| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
  Swinging voters: week 4 September 26, 2004 Reporter :Helen Dalley (swinging voters); Jana Wendt (panel) Producer : Paul Steindl (swinging voters)  Our swinging voters segment last week saw the Labor candidate for Parramatta, Julie Owens, face tough questioning. Our panel of voters asked Ms Owens how long she had lived in Parramatta and whether she was committed to the area. They asked how she was going to fix the problem of the growing number of people trapped in casual employment ... and why people on $200,000 a year were getting a Medicare rebate. And she chose not to comment on Ross Cameron's decision to admit marital infidelities. Well this week, our swinging voters get a chance to put Ross Cameron (pictured left, with John Howard) in the hot seat. The sitting Liberal Member for Parramatta has accepted our offer to be quizzed by our panel. Also this week, our other panel — of election experts — will be discussing the major issues of the campaign so far: Medicare; Peter Costello's claim that Labor has a $700 million black hole in its tax policy; and Independent MP Tony Windsor's allegation that a Coalition intermediary offered him a diplomatic post to give up his New England seat. Our experts today are: Tim Blair, columnist for The Bulletin: P.P. "Paddy" McGuinness, editor of Quadrant; and Mike Carlton of Radio 2UE in Sydney. Jana Wendt will moderate the discussion ...Swinging voters transcript HELEN DALLEY: Thank you all for joining us this week. We have the Liberal candidate and sitting member for Parramatta, Ross Cameron, in to face the panel. Last week the PM announced he will spend millions of dollars in western Sydney. Do you consider that a bribe or will those things be good for you? Jason? JASON ROSS, TAFE TEACHER: I think there are probably things that will help us but, as always, why are those things not given to us in year one, two, or three of the election period? They're always offered to you four weeks before an election's on. So, always a dose of scepticism from this seat, as you know. HELEN DALLEY: Katie, how do you feel about those things? Were you convinced by the PM giving those things away? KATIE, HUMAN RELATIONS OFFICER: Not really. I think it's a little bit too late, especially with the uni funding, considering you - just not long ago put up prices for all the fees. MICHAEL CALNAN, ELECTRICAL CONTRACTOR: It doesn't make sense. I mean, to me, it's just a bribe, part of it anyway. Some of it will be good and some of it will be used but the majority, I think, is just a bribe. HELEN DALLEY: Ross Cameron, they feel you're trying to bribe them. ROSS CAMERON, LIBERAL MP, PARRAMATTA: The reason why it's come now is because of the strength of the Australian economy. We've had - significantly exceeded our Budget forecasts in terms of ... HELEN DALLEY: We've had 13 years of growth and you've been in for eight of them. These people are saying why is it in the second last week of the campaign? ROSS CAMERON: Well, because in the third last week of the campaign, Treasury came to us and said, "The economy is performing so well that you have - the Australian people have generated significantly more revenue than we anticipated," so both side of politics had to rush back to the drawing board and work out what to do with this bigger-than-expected surplus. BRUCE SWAN, ELECTRICITY INDUSTRY: Can I just ask about the money towards the football fields? Now I'm a football follower, Penrith boy, like, follower. But $10 million, and now down Melbourne $8 million. There is another one I heard in the pipeline tonight. ROSS CAMERON: Whether or not this expenditure on a sporting facility is the most pressing priority, frankly, is a matter which is open to debate and different people's judgment. The purpose in ... HELEN DALLEY: So you don't agree it's the most pressing priority? ROSS CAMERON: No, I haven't said that at all, Helen. GRAEME GLOSSOP, TAX ACCOUNTANT: You can't take the credit for an economy which virtually you haven't reformed at all - that was really done before you got there - so I don't understand how you can virtually sit there and talk about how well the economy has done when you haven't been put any reform packages in place. ROSS CAMERON: Well, what you've said, Graham, is that this Government's come in, has run surplus budgets, has repaid Labor's debts, has reduced interest rates and has kept inflation in check. I reckon