PAUL KENNEDY: Now let's get more on the COAG and that big meeting today. The Leader of the Opposition in the Senate Penny Wong joins us now from our Adelaide studio. Penny Wong, do you see any outcome today that will involve any agreement on what we have been discussing this week?

SENATOR PENNY WONG, LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION IN THE SENATE: Good morning and good to be with you. Today is April Fools Day and its a pretty appropriate day for this COAG meeting because what the Prime Minister is presenting is worse than a joke, its a dangerous joke, its a plan for double taxation and a plan to cut health and hospitals and schools.

This is worse than Tony Abbott. This is a Prime Minister who says he wants to walk away from public education. Now I anticipate that the Premiers will rightly reject it and what I would say is the Australian people are going to have the opportunity at the forthcoming election to reject this plan, a plan that is risky, retrograde and certainly the wrong direction for Australia.

KENNEDY: Now Penny Wong, I suspect the Opposition will continue saying it's double taxation right up until the election if it gets the opportunity. Can you explain to he how what the Government is proposing will be double taxation?

WONG: I think the Prime Minister's made that clear. In so far as anything he said recently is clear, he's made clear that the States would be able to levy a proportion of income tax and he said very clearly on ABC Radio that that could mean higher taxes in the future. It could mean different rates of taxes across Australia, two different sets of government implementing income tax on your income. And all of that combined with an extraordinary proposition which is to walk away from every public school in Australia.

I find it extraordinary that the Prime Minister, Mr Turnbull, would actually say to Australians my hit list is every public school, in every neighbourhood, in every State and Territory, across this country. But that is what he has said and let's understand it is not just funding he's walking away from, it's really important reforms, really important principles such as the national curriculum, national standards for teacher quality, the principle of needs based funding which ensures funding goes so where it's needed, to the students and schools where its needed.

KENNEDY: Our time is short this morning. I wanted to ask you again about that double taxation. Seems like different taxation but not double taxation, I'm just hoping you can make that a bit clearer this morning. Theyre not on top of each other, are they?

WONG: I think the Prime Minister said very clearly you could have different rates of taxation in different states. I know that the Treasurer has tried to walk away from that and said that the Prime Minister didn't say that but he did say that. And certainly what you're looking at is a potential for different and additional rate of taxation and different parts of Australia. We can play word games if you like but I think it doesn't pass the pub test, people understand what it means, it means you have got one set of income and two different parts of Government taxing that income and depending on which state you're in you could be taxed at different levels.

I think the other point that needs to be made is that this will be a very bad step particularly for the smaller states. We certainly know Tasmania and South Australia will do very badly out of the approach the Government is taking, in fact there's some research which suggests that Victoria over the last ten years would have done poorly as well. Its a very bad plan for Australia.

KENNEDY: The Premiers will put that case today certainly. Now I just wanted to ask you about - Kevin Rudd has previously wanted the Federal Government to completely take over the running of health in this country. Is that still Labor's position?

WONG: We do support a national approach and a partnership approach to health reform and I'm sure we'll have more to say about that before the election. But you do raise a really important point which is that historically past Labor Prime Ministers have sought to ensure that there is national responsibility for our health and hospital system. That is in stark contrast to what this Prime Minister is talking about. He's maintaining Tony Abbott's cuts to the hospital system and he's walking away from schools. Now that is actually a more radical plan than Tony Abbott's radical 2014 Budget and I don't think the Liberal colleagues who voted for him, nor the Australian people, would have anticipated that Malcolm Turnbull would actually make a more radical Captain's Call than Tony Abbott did.

KENNEDY: Penny Wong thanks for your time this morning. We'll wait to see how it flies at COAG today and beyond, I guess.

WONG: Good to speak with you.