Interview with Rafael Epstein - ABC Radio Melbourne

Subjects: Child care announcement; Return of international students; IBAC probe                                                                                                          

RAFAEL EPSTEIN:

There are child care changes that have been brought forward. We all want our international students to return. And all politicians are interested in anti-corruption watchdogs. So we are joined by Alan Tudge, he is the Minister for Education and Youth. He's part of Scott Morrison's Cabinet, and of course, he's a Liberal MP in Melbourne, the Seat of Aston. Alan Tudge, good afternoon.

ALAN TUDGE:

G’day Raf. How is it going?

RAFAEL EPSTEIN:

Numbers might be flatlining in in Melbourne. Numbers are coming down drastically in Sydney. How do you think we're doing?

ALAN TUDGE:

Well let's hope they are flatlining, and they're certainly doing well in Sydney. They're now starting to open, as you know, when we've seen the scenes there, and let's hope that when we hit 70 per cent as well, that we’ll start to open up in a similar manner, and the Premier indicated that that was going to occur. So that's very exciting.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN:

You feeling good about it all?

ALAN TUDGE:

Like everybody who's from Melbourne, I am desperately looking forward to the end of lockdowns and for all sorts of different reasons. I've been particularly concerned about the mental health aspects on our young people from extended lockdowns. They are dramatic, and so the sooner that we can get out of those, the better.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN:

Tell me about these child care changes. They were announced in the Budget. They've been brought forward from July to March. I'm sure people appreciate them. It means child care costs less, but does it also mean you brought it forward simply because there's an election?

ALAN TUDGE:

No. I said at the time we announced these, that we would bring it forward if we could. The advice at the time was, because of the complexity of the system changes, that the safest time to implement it was 1 July of next year. Now, I said we’re going to work very hard, If we can bring it forward, we will. We have done that hard work. We've been speaking with the third-party software providers as well as the sector, and now we're very confident that we will be able to have it fully implemented by 7 March. That's really good news for those families, particularly those families with two or more kids in child care, where your costs really start to add up. It means, for them, the average family will be about $700 better off this financial year, and over $2000 better off the subsequent financial years.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN:

Just very quickly, for the people who might be eligible for that money, it essentially means you get, instead of roughly two-thirds of the cost of the second child covered, almost all? Is that the shift from like 60 to 95 per cent?

ALAN TUDGE:

Yeah, effectively. So the subsidy which you get is dependent on how much income you earn. But for your second child, we're giving you an additional 30 per cent subsidy if you like, which, in most cases, that'll bring you up to 90 to 95 per cent subsidy for that second child. So you still have to pay something, but it makes a big difference. And obviously, the costs add up when you got two or more kids, as well as the workforce disincentives are highest when you've got two or more kids, and that's what we're really trying to address there as well.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN:

I will move on, but two texts have come in. Just on your comments on the COVID situation, if I could ask you to address them. Firstly, Lucy saying: he couldn't say anything positive about Victoria if you paid him. And Jane saying: here we go again, no praise from Alan Tudge for Melbourne, but plenty of pats on the back for Sydney. What would you say to them?

ALAN TUDGE:

Well, I don't know if they're listening to what I just said. I mean, I said that I hope that we’ll be in the same position and that the Premier indicated that we would be opening up earlier once we hit that 70 per cent, which I absolutely welcomed. So, I don't know if they're listening particularly closely, Raf. I am desperate, like everybody else in the community, for Melbourne to unlock and for us to get back to something approaching normality, because we've had the longest lockdown in the world. We're getting very close to those national plan figures of 70 per cent double dose, and then quickly 80 per cent soon after.

And that's what we open up, that's when the economy can open up, that’s when businesses can get back, that's when kids can get back to school, and that's where we start the full recovery, which is so desperately required.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN:

Alan Tudge, one of the jobs you have under the Prime Minister's… under the jobs he’s given you is to try and get as many international students into the country as possible. There's a range of trials going on in different states, in different universities, here and elsewhere. What do you think the first semester next year in Melbourne and Sydney, what's your best guess? How many of those students are going to be back, do you think?

ALAN TUDGE:

I can't put a figure on that, Raf. My expectation is that next calendar year, we will have tens of thousands of international students back. We're putting all of the building blocks into place now. In terms of vaccination certificates for international arrivals, so that we recognise the vaccines which comes in. We've recognised the fact that if you come from China or India, that we’ll acknowledge those vaccines in those particular countries. We've got pilots underway. And of course, then the international borders will start to open up from next month. So all of those building blocks are in place, and that means that I'm quietly confident, but I can't guarantee it, that we’ll start to have in the thousands, if not the tens of thousands, of international students come in next year. It'll be good for our economy. It'll be good from a workforce perspective. It’ll be good for the finances of our universities, and it’ll enliven our cities once again.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN:

And are you okay accepting people here with a vaccine that hasn't been approved here, things like Sinovax?

ALAN TUDGE:

Yeah. So the TGA, has now approved the recognition of Sinovax as being suitable for coming into the country.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN:

Okay. Good news.

ALAN TUDGE:

So that's positive for those Chinese students who are abroad and waiting to come back into Australia. And similarly, with what I think is called Sino Shield, which is the Indian vaccine.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN:

Alan Tudge is with us, one of Scott Morrison's Ministers. Alan Tudge, you're familiar with the politics of and the allegations around branch stacking. The IBAC hearings are pretty spectacular at the moment, the detail we are hearing about. But how do we know this isn't happening in both parties?

ALAN TUDGE:

Well, I can assure you that what we heard over the last couple of days is absolutely extraordinary, and nothing like that has ever occurred, to my knowledge, in the Liberal Party.

