Minister. Just what contribution will the Productivity Commission report have to the general debate which many people say the Government is blowing?
WONG: The Productivity Commission report is one element in this debate and its a very important element. Because what it goes to is it is trying to counter this falsehood that people run that no one else is acting. See those that oppose the carbon price, whether its this time round, or the last time round, they have a range of arguments. They range from the sky falling in and this will end the world as we know it, to no one else is acting.
And I think its important for us to not be so insular and recognise that other people are acting. We arent the only ones who think this is an issue and we arent the only ones who are doing things. And what the Productivity Commission report will show is the extent of international action. It will show that seven out of our top ten trading partners have adopted major policies to invest in clean energy and limit pollution.
So, I hope itll be an important contribution to the debate, because this is a really important reform. And this is not a reform that should be sidelined by people saying things that just arent right.
CAMERON: Its interesting to also reflect on the experience that you had the last time this was put up. Last week, Professor Garnaut had his contribution, then prior to that of course there was the voices of Cate Blanchett and others, who said their piece as well. There were rallies at the weekend. Do you feel that youre starting to turn the boat on this, or do you still that feel that the obstacles to it, knowing what you know about before, are grave?
WONG: And knowing what I know as a Minister now we are going to see a period of intense lobbying and intense campaigning from those who dont want it, and we expect that. This is going to be a very difficult reform to win.
But it is the right reform. And if you go back through Australias history, and you think through the things that have been won which were important I dont think very many of them at all were won without a fight, and that very many of them were won without opposition, and this is no different. I mean superannuation, or anything to do with the advancement of equality, or womens rights, or indigenous rights. Theyve always required people to campaign for them, and theyve always required a countering of the opposition. This is no different.
I did attend the rally in Adelaide on the weekend, and it was good to see people out there saying, actually, these people who are saying this is the wrong thing to do, and who are saying such harsh things about what it will do they dont speak for me. So, it was good to be amongst people who were just saying I just want to do the right thing.
CAMERON: My guest this morning is the Finance Minister Penny Wong. Now, you mentioned there some of those battles that have been won before, and not without such great opposition; there are many still being fought. Theres a story today about a young woman whos suing a law firm over her treatment. Now, only last week you had to stand up for yourself in your workplace, where a male colleague acted wrongly which he subsequently admitted. Youre the Finance Minister though, and so you are as tough as nails, you have to be. Now
WONG: (laughs) Not that tough.
CAMERON: Now, its within your responsibility as a government minister to actually do some things; you supervise some boards. Now youve released a paper saying 40 per cent should, rather, all of those government boards should have 40 per cent women on their boards.
WONG: Thats right.
CAMERON: What deadline are you going to set, and how are you going to pursue that?
WONG: When I became Finance Minister, there were a number of things I wanted to do in the portfolio that are not about the budget, because obviously thats the major part. But one of the things you do as Finance Minister is youre responsible for a lot of the administration of government, and particularly financial management, and the management of government business enterprises.
We havent updated our guidelines for government business enterprises like Australia Post for I think since 1998 or 1997. Its quite a while. So we need to improve them, and one of the things I wanted to see change was the number of women on boards.
Because it seems to me, just as Ive always advocated within my party for women to be properly and equally represented in the party, and in our candidates and Ive always done that on the basis that I think the community is better served when the parliament better reflects the community. Youve got to translate that to other parts of society, and I think government boards are one of the ways in which we can ensure we get more women into board positions. Thats good, I think, for those organisations. Its also good because it means more women in the community have their abilities recognised. So, it will take us some time
CAMERON: The scorecards pretty poor at the moment.
WONG: Its very poor at the moment.
CAMERON: Australia Post, one out of seven. NBN Co, a really modern company, two out of eight. Medicares fantastic though, four out of eight.
WONG: Thats right, and I think the sort of stereotypical splits youd expect youd see. So, certain boards have more women than men.
One of the changes I instituted when I became Finance Minister was I asked the Department not to send a shortlist up to my office for consideration if it didnt have a woman on it. Because its my view that if we cant find a woman thats good enough, at least to shortlist, were probably not looking hard enough. There would be very few areas of our society, and our economy where you couldnt find a woman who was qualified for consideration. She may not get the job, because there might be others who are more qualified.
So, weve got a fair bit of work to do, but Im just going to keep plugging away at this, because I think sometimes you can do change a bit quietly, but you can certainly make things happen.
CAMERON: And just for the record, the ABC has got a little way to go too. As far as I saw yesterday on the website it was only two of eight on the ABC. So, we cant throw stones here Im afraid. Thank you very much for coming in, Senator.
WONG: Good to speak with you again.
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