that's - as a start ... GRAEME GLOSSOP: You don't have to be a brilliant economist to do that. You only have to be in business and you say, "I'm making losses here. Let's sell off an asset." God, you've got to be real bright to do that, haven't you? And the only thing you put in place was a GST and you sold that on a fraud, right? And you know you did. You sold that that the cash economy would virtually be reined in. And that was a fraud, you know that. ROSS CAMERON: The States had been crying out for access to a growth revenue for 25 years. The tax system was creaking and groaning. In terms of selling it on a fraud, we went, frankly, to the electorate before an election and said we are going to introduce a new tax. The States tripped over each other, rushing to get into the GST, and now for the first time ever, every State and Territory has access to a source of revenue that grows as the economy grows. And if you want to talk about the reforms, the key area of reform has been labour market reform. This is the area crying out for reform which no Labor government was ever able to do, because of the stranglehold of the trade union movement on the ALP. GRAEME GLOSSOP: So you've got a very simple policy - you can put it in a nutshell, right. Your policy is this - that you run down public facilities, such as public hospitals, the Medicare system. You run down ... ROSS CAMERON: The Commonwealth ... GRAEME GLOSSOP: Let me finish. ROSS CAMERON: ... is not responsible for public hospitals. GRAEME GLOSSOP: You had your talk, and I'll tell you what your policy is. You run down public facilities such as hospitals, Medicare and education, you shift them across to private institutions. We have got this duality problem between the States and the Federal Government. If you can't fix it, get out of office. If you can't do anything about Parramatta, get out of it. ROSS CAMERON: When I got elected in 1996, unemployment in Parramatta was over 10 per cent. Today it's 3.6 per cent. HELEN DALLEY: But are they all full-time employees? Most of that growth would have been in casual labour force, though? ROSS CAMERON: They're a mixture. HELEN DALLEY: Most of that reduction would be in casual workers, the growth would be in casual workers? ROSS CAMERON: Well, whichever way. We are using the same data and the same statistical method that's been used for the last 20 years. JASON ROSS: How many hours do you have to work before you are not deemed to be unemployed? Because is it true that if someone's got three hours work a week, that they are not considered on the unemployment figures? ROSS CAMERON: My understanding is that a relatively light level of work does take a person out of the unemployment net. My point is that if we're comparing apples with apples, that's been the case under both governments and under the Liberal Government ... JASON ROSS: Under the Liberal Government, there's been more casualisation of the workforce as there has been under previous Labor governments. ROSS CAMERON: But, Jason, I don't ... Labor doesn't like casualisation because it takes people out of the trade union net. HELEN DALLEY: Ross, probably the biggest issue for you in this campaign is you making your private life part of your public persona. Do you regret outing yourself or admitting adultery? ROSS CAMERON: No. HELEN DALLEY: You don't? Just a few weeks before the election, you're happy that you outed yourself and your wife? ROSS CAMERON: Look, I wouldn't necessarily use the adjective 'happy', but I made a decision in the knowledge that it would have consequences for me and I don't regret doing that. HELEN DALLEY: It had mixed results in our panel when we discussed it and I just want to play to you some of the comments that some of our panellists made. GRAEME GLOSSOP: Ross Cameron makes a mockery of Christianity and Christians when he goes around and has adultery with other people. BRUCE SWAN: He broke the biggest trust, not to the electorate, but to his family and his wife. HELEN DALLEY: Why did you do it and did you consider the publicity and its consequences on your wife and children? ROSS CAMERON: Helen, all I would say tonight is if any of you want to raise with me privately any of these issues, I'm happy to have that discussion. GRAEME GLOSSOP: You don't turn up. ROSS CAMERON: I'm happy to have that discussion. GRAEME GLOSSOP: We ring you up and you don't turn up. HELEN DALLEY: So just a minute. ROSS CAMERON: I don't want to ... HELEN DALLEY: You don't want to talk about it publicly when you made it a public issue? ROSS CAMERON: I felt there were some things that I ought to say. I said them. GRAEME GLOSSOP: Are you going to apologise to the Christians in this particular Bible belt? Are you going to apologise to the people and all the schools you went to and said you were a Christian person? And you took your Bible out there and everybody looked up to you. Are you going to apologise to them for bringing them into disarray? BRUCE SWAN: He doesn't have to apologise ... GRAEME GLOSSOP: He does have to apologise to them because he used them to get where he is today. Of course, he does. BRUCE SWAN: He makes his own personal apologise. JANNETTE PETERSON, MARKETING: You're sitting between two Christians. Remember that. GRAEME GLOSSOP: It doesn't matter where I'm sitting. Of course, he's got to. It goes to the integrity of the person, doesn't it? Christians have integrity. If you don't have any integrity, say so. JANNETTE PETERSON: I have to say ... HELEN DALLEY: Ross can answer that. GRAEME GLOSSOP: He can answer his own little question. He's the one who has no integrity. He's a fraud as a Christian! ROSS CAMERON: I'm happy to take the question. Graeme, if you would like an apology ... GRAEME GLOSSOP: I don't want an apology. ROSS CAMERON: ... or anyone else would, I'm happy to give them one. GRAEME GLOSSOP: You go and apologise to the Christians who you brought into disrepute. HELEN DALLEY: How do you respond? ROSS CAMERON: I don't presume to advise people on what their reaction should be. It's the great freedom of democracy that everyone will have the opportunity to form a judgment on 9 October. They'll make a judgment. This will be one factor among many which will influence some people. That's the way it should be. Election panel transcript JANA WENDT: Thank you for joining us. The week started, I suppose, with the PM making pledges to dispatch anti-terror squads overseas and Mark Latham promising to beef up defences at home. Mike, how do you think those two messages are playing out there? MIKE CARLTON, RADIO 2UE: Hard to tell. The PM had a mad rush of blood to the head. He's going to go charging around rattling sabres all around South-East Asia. He can't do that and I think he knows it and he spent the rest of the week in retreat on that. It was madness. JANA WENDT: Tim Blair, do you think he was retreating on the pre-emptive strikes issue, that is? TIM BLAIR, COLUMNIST, THE BULLETIN: On the pre-emptive strike, he's simply driving home the message - on that issue, there's a very clear point of difference between himself and the Labor Party and that is reflected, I think, in polls on terror issues. The PM has got, I think, a 20-point advantage. So, any time he can, sort of, get to drive the issue home, he will do it. MIKE CARLTON: Even if he has to lie to do it? TIM BLAIR: It's not a lie. PADDY MCGUINNESS, EDITOR QUADRANT: Enough of a big lie. TIM BLAIR: I don't think it's a lie. If you say your attitude is you are aware there's a threat and you will take military measures, if that's what's required to deal with it ... MIKE CARLTON: To invade Indonesia or something? TIM BLAIR: To take out a terrorist cell. It's not invading Indonesia. MIKE CARLTON: Well it is. If you land your armed forces in another person's country, it is invading that country. PADDY MCGUINNESS: Yeah, well, tell that to the Israelis in Entebbe. JANA WENDT: Well, Alexander Downer reinforced the PM's point during the week by saying it would be OK for Indonesia to strike the Kimberleys under certain circumstances. Paddy, do you think it was a worthwhile message? PADDY MCGUINNESS: Yes, because it emphasised that the whole thing is a fairly trivial issue of hypothetical situations. The original proposal was if, say, there was a terrorist cell about to strike an Australian target in Indonesia and the Indonesian Government refused to do anything about it, then we would feel obliged to do something. MIKE CARLTON: He didn't say that at all. PADDY MCGUINNESS: He did say it. MIKE CARLTON: He didn't say they if the Indonesian Government refused to do anything about it. He did. That was said quite clear. Similarly, Downer's comments about the Kimberleys were if we were stupid enough to refuse act on behalf of the Indonesians when they were being threatened from, say, a group based in the Kimberleys, we would be surprised if they didn't take some action. The