Julie Bishop - Member for Curtin

ABC News 24 with Lyndal Curtis

Subjects: Liberal Conference, Colombo Plan announcement, budget surpluses
 
E&OE…
 
PRESENTER    Lets return now to the Liberal Party’s Federal Council meeting in Melbourne now. Our political editor Lyndal Curtis is covering the event, she is with the Deputy Leader Julie Bishop.
 
LYNDAL CURTIS    Thank you Jeremy. Julie Bishop, welcome to ABC News 24. Tony Abbott in his speech outlined a reverse Colombo Plan that you have been talking about for quite some time. What will that involve, how would it work?
 
JULIE BISHOP    Tony Abbott made a very significant announcement today that if elected a Coalition government would introduce a two-way student exchange within our region. People may recall the Colombo Plan that was introduced by the Menzies government in 1951 where we brought the best and brightest of young people from our region to study in Australian universities. Well what we want to do is to ensure that not only do we bring students from the region to study in Australia but that young Australians have the opportunity to live and study in countries in our region. I can think of…
 
LYNDAL CURTIS    Would it subside some costs to do that?
 
JULIE BISHOP   ....I can think of no better way to deeply engage in the region than have a body of young people in different countries having lived and studied in another country. And they will be ambassadors for Australia and Australians will be better educated and have greater understanding of the cultural, social and political differences and challenges in countries in our region.

What we propose to do is bring together all those who are involved in higher education, we intend to consult with countries in our region – I of course have been talking about this for some time and have spoken to governments in our region about the possibility of having this two-way student exchange – and then over time we will build up a range of scholarships that students will be able to undertake in the region.
 
There are different universities and business orientated scholarships now but we believe that a government backed plan, in the spirit of the Colombo Plan, will be one of the best soft power diplomacy efforts that Australia can undertake.
 
LYNDAL CURTIS    Mr Abbott said in his speech that money would come from existing resources, would you also be expecting universities and some private sector involvement?
 
JULIE BISHOP    There are a whole range of ways that we can do this. I have spoken to universities, I have spoken to businesses in the private sector and they are very enthusiastic about our proposal. And so we’ll bring together all of the ideas that people have on how we can recreate that great spirit of the Colombo Plan and have it as a two-way student exchange and present marvellous opportunities for young people in our country to live and study in our region and gain that brilliant understanding of what it means to live in Australia but also live in this region.
 
LYNDAL CURTIS    Tony Abbott gave his speech this morning, he says there is about a year to go until the next election. There are a lot of things still that he is proposing that we don’t know the detail of. He is saying people can have tax cuts without a carbon tax, companies can have a company tax cut without a mining tax. There is a lot of detail that is yet to be seen. When are the Australian people going to get to see that detail?
 
JULIE BISHOP    We have been doing a lot of work in a policy review committee and also in an expenditure review committee, and we have been going through the budget line by line to find the savings in order to be able to pay for these initiatives. But Lyndal there is yet another budget to go. We haven’t seen the final lay out of the national accounts that will precede the next election.
 
So after the next budget when we have seen how much money is left, how big the deficits are, how big the gross debt has become then we will be in a position to see what savings need to be made in order to fund the initiatives that we have been announcing.
 
LYNDAL CURTIS    And potentially what of your initiatives you will have to trim.
 
JULIE BISHOP    Of course we have a lot of policies ready to go. We are ready if an election should be called – and there is every possibility that Labor could change leaders, something could happen – but we are ready whenever the government chooses to call an election. And should it be in 12 months time then we will see what is in the next budget.
 
The Treasurer has been promising a surplus but we know that will be a con so we need to see the detail of what expenditures have been made, what the deficit looks like, what the gross debt – which currently stands at $230 billion – how much that has grown.
 
LYNDAL CURTIS    Tony Abbott this morning also talked about the Ministerial experience in your team. He said the Howard and Costello surpluses weren’t just theirs they were his, they were Malcolm Turnbull’s, they were yours, is that attempting to borrow some of the gloss from the Howard government to bolster his own case?
 
JULIE BISHOP    It is stating a fact. We were senior Ministers in the Howard government and we sat around that cabinet table and as a team we delivered budget surpluses, we paid off government debt, we were all responsible Ministers responsible for policies and departments and initiatives and policies.
 
LYNDAL CURTIS    Would Peter Costello like to share the credit in that way for his surpluses?
 
JULIE BISHOP    He always did. Peter was a team player and he always knew that it took the work of other Ministers to trim their budgets, to trim their policies to make savings where they could to ensure he was able to deliver successive budget surpluses and pay off that massive $96 billion debt that we inherited from Labor and put savings in the bank for the Australian people.
 
LYNDAL CURTIS    Julie Bishop, thank you very much for your time.
 
JULIE BISHOP    It has been my pleasure.