We heard, yesterday in particular, that staff were being placed into Members of Parliaments’ offices who didn't even turn up to work, who basically then became operatives of the party and of the faction, rather than serving the interests of the community or that member of Parliament in terms of the work that he or she was doing. Quite extraordinary! I've never heard anything like that occur in the Labor party. This is a fundamental abuse of Commonwealth resources. And what's more, Raf, it wasn't a one-off. We heard that this was systematic across the Victorian Labor party. That’s why I question how much does Anthony Albanese know about this? because he must have known, given how systematic that this was occurring. And if he did know, when did he know? And what action did he take to stop it?

RAFAEL EPSTEIN:

There have been the same, I mean your own party had an audit last year in Victoria. Your party president called it branch stacking. And the same journalist, Nick McKenzie, who wrote these stories that are part of the IBAC hearing today, he wrote the same allegations, the same claims about federal Liberal electorate staffers doing pretty similar stuff. So if I can return to my original question, how do we know this isn't happening in both parties?

ALAN TUDGE:

No, but they aren't the same allegations here, Raf. This is really important. There's no allegation within the Liberal party that individuals were placed as staff members into Members of Parliament's offices. To be employed by those…

RAFAEL EPSTEIN:

The Age’s has certainly reported claims that staff in federal offices have done the same thing.

ALAN TUDGE:

No, no. To be employed by those Members of Parliament, and in some cases, that Member of Parliament, in terms, Anthony Byrne, the Federal Member for Holt, said that he never saw those individual staff members employed by him at all, because they were off working for the factional leaders or the Labor party. So they’re paid for by the taxpayer. They're there to do work for constituents in that electorate. But the Member of Parliament, the Labor Member of Parliament says that person never turned up and never did a day's work for the interests of the constituents. That, to my knowledge, has never, ever occurred inside the Labor party. This is extraordinary that it's gone that far. And as I said, it was systematic across the Labor party. It wasn’t a one-off from what we’ve heard

RAFAEL EPSTEIN:

Well, that’s the allegation. That’s the claim. No finding, but that’s certainly the claim.

You've had eight years as a federal government. For that entire eight years, New South Wales had an ICAC. Victoria's had an IBAC. Why on earth haven't you managed to bring a corruption body to the federal sphere?

ALAN TUDGE:

Well, we're working on that as we speak, and our intent is to introduce that into the Parliament this year.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN:

But I asked why you haven't had one? Why?

ALAN TUDGE:

I mean, our commitment was to work on it this term. That's what we're working on, and we're hoping to have it introduced into the Parliament this year. So we made that commitment. We're doing that. We're doing the work.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN:

Do you think it was a mistake not to have one in eight years of government?

ALAN TUDGE:

You have different priorities in each term of office. You take things to the election, you implement those election commitments. We committed to introducing this, and that's what we're working on, and that's what we're going to do.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN:

One of the best commentators on corruption watchdogs in the country is Stephen Charles, QC. Former Judge from the Court of Appeal here in Victoria. He runs the Centre for Public Integrity. He is very unimpressed with what your government has proposed. If I can just play what he told Virginia Trioli last week about his view on the corruption body proposed by the Prime Minister.

[Excerpt]

STEPHEN CHARLES:

You couldn't even say that you'd seen that Parliamentarian receive a bag full of cash. It is ridiculous. And it's a total fraud, because it's designed to look like an integrity body, when so far as Parliamentarians and ministers are concerned, it absolutely is not.

[End of excerpt]

RAFAEL EPSTEIN:

What do you make of that, Alan Tudge?

ALAN TUDGE:

Well, we haven't introduced anything into the Parliament yet, we're doing the consultation. We're working on it. Let's reserve your judgement until you see what we introduce into the Parliament.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN:

We have a pretty good idea of what you're proposing.

ALAN TUDGE:

Well, the work is still ongoing, Raf. So consultations are being done. We are trying to get it right. It's important that it be done well. It's important that we take our time and then introduce it later this year.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN:

Do you think a federal anti-corruption body should be able to look at either sports rorts, the carparks that you are a part of, or Christian Porter, either not knowing where the money is coming from, or not saying where the money has come from to fund his defamation action against the ABC. Do you think whatever you propose as a government should be able to look at any of those three things?

ALAN TUDGE:

Raf, this is not my responsibility in terms of this. This is the responsibility of the Attorney-General. We've committed to introducing a Commonwealth Integrity commission later this year. That's what we're working on. That's what we intend to do.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN:

Surely, you must have an opinion. I mean, I don't know if you're for or against an anti-corruption watchdog looking at something like sports or the carparks. But you must have an opinion on whether or not it could be able to have a look…

ALAN TUDGE:

Well that’s certainly the intent of the state-based ones that were introduced. And if you go back to, say, the New South Wales one, which I think might have been one of the first ones introduced, was predominantly to go after very serious fraud that may occur inside the state governments, where people are financially benefitting for example, from decisions which they have made. I don't think there's any suggestion that, that has occurred at the Commonwealth level.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN:

So that's a no? You don't think things like sports rorts…

ALAN TUDGE:

Well, I just don't think that there's any suggestion that that has occurred at the federal level, that people have been, you know, you mentioned Christian Porter. I don't think there's any suggestion. There’s no suggestion that that's been the case of the federal level. So as I said, we're working on this, Raf. I know you're pressing me on it. It's not my area of responsibility, so I don't know all of the ins and outs of exactly where it's at the moment. But I do know it’s one of the commitments we made, that we're continuing to do that work, and that our intent is to introduce something into the Parliament later this year.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN:

Thanks for your time, Alan Tudge.

ALAN TUDGE:

Thanks very much, Raf.