Journalist: Is Mike Baird right when he says the GST needs to go up?

Karen Andrews: I think that he is right in so far as there needs to be a discussion about the GST. There has already been conflicting views by other State premiers or their treasurers today about the GST.

I think it's fair to say that there has been an ongoing discussion for quite some time about whether or not there should be changes to the GST, whether the base should be broadened or whether it should be increased from 10 per cent to that of 12 per cent or as the New South Wales Premier has said up to 15 per cent.

Journalist: It seems like it's going to be pretty difficult to get all the States and Territories to agree on a model, is there a role here for the Federal Government to really take the lead on this?

Karen Andrews: I think that the Federal Government through the Prime Minister is taking the lead in so far as the COAG meeting that will take place on Wednesday this week and the Prime Minister will certainly be facilitating discussions at that meeting.

Now I think that is the right and proper role for the Prime Minister and for our Federal Government that’s facilitating the discussion amongst the States. Ultimately there will be no changes unless agreement can be reached amongst the States. So it is down to them to discuss what they see as a proper way forward with regards to the GST. Then of course take that to the Federal Government and we would be looking for bipartisan support for any changes.

Journalist: It looks like a big part of any change to the GST would be compensation to households that are not so well off. Mike Baird is saying there needs to be compensation for household with less than $100,000. Is that something that you think is necessary?

Karen Andrews: Look I think that we’ve got to look at the unintended consequences of any possible changes to the GST.

It is a very complex issue, not just a simple case of determining what a rate should be or who should be affected by it. There are some impacts that will occur if there are any changes to the GST.

Journalist: That's rights it's a regressive tax isn't, so poorer people, it is the things that they buy that the GST affects and they have less money to spend on other things, so you need that compensation as part of the package wouldn't you?

Karen Andrews: Well I think that it’s too early to talk about compensation. The issue that you have talked about in terms of what you have called a regressive tax, but a consumption tax is one that I would encourage the States to consider very seriously before they propose any changes to understand what they will need to give to people who may be well less off in the community.

Journalist: Karen I also see that the Treasurer Joe Hockey who’s said that it’s an aim for the Federal Coalition to take a policy to the next election of income tax cuts, how can we afford tax cuts?

Karen Andrews: Look that’s a very fair question as well, we have always considered ourselves to be the party of lower taxes and it would always be I guess in our DNA, certainly our goal to look at what we could possibly do to reduce taxes.

Now to reduce taxes we also need to make sure we have more people in employment, which means we have to be building these economies and look at ways in which we can innovate with our businesses here and increase our tax revenue as such. But I think that the Treasurer is right. We need to be looking at what we need to do around taxation and looking at what we can do for income tax relief, and develop that policy to take to the next election.

Journalist: Would income tax cuts make it more palatable to the electorate to face a GST increase?

Karen Andrews: Well what we indicated is that we were going back out to the community, which we have, with a tax white paper.

People put forward their views, and there have been a wide range of views put to the Government about what should be done with taxation in general so I think it’s a case where we have an opportunity to look holistically at taxation in this country and we should look at income tax and we should look at the GST and look at what we can do, and particularly with income tax and what we can do to decrease it.

Journalist: Karen Andrews, Bronwyn Bishop is on probation, the Prime Minister says, he’s resisting calls for her to resign we’ll just see what he’s had to say today ….[Prime Minister’s statement]…..sorry that was the wrong audio there, we just heard the Prime Minister talking about the GST but he has earlier said that Bronwyn Bishop, the speaker of the house has made a grave error of judgement but he’s standing by her.

Karen Andrews, do you think she should resign?

Karen Andrews: Look I think she’s been very clear that she’s not going to resign, she has indicated that she understands that she has made a serious error of judgement and I think that that would be the general view of most of the people in the community.

I understand that the Finance Department is still looking into those claims and there will be some recommendations that will come out of that.

Journalist: Do you think the rules around travel entitlements need to change?

Karen Andrews: I think that we actually have to have quite a serious look, and I mean a serious look, at how these allowances are actually set up in the first place.

