Julia Gillard’s announcement to go to the polls came hard on the heels of a new campaign by the Coalition, enticing the Australian public to view Tony Abbott’s team as the providers of ‘real solutions’ to Australia’s woes.
The glossy brochure Our Plan: Real Solutions for all Australians couldn’t have appeared at a more auspicious moment. Neos Kosmos spoke to Senator Arthur Sinodinos about some of its commitments.
With job creation heralded as one of the lynchpins of the Coalition’s ambitions – Real Solutions commits them to create one million new jobs over five years and two million new jobs within a decade. How will they achieve this?
Improving Australia’s productivity, cost-structure and flexibility will be key, and industrial relations reform will play an important part says Sinodinos.
“There are a suite of things that need to be done…including making the industrial relations system more flexible.
“What we’re saying on industrial relations is that it’s not about getting rid of the Fair Work Act or turning the clock back to Work Choices, but we do think the pendulum has swung too far in favour of unions in certain circumstances.
“For example, we think it should be easier for individuals to get what are called Individual Flexibility Agreements. Under the Fair Work Act the unions have a lot of power over whether that can happen or not.”
Underpinning the Coalition’s productivity reforms will be measures to make “our costs more in line with our competitors,” says Sinodinos.
“Independent reports suggest our costs have potentially blown out by 40 per cent compared to costs of delivering projects in other countries. Part of that is a higher dollar, but it’s also because here in Australia costs are going up.”
The senator cites the recent dispute between the construction union CFMEU and Grocon as a glaring example of why new legislation is overdue.
“In Victoria you’ve seen what’s been happening in the construction industry, and the way in which the Baillieu government and others are trying to deal with that.
“We used to have a very strong Building and Construction Commission which policed the work sites, to make sure that both sides – companies and unions – were not rorting the system at the expense of consumers and taxpayers.”
With Sinodinos heading up the Coalition’s Deregulation Taskforce since 2011, reducing red tape for businesses – which the Productivity Commission estimates could be worth $12 billion in extra GDP – is a subject dear to the senator’s heart.
A part of the productivity solution he says, is what a Coalition Government will do about unnecessary business regulation.
“Since 2007 we’ve had something like 20,000 extra rules and regulations at the federal level. We want to get back to a situation where we’re rigorously examining the costs and benefits of regulation.
“That doesn’t mean you don’t have regulation in various sectors, but you have to keep meeting this test – you don’t want a situation where there’s too many costs on industry, particularly small businesses which don’t have the overheads to cope. We’re talking about excessive compliance costs, paperwork, things that stop you doing things.”
Real Solutions commits the Coalition to many areas of spending – $10 billion to infrastructure projects for instance, but there’s no detail about where the cash will come from. Isn’t that a problem?
“It’s something that will be laid out in more detail as we go through the year. What you have to do when you are costing proposals is put out all your savings measures together, rather than bit by bit.
“By the time the election comes, people will have that in a consolidated form, showing where the money’s coming from and what it’s funding. It’s important to get the sequence right and for credibility you have to have the most up to date government budget figures.
“We’re accountable to the public for our figuring and we’ll have all that out before the election for people to have a chance to absorb it.
With the election now set, electoral reform and how the parties manage the public disclosure of donations will become an increasingly sensitive issue. With the government trying to pass sweeping electoral reforms on the grounds of greater public accountability, and altering the rules for the September election, the Coalition has opposed many of the recommendations. Why?
“We don’t like being picked off on individual changes, and the reason for being concerned about this is to make sure different types of donors get treated in an equal way,” says Sinodinos.
“There’s a very strong link between the trade unions and the Labor Party, and therefore the flow of money from the unions to Labor needs to be treated on the same basis as everybody else.
“That’s why there probably needs to be a process of ‘argy-bargy’ – if I can put it that way, around what a final package of reforms would look like.”
The government currently has a bill before the Senate to require disclosure of all political donations of more than $1000 compared to the present disclosure level of more than $12,000, but Sinodinos believes such an approach falls short.
“It’ll help, but there are issues around the third-party campaigns which the unions can run, which are not necessarily treated as political expenditure. You need to look at this all together.”
As the interview reaches its conclusion we turn to more personal matters. With the senator increasingly in the spotlight since his elevation as Tony Abbott’s parliamentary secretary, media attention has increased, often referring to his ancestry and cultural identity.
To what extent does his Greek heritage inform his actions as a politician?
“Having grown up in an immigrant household I’m probably more knowledgeable on how it feels to be an immigrant in Australia – what it’s like to be caught between two cultures and how you blend the two.”
It was his mother, who experienced the Greek civil war, who guided his early political education Sinodinos told the Australian Financial Review this week. From her he inherited a staunch opposition “to totalitarianism in all its forms” and “excessive interference by governments in the rights of the individual.”
Asked how his upbringing affected his views beyond such universal themes, he recalls the parental motivation that he values to this day.
“It’s impacted my attitude to education, and the importance of parental encouragement in education. It had an impact on me wanting to succeed and do well, there’s no doubt about it.”
With the priceless legacy of being John Howard’s right-hand man at the height of the Coalition’s success during their last period in power, Sinodinos is perfectly positioned to enhance his standing as a heavyweight statesman with impeccable economic management credentials.
His powerful ability to articulate the Coalition’s policies with a deft touch will be an invaluable asset to their electioneering in the months ahead.
With the front cover of the Coalition’s policy document adorned by Tony Abbott and five members of his inner circle (Turnbull, Robb, Hockey, Bishop and Truss), my last observation is that his absence from the photograph might disappoint his supporters.
“Don’t worry they don’t need to see my mush,” he responds with a hearty laugh.
Given the senator’s pedigree and a potential return to Government sooner rather than later, there’s little doubt that we’ll be seeing much more of Arthur Sinodinos’ “mush” in the future.