Israelis have done this on several occasions, not against the Palestinians. MIKE CARLTON: With remarkable success. PADDY MCGUINNESS: The Entebbe raid was extraordinarily successful. JANA WENDT: OK, we'll wrap this up by saying is this playing well with the electorate? Do you think Mr Howard and the Government are playing to their strength? TIM BLAIR: Howard has won this section of the argument. PADDY MCGUINNESS: I don't think it's playing to the electorate at all! The electorate is totally indifferent to the issue. MIKE CARLTON: No, they are not indifferent to the issue. PADDY MCGUINNESS: You are not indifferent. The electorate is. MIKE CARLTON: I think they're about equal. I don't think they think Mark Latham is going to sell the country down the river and I don't think they believe John Howard after the litany of deceit we've had from him. PADDY MCGUINNESS: This is the second time we've produced the big lie about Howard - that deceitfulness, lies and so on. This is the media big lie of this campaign. It's repeated over and over again. MIKE CARLTON: Palpable nonsense, Paddy. PADDY MCGUINNESS: But people will believe that nonsense. JANA WENDT: So, you are saying Mr Howard hasn't told any lies and this is a false allegation? PADDY MCGUINNESS: In other words, he has acted like a politician. When journalists ask dishonest lies, trying to trap politicians, they have to give ambiguous responses. MIKE CARLTON: What, such dishonest lies, "Are the weapons of mass destruction?" "Yes", said Mr Howard firmly. PADDY MCGUINNESS: Do you think he believed it? MIKE CARLTON: I'm not sure what he believed at that stage. He only believed that he wanted to go to war. PADDY MCGUINNESS: Stop this nonsense, Mike! You're at it again! It's just rubbish! MIKE CARLTON: He wanted to go to war with George. Issues of mass destruction were irrelevant. PADDY MCGUINNESS: This is rubbish. You just repeat it over and over again. That it doesn't make it true. MIKE CARLTON: It might be true. JANA WENDT: OK, whatever we might think around this table, Tim Blair, can I try with you, do you think then that the electorate believes that John Howard has told lies or do they err in his favour on this issue, Tim? TIM BLAIR: I don't think it's news to the electorate that politicians occasionally fudge the truth. I think that's why the Howard lies hasn't gained ground. MIKE CARLTON: I don't think he has gained ground. Nobody sets store in Mr Howard's promises any more. TIM BLAIR: What about Mark Latham? Mark Latham said he would repeal the GST. In 1999 he said that if GST was introduced, he would revoke that. Now he is not saying that. Is he a liar? Does that mean he's a liar? He said that tariffs put economic ... MIKE CARLTON: That's nothing to do with the issue at all. That's a gross red herring. TIM BLAIR: He said tariffs were economic racism and now he's delaying the rollback of tariffs. Does that mean he is a liar and, therefore, unqualified to lead the country or just a politician? MIKE CARLTON: That is a gross red herring. TIM BLAIR: Were those lies? PADDY MCGUINNESS: It's not your red herring. JANA WENDT So, a change of heart versus lies. We'll have to leave that one there. Moving on to the health issue - we saw Julia Gillard this morning reinforcing her boss's view that this election should be a referendum on health. Is that a winner for Mark Latham? MIKE CARLTON: It's one of the best things he has got going for him. There's no doubt about that. But I don't think it's gonna be a referendum on health, no, that's too big. JANA WENDT: Is it a winner, the health policy? PADDY MCGUINNESS: Possibly. The trouble is both parties are giving away far too much on health. It's now become just a bidding war. Julia, of course, presented the case very well - she's one of the best of the Opposition speakers - but she didn't say anything new. JANA WENDT: We saw our swinging voters in Parramatta in the last segment sceptical about all these promises that are being made - $6.4 billion, I think, on the part of the Government to date. Do you think they are right to be sceptical about this, Tim Blair? TIM BLAIR: I think they're right to be sceptical about this. I'm also looking forward to one day the possibility we might have an election where in the reverse occurs, where people promise to take less from us. Instead of promising to spend all of our money, to maybe have a tax-cut election, which would be terrific. I mean, I think there were elections in