I personally don’t like the wording ‘entitlement’ because I think it gives a wrong perception. The reality is that for politicians getting on a plane is almost like a tool of the trade. We actually have to get on planes to actually get to Parliament in the first place and get to various committee type meetings and other such events around the country side.

So is it an entitlement, I don’t think it’s an entitlement. It’s something that we have to do.

Journalist: We heard a suggestion actually from someone last week who called in saying that it should be wrapped into the salary of a politician and then that’s how it’s managed, would that work?

Karen Andrews: I actually don’t think that that would work, simply because we could be required to go to functions and events on the other side country, quite unexpectedly.

For example, I myself was over in Western Australia looking at the SKA project. Now 12 months ago I would have not contemplated such travel, so it’s come up in the last couple of months or so. So it’s actually difficult in our jobs to plan more than a couple of months out in the future to what our travel requirements are actually going to be.

Similarly for those that are referred to a committee, it’s not known 12 months in advance normally what travel is going to be required as the inquiry is conducted, so it’s actually quite hard to do that. And if you do it you’re actually limiting it, you’re saying well there’s only going to be a certain amount of travel to be undertaken and once that cap is reached then that’s the end of it.

Now that could mean that some very important work just doesn’t get done.

Journalist: Well what about party fundraisers, that’s not travel that the taxpayer should be paying for at all is it?

Karen Andrews: I think what we have to do is make it very clear, what is and what isn’t allowed, and if there’s a lack of clarity around any of that we have the opportunity now to sit down and work out how we make it very clear.

Journalist: I saw that South Australian Independent Senator Nick Xenophon last week was actually saying last week that there needs to be an independent person who looks at these entitlements and judges whether they have been correctly used or not, because at the moment it is the Finance Department and that doesn’t really seem to be working.

Karen Andrews: Well I think there’s actually an argument for the Finance Department to have a greater role in some of the scrutiny in the first instance, so they can have a look at some of these costs upfront and have close scrutiny of the travel claims that are being made and determine whether or not that is reasonable.

Now there would be others, my colleagues that would disagree with that but the general public would say that there should be some scrutiny of the travel that is undertaken by MPs and senators.

Journalist: Karen Andrews you’re also the Parliamentary Secretary for Industry and Science and we’ve been speaking on the program earlier about a new book that’s been released for children to educate them about science, the CSIRO are also launching a new book brand targeted at children.

Are children not getting enough science education at schools?

Karen Andrews: Well what we know is that if we haven’t engaged students in about year 4 to year 9, so the 8 to 13 year olds, if we haven’t engaged them in science, then there’s every chance they’re not ever going to undertake further study in maths or science.

So we do know that the younger years are where we need to be concentrating our efforts and in fact Germany has a very interesting model where they are introducing science into kindergarten and they did that about eight years ago because two years prior to that, so ten years ago Germany formed the view that they were limited in their skills for science, engineering, technology and maths into the future so they needed to take action to increase their skills level.

Which I think is quite staggering given our view of Germany and the technological skills that their people already have.

They looked at several models I understand but have gone down the path of introducing science methodology into their kindergartens which I think has been very well received, still subjective at this stage, because the four year olds that were starting this program eight years ago are now only 12 years old so we haven’t seen what the outcome is as they go through their schooling onto tertiary education.

I think it’s very interesting and certainly something that is already happening in Australia, particularly in Sydney, I believe there are about 40 childcare centres that are running a very similar program here.

Journalist: Because it doesn’t seem to be technical facts and figures does it? I mean you could talk about things that they see, it’s nature education as well isn’t it?

Karen Andrews: Absolutely and how many people have had an awaking of interest in astronomy simply because of the images of Pluto being beamed back to us.

I’ve been amazed about how many discussions that I’ve actually overheard or been part of just in recent days. People are actually fascinated.

Journalist: You’ve had to read up on Pluto as well or were you already an expert Karen?

Karen Andrews: Well actually I spent a couple of days in a car with some very senior scientists from CSIRO and we had lots to talk about, and I guess that they were a little bit disappointed that we had limited reception as the first images were being beamed back.

Journalist: [laughs] Right, ok Karen Andrews, thanks so much for speaking with me today and we’ll catch up with another time.

Karen Andrews:  My pleasure.

[ENDS]