As we like to have a Canberra Conversation with Paul Scarr. Senator Paul Scarr, who is the Shadow Minister for Immigration, he joins me on the line. G’day.
Tim Webster
G’day Tim, great to be with you and your listeners.
Tim Webster
Yeah and you. You would have, I’m sure, seen and heard a lot of what Tony Burke has had to say, especially on the Insiders. No seemingly forward planning. Is that a concern?
Senator Scarr
Oh, absolutely, Tim, and this is something which the Coalition probed at Senate Estimates. We couldn’t understand why two years ago, the government said, and it’s logical, that they’d be engaging in Multi Year Modeling in terms of our immigration intake and then as we know, earlier this year, they put out a less than 100 word announcement saying, here are the figures for this year with no forward looking forecasts or projections or plan – no planning. How can we build the houses, the infrastructure, provide the essential services we need without planning?
Tim Webster
Yeah, we were talking about housing as well again this morning, and honestly, to me, none of it really makes a hell of a lot of sense. So can I ask you this, how important is transparency when it comes to immigration targets? Because what Tony Burke is saying is all sort of in the never, never – very airy fairy indeed. Should the Government be upfront with us about the numbers they’re aiming for?
Tim Webster
God, it’s a basic isn’t it? If you don’t know how many is coming, how do you plan?
Senator Scarr
Absolutely, the government should be upfront and should be totally transparent. So when the Department of Home Affairs fixes the permanent immigration intake for each year, they go out and consult with the states, with the territories, with key stakeholders, big employers, unions, local communitie – everyone has an opportunity to have a say. But we don’t know what they’re saying to the government, because the government doesn’t release those submissions. So we don’t know what, for example, the New South Wales Government is saying with respect to housing and infrastructure constraints, because the Government doesn’t release those submissions. We need transparency. We need to see what the people at the coal face are saying in relation to housing constraints, infrastructure constraints and services.
Senator Scarr
Absolutely and Tony Burke said yesterday, and it was quite incredible. He said, well, I can’t engage in this multi year planning because I need to be flexible. I don’t know what’s going to happen. Now, that doesn’t make any sense at all. I mean, anyone out there in a small business, a large business, people in their own households, of course, you don’t know everything that’s going to happen tomorrow, but you still plan!
Tim Webster
Look. A couple of other things – Superannuation. Do we give the government a tick for that back flip? I mean, it was a back flip, with pike!
Senator Scarr
Absolutely. That’s a pretty good gymnastics analogy, but I think you give a tick to the Coalition for maintaining the pressure on the Government on this, because this would have been a terrible road to go down this concept of taxing unrealized profits just on the basis of changes in valuation, it would have been a terrible thing. It would have hurt a lot of our farming families who put their farming property into their super, small businesses, etc. So it would have been a terrible policy. So I’m really glad that the changes occurred. But gee, they had to be drag kicking and screaming to do it, Tim.
Tim Webster
Just one more on Education. We discussed this on the program this morning, too, and the quality of our teachers. Do you think the current system has drifted a little bit far away from let’s call it “foundational learning”?
Senator Scarr
Tim, I really feel for our teachers, because it’s pretty difficult there. I’ve got friends who are teachers, and the burden that’s being imposed on our teachers is far greater than when I went to school, I can tell you. But we need to focus on the basics. We need to make sure our kids have the best ability to do the fundamentals, and that means the reading, the writing, the ability to critically analyze information. So we shouldn’t be telling our kids what to think. We should be teaching them how to think.
Tim Webster
And we’ve got a situation where the literacy and numeracy of our kids is just not very good and hasn’t been for some time.
Senator Scarr
There’s a big gap as well between the high performers and the low performers, and that’s a real concern. We need to bring everyone up so they’ve got that basic level of education so they can engage in meaningful employment.
Tim Webster
Yeah, indeed. Always good to talk to you mate. Talk to you next week.
Senator Scarr
Good on you. Tim.
