DAVID KOCH, HOST: Joining me now, Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese. Good morning to you.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good morning, Kochie.
KOCH: Hey, first Labor surplus since Paul Keating, way back in 1989. You’re really blessed with those commodity prices being so high and all of Australia paying more in income tax.
PRIME MINISTER: Well commodity prices of course contributed just 20 per cent of the revenue gains. We've also found $40 billion of savings across the two budgets that we've handed down within our first year. 87 per cent of the revenue gains were put to the bottom line, unlike our predecessors who only put 40 per cent of those revenue gains to the bottom line. And the Howard Government only had 30 per cent. So we’ve been responsible, making sure that at the same time as we’re taking pressure off families, we’re not adding to pressure on inflation and that's why we’re in a position of, as you say, the first projected surplus in 15 years.
KOCH: Yeah, but your tax take is increasing. You’re heading towards being one of the highest taxing governments for decades unless these stage three tax cuts come through. Can you guarantee that they will come through to alleviate bracket creep that every single working Australian is feeling?
PRIME MINISTER: Well they’re legislated, Kochie, and I know there's been speculation up to budgets.
KOCH: So l-a-w law?
PRIME MINISTER: We gave no consideration to that. What we focused on last night was the measures that we announced in our Budget. And we have not changed our position on that.
KOCH: Okay, so tax cuts coming through. One of the headlines of this Budget is the biggest ever increase in Medicare bulk-billing which triples the incentive for GPs. This is a great initiative. But does it come with accountability on the GPs, that they've got increase the number of GPs who will bulk-bill?
PRIME MINISTER: I have no doubt that that's what it will do. We consulted, of course, with the sector about, how is it, what are the impediments to increasing bulk-billing? And one of them simply was the amount of dollars that are there. So this will make an incredible difference to families, particularly those with kids. When one child in a family, in a household gets sick, often that spreads throughout the household, and that just adds to bills. But that's just one of the measures that we’re doing. In addition to that, the additional urgent care clinics that are opening up from July around the country, we had additional ones in the Budget last night. That's so that people can go with a guarantee that all they need to turn up with is their Medicare card, not a credit card.
KOCH: But how do you stop GPs saying, ‘thanks mate, I’ll take the increase in bulk-billing and just still charge more than bulk-billing and get the benefits of both?”
PRIME MINISTER: Because it's a bulk-billing incentive, it's an incentive to bulk-bill rather than just a payment that's not attached to bulk-billing. So it will make that positive difference and we are very committed to working with the sector. We know that we’ve got to take pressure off emergency departments. And one of the things I've been doing is working with State and Territory Governments to strengthen Medicare, so we strengthen the primary healthcare system in order to assist people, but also at the same time, what that will do is take pressure off our public hospitals that are under strain.
KOCH: Okay, NDIS reforms there you’ve flagged. Any more details aside from closing loopholes?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, of course, we’re working with the sector. We want to make sure that every dollar in the NDIS goes towards providing assistance to the people who need it. The NDIS has to be seen not as a cost but as an investment in people being able to participate fully in society. That's what it was designed to do. But a cap of 8 per cent, having that target there of 8 per cent growth annually is still significant growth, but we do need to look at the way that it is operating. We’re doing that through the NDIA, we’ve had recommendations. We have Kurt Fearnley as the new chair, who of course is a magnificent advocate and he's working closely with Bill Shorten to make sure we can deliver, so that we provide support for the scheme that has the support of Australians. But they also want to know that there’s value for money there, that there aren’t people putting in claims for services that aren’t being provided.
KOCH: Yep, it's got to be fair and that sense of fairness for all Australians. It's a great system but it does have to be fair. Prime Minister, appreciate your time, thank you.
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks very much, Kochie, have a great day.