KARL STEFANOVIC: Superannuation has dominated theelection campaign this week. I amjoined by Christopher Pyne and ourspecial guest in her state of South Australia,Labor Senator Penny Wong. A big round of applause folks for these two.
SENATOR PENNY WONG, LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION IN THE SENATE: Goodmorning.
STEFANOVIC: The only politiciansgetting round of applause this week.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I notice that PennyWong got a much more generousintroduction than I did.
WONG: Dont take it personally.
STEFANOVIC: Christopher Pyne everyone.
PYNE: Hang on, no, fromyou, the special guest Penny Wong. What I am chopped liver?
WONG: He said that its unusual for me to be here, okay. Its not all aboutyou.
STEFANOVIC: Exactly.
PYNE: Of course its all about me,you have always known that.
STEFANOVIC: Whatare you doing about superannuation,are you rolling over on that?
PYNE: No, webelieve our changes are very fair, Karl. You see, what we are asking people to do, is onincomes over $1.6 million inassets, on that income we are askingthem to pay 15 per cent tax, which is lessthan a person who is stacking the shelvesin Coles and Woolworths pays in taxright now. That is a fair policy, which means we can bringback the low income superannuationtax off set, so that people on lowincomes get a boost in their super.So this is a fairness measure and there is absolutely no reason whywe should change it.
STEFANOVIC: Okay, youflipped on negative gearing, youflipped on GST, are you going toflip on this?
PYNE: We were never infavour of Labor's policy on negative gearing. Inever supported an increase in the Goods and Services Tax
STEFANOVIC: -You areguaranteeing that you are going to dothis though.
PYNE: Absolutely we are. We are guaranteeing
STEFANOVIC: -Youre sure you don't needto go to a meeting?
PYNE: No, its been toa meeting, it went to the meetingthe night of the budget. Theseare fair measures that affect lessthan four per cent of people on superannuation.
STEFANOVIC: Your own members in your own partydon't like it.
PYNE: Yes, they do.
WONG: Comeon Chris.
PYNE: No, the only division in thiselection is about boarder protection and its all on the Labor side.
STEFANOVIC: You know members in your own partydon't like this change.
PYNE: Look, I am not gettingthat feedback at all, especially once Iexplain to people what the changesmean. Now, with four per cent of people on high incomes beingaffected, 96 per cent
STEFANOVIC: -Youre not trying tosell it to me.
PYNE: Clearly I do, becauseyou are asking me. But the onlydivision in this election is aboutLabor's division on borderprotection.
WONG: That was a good pivot, wasnt it?
PYNE: Penny is particularlyconflicted on this one.
WONG: It isinteresting, isn't it? Christopheris in this trying to suggest thatthe chaos that we have all seen issomehow part of the plan. Its clearly not part of the plan. Heclearly can't evenconvince his own party members ofit. And the fairness measure hesdescribed, he actually spent three yearstrying to abolish. So, the lowincome super offset
PYNE: -But Laborsupports the super changes.
WONG: It isactually our policy, you spent three yearstrying to abolish.
PYNE: So weve taken their policy, apparently.
WONG: If you can'tconvince your own party, its a bit hardto convince the voters.
PYNE: Well, Imconvinced. Karls convinced. Malcolms convinced.
WONG: Youre convincingyourself in the mirror.
STEFANOVIC: Let's talkabout Bill Shorten. Now, we have dugup a grab from him in 2011, where hesupported cuts tocompany taxes. Let's take a look atthat.
SHORTEN: Cutting the company incometax rate increases the domesticproductivity and domestic investment. Morecapital means higher productivity andeconomic growth and leads to morejobs and higher wages.
STEFANOVIC: Change ofheart, Penny?
WONG: Look, the point here ispriorities and choices. Where thebudget is, we know the budgetsunder pressure, youve got to make adecision about where is the bestplace to spend money. We just think wedrather be putting money intoAustralia's schools, intoprotecting Medicare, so that wedon't get a GP tax by stealth, than a $50 billion tax break forbusinesses earning up to $1 billion,most of which, a great amount ofthat benefit will go to foreign investors.
STEFANOVIC: That looks bad, though,doesn't it?
WONG: No, I think in a world where youhad a different set of choices,where the budget wasnt underpressure, where your school werefunded and Medicare was protected, you didnt have GP tax bystealth, which is what Christophers policy is.
STEFANOVIC: Dont you cut taxes to increase growth?
WONG: I think you also invest in yourpeople and the Reserve BankGovernor a couple of years agomade clear one of the mostimportant investments we can make is in our people. That is whyparents care so much about their childrens education.We should care about it more as an economy.
STEFANOVIC: Christopher?
PYNE: Well Karl, its just completelyexploded Bill Shorten's credibilityon the economy.
WONG: Oh, come on.
PYNE: In 2011 herecognised that cutting company taxgrew jobs and growth and in 2016for base political reasons he issaying that the company tax rate isa disaster.
WONG: I don't think schoolsare a base political reason.
PYNE: Because hestrying to buy the election.
WONG: Oh, come on.
PYNE: Sotherefore he is throwing money atevery single interest group, wherethe reality is we all know that if wecut the company tax rate itllmean jobs, itll mean growth, itll mean lower unemployment and Bill Shortenadmitted that only five years ago.
WONG: Two points, actually even your own modelling shows that the impacton jobs is marginal over the long-term. But the second thing is, the interest group youre talking about, that you say we arethrowing money at, happens to be everyschool kid in Australia and everyparent in Australia.
PYNE: It is $165billion of new spending and $100 billion-
STEFANOVIC: -Onefinal question because AnthonyAlbanese sent me a text saying that are you cheating on him.
PYNE: He mustbe missing us.
STEFANOVIC: Are you cheating onhim?
PYNE: Well, Penny and I have knowneach other a very long time, even longer than Ive known Anthony.
STEFANOVIC: You told people to vote forher this week instead of Nick Xenophon.
PYNE: At university we knew eachother, so we go back a long way.
WONG: The secrets I know aboutChristopher Pyne, I tell you.
PYNE: Please don't start me onPenny Wong. Dont start me.
STEFANOVIC: Lovely to see you both, have a good week.
PYNE: Thanks for having us.
ENDS