the '80s in NZ, where the various parties were competing to privatise more things. MIKE CARLTON: I think Mark Latham just offered a massive tax, didn't he, to 80 per cent of Australians under $52,000? TIM BLAIR: Well, we're yet to get the costings back on that. I think that's part of the accounting wars. MIKE CARLTON: I think there was a tax cut there. You just said you wanted one and you just got one. TIM BLAIR: I'm not sure if I qualify for it. I'm not sure if I'm in the right category. I think I've got to consult the bones on that one. JANA WENDT: But Paddy, how about the fundamental issue of all these promises toting up to this huge tally now. Does it make sense? PADDY MCGUINNESS: It's very alarming, as a matter of fact. MIKE CARLTON: We agree! PADDY MCGUINNESS: Both parties are being irresponsible and profligate. I agree, absolutely. MIKE CARLTON: No planning for the future whatsoever. An aging population and all that sort of stuff. Boom, spend the lot. JANA WENDT: Mr Latham reacted rather angrily last Sunday, I think, when he was asked about where his son would be going to school, public or private. Again, was this a moment in the last week of the campaign that had any significance, Tim Blair, did you think? TIM BLAIR: It was either one of two things. Either he was responding to media calls that he should arc up a bit and be the old angry Mark Latham or he's someone more sensitive than someone with third-degree burns. I mean that question was nothing - it was about school, it wasn't about his child. And to suddenly start screaming about poor little three-year-old Oliver I think was ... MIKE CARLTON: I think when you drag out the tots for the cameras and hold them up as a - you're giving away you're a family man. PADDY MCGUINNESS: There are two points I think to be made here. First, how dare Mark Latham be sensitive about that given the dirt he's thrown at Tony Abbott about his illegitimate child. He's got no privacy to defend since he doesn't give anybody else any. Secondly, of course, it's not a big deal. The response to the journalist involved was essentially the press gallery reacting like an insulted nun drawing its skirts up ... MIKE CARLTON: Here we go, here we go. PADDY MCGUINNESS: You know, "How dare you criticise us." If a politician simply gives as good as he gets, he's considered to be out of bounds. JANA WENDT: All right. OK. I keep asking you three sages how this is playing out there, partly because of a poll that we saw published yesterday that would seem to suggest that this election isn't close at all, that the Coalition has an eight-point lead. Do you think that's real? MIKE CARLTON: I think that's a bit of a rogue poll. It didn't agree with the Channel Nine/Bulletin poll on Wednesday, it didn't agree with the News Limited Poll last weekend which are pretty much in tandem. I think it's probably out of whack. PADDY MCGUINNESS: Not necessarily, but most of the polls have been within the margin of error, which is plus or minus 3 per cent, even on quite a large sample. And all the fluctuations that go on the front page are meaningless, they're just statistical noise. JANA WENDT: So we should pay no attention to polls at all? PADDY MCGUINNESS: They're worth doing because everybody's interested. You track them afterwards and see whether they revealed anything. But time and time again, we've seen the results be quite different from the polls. MIKE CARLTON: They are not a biblical authority. JANA WENDT: Tim, do you share that view about polls, and this one in particular? TIM BLAIR: The problem we've with the polls is that even when you look at, say, you restrict your examination to one or two of the particular polls, even within them, there is no evident trends emerging that are easily deciphered, and that's the more sort of difficult part of it. This recent blowout poll I can't really credit. I think Mike is right. MIKE CARLTON: The Herald spent some time knocking its own poll in that same edition of the paper, too. PADDY MCGUINNESS: They didn't leave the paper on it either which says a lot for the reporting. JANA WENDT: Finally, do you think the failure of the Brisbane Lions to win a fourth AFL Grand Final is an omen for John Howard? MIKE CARLTON: It might have got Alexander Downer over in May, with the SA vote. That's about it. JANA WENDT: OK. We will have to leave it there. Thank you all for joining us this morning. |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
