BELLING: Good morning to both of you. Thank so much for your time today.
WONG: Good morning Natarsha.
MORRISON: Good morning.
BELLING: Firstly to you Mr Morrison. Now Tony Abbott set out an alternative Budget last night but theres been a lot of criticism saying he didnt spell out what hed cut or how exactly hed pay for it. How can we take that Budget response or reply seriously?
MORRISON: Well Tony Abbott set out an alternative vision for the country last night. And he made it very clear that Labors working families have become the forgotten families. And those announcements we made last night, there are a couple of new announcements there. But that was the plan we took to the election and have continued to prosecute. That is our plan for Australia. It is our plan not to have a carbon tax like this Government has. It is our plan to deal with the border protection failures. It is our plan to address the needs of families. Now, I dont recall Kevin Rudd before he went into the 2007 election detailing how he was going to take the country into deficit. But thats actually what has happened with this Government over the last four years. Deficit, deficit, deficit. And they havent produced a surplus in the last nine Labor budgets. I mean Wyatt Roy has not seen a Labor surplus in his entire lifetime.
BELLING: Penny Wong
MORRISON: So at the end of the day, our record speaks for itself.
BELLING: Penny Wong, if I can put the next question to you. There has been a lot of criticism that there werent specific details about the carbon tax. How can you have any real economic outlook for this country without the specifics of the carbon tax?
WONG: We will put the carbon tax before the Australian people when it is finalised. But this week is about the Budget and about the course ahead. And can I say on Tuesday, what the Government did was outline a Budget that was about jobs. Creating more jobs, training more Australians for jobs, and getting more Australians into the workforce.
We also laid out how we would bring the budget back to black. Put the budget back in the black because thats the right thing to do for Australian families. Now on Thursday, Tony Abbott had his opportunity to do something about the future. And all we got was the same old mindless negativity that we are used to seeing from Tony Abbott. Hes a very good political fighter. Hes a very good opposer. But he is not a leader and he provided no alternative vision.
BELLING: Mr Morrison, can you guarantee the Federal Government says that it will go back into the black in 2012-13 can you guarantee that under a Coalition government you would return to surplus by 2012-13?
MORRISON: Well I just refer to our record. Thats what Coalition governments do, they deliver surpluses and the Australian people know that. That is our record. They understand that and thats why they trust us with these matters. This Government has only produced deficits and there will not be a surplus budget before we go to another election. And so the Government continues to have no form on this issue. I mean the Coalition is not going to dance to the Governments tune. The Government may want to dance to the Greens tune as they constantly do. But we wont be dancing to the Governments tune. Our alternate vision is there and the Australian people know it and understand it.
BELLING: Penny Wong?
WONG: Thanks Natarsha. Nobody is asking Scott to dance to the Governments tune. Were asking him to be responsible. Thats what were asking.
And the reality is, he cant guarantee to you or to anyone watching this that they would bring the budget back to surplus. That they put the budget back in the black. And you know why? Because they wont tell you how. We know that Tony Abbott went to the last election with an $11 billion black hole in his election costings. And all hes doing now to deal with that is to have people attack the Department of the Treasury who found that black hole. The reality is that black hole still exists. Hes been out there saying, well come back to surplus but at the same time opposing things the Government is doing to bring the budget back to surplus. Do you know why the Government needs to bring the budget back to surplus? Because thats the right thing to do.
MORRISON: Because you put it into deficit Penny.
WONG: And the mining well, you know Scott, you conveniently forget that there was a global financial crisis. And yes, we went into deficit to save jobs. And we saved 200,000 jobs
MORRISON: And the deficits got worse.
WONG: 200,000 people, 200,000 families who would not have had a breadwinner, who would not have had people in work, had we not have done that. Now you might want to conveniently forget that, but thats occurred, thats already occurred. What we have to do now is to say what is the course for the future. Scott doesnt want to talk about that, he doesnt want to talk about how we bring the budget back to surplus.
MORRISON: Well Tony talked about it last night.
WONG: He didnt talk about it last night. Show me one area
MORRISON: He talked about the future, Penny.
WONG: ...where Tony Abbott showed Australians how he would do the hard yards to get the budget back in the black. Absolutely nowhere. All we had
MORRISON: Let me respond.
WONG: ...all we had was negativity.
MORRISON: I can tell you exactly what he will do to do that. Your plan is to introduce a carbon tax that will force up the cost of living for every Australian. $300 increase in electricity prices off your own modelling.
WONG: Youre just making that up. Youre just making that up.
MORRISON: Now last night, Tony Abbott said very clearly that if you want to take that sort of a plan to the Australian people, then put it to an election. If youre so confident that this is something thats in Australias interests then you shouldnt just quote John Howard, you should copy him and you should take this plan to an election and get a mandate.
BELLING: Mr Morrison
MORRISON: ...because that will have a bigger impact on the cost of living on any family in this country than anything announced in the Budget.
BELLING: If I could just interrupt for a moment. On that point Penny Wong, why not take this to the Australian public for an early election? Why not?
WONG: Because its not the job of the Government to just jump because Tony Abbott has never accepted the results of the last election and where the independents chose to throw their support.
MORRISON: You said you wouldnt introduce one.
WONG: Hang on, if I can finish, Scott.
MORRISON: Sure.
WONG: The fact is, Tony Abbott is re-litigating the last election. Hes obviously very upset about that, but really, thats his business. Thats not what leaders should be doing. Leaders should be about focusing on whats good for the country.
Now Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan have laid out what we believe is good for the country. How we bring the budget back to black. How we get more Australians into work. How we use the opportunity of the mining boom to make those opportunities made available to more Australians. This is a positive plan for the future.
What do we have from Scott and Tony and Scotts demonstrating it again today. Theyre just ranting again. All about negativity, all about opposition. I mean the thing about Tony Abbotts speech last night showed this: he is all opposition but he is no leader.
BELLING: Mr Morrison, I put the final question this morning to you.
MORRISON: Sure.
BELLING: Do you want to push for an election because there has been a lot I guess great concern in our community about the carbon tax. People who have never protested in their life have gone to Canberra to voice their concern about this. Do you want an early election? Or how hard do you want to push for it?
MORRISON: Well I think Pennys response outlines just how out of touch the Government is. The carbon tax will impact on rising costs of living of every single Australian. They went to the last election
WONG: So will wrecking the surplus.
MORRISON: They said they wouldnt have one. They said they wouldnt have a carbon tax and now theyve put one before this Parliament. Now if this Parliament and this Government has any integrity, they will test that mandate with the Australian people. They will not force it on them when they said they would not. Its about the integrity of our Parliament and of this Government and if theyre not prepared to do that then they clearly dont have the courage of what they claim to be their convictions. Test it with the Australian people. Once youve got it finalised with Bob Brown and he tells you whats going to be in it, take it to the Australian people and well meet you there.
BELLING: Penny Wong, two second response will you call an early election?
WONG: Were going to do whats right and govern for the Australian people, put forward our economic plans and bring the budget back to black. And were not going to be distracted by the sort of mindless negativity that were seeing from the Opposition.
BELLING: Alright weve run out of time once again. Have a lovely weekend. Thank you so much Senator Wong and Mr Morrison for joining us this morning.
WONG: Good to be with you.
MORRISON: Thanks for your time, thanks Penny.
ENDS

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