Jew World Order

EMMA ALBERICI, PRESENTER: Sexism and superannuation were high on the Greens leader Bob Brown’s agenda today.

Senator Brown joined me earlier this evening from our Parliament House studio.

Bob Brown, welcome to Lateline.

BOB BROWN, GREENS LEADER: Thanks, Emma.

EMMA ALBERICI: What remarks are you specifically referring to when you claim that Julia Gillard has been the subject of sexism?

BOB BROWN: Well, of course in the past there’s been particular remarks and we all know about those, including banners held up outside Parliament House which were given national coverage, but it’s the relentless tone of the attacks on Julia Gillard which has heightened my antenna to the sexism of this, and I’m not alone.

Quite a few people have commented to me and since the comments today there’s been quite a lot of public feedback.

But I’m not the first. For example, experienced political commentator Simon Benson in the Daily Telegraph last Friday commented on the misogynistic tone of some of the debate about the Prime Minister’s performance. It’s there …

EMMA ALBERICI: Well who in particular has been sexist towards the Prime Minister?

BOB BROWN: Well it’s there in media commentary. I think it’s there in the Opposition’s relentless attacks. And we didn’t see this with John Howard. They certainly didn’t experience it in New Zealand with Helen Clark. The standard there was better.

But I think it’s here, it’s relentless, and as Simon Benson commented, it almost looks as if testing a woman to see at what stage she’ll break. Well, she’s passed that test with flying colours. She’s not for breaking. She’s a very strong and determined woman.

And I think – an what I’ve picked up certainly over the Christmas break is a growing public sympathy for that and an objection to the level of the debate and the vitriol that’s been aimed at the Prime Minister. It’s time the standards raised just a little.

EMMA ALBERICI: But isn’t it entirely possible that Julia Gillard’s public perception problems have more to do with character than gender? The fact that she’s seen to have betrayed Kevin Rudd, lied to voters about the carbon tax and stabbed Andrew Wilkie in the back on poker machine reform?

BOB BROWN: Well, all those things have to be taken into account and there’s few political leaders in history who couldn’t be accused of lying or stabbing or attacking and certainly being in spats with their own kith and kin, if you like, within the parties.

But there’s something particular to the relentlessness and the determination and the level of the attacks, and when you get down to the lowest level outside the media, of course we’re in an age now of Twitter where some of the commentary is vile, it’s foul, it keeps going, but, you know, it’s sort of shadowed by the level of commentary from some sections of the press.

I don’t – it’s not across-the-board, of course it’s not, but it needed calling for what it is and I think that will do no harm at all to the level of political debate and to getting back onto issues of the day and the direction forward for this country, which is where the Greens want to see the debate going.

EMMA ALBERICI: But people have been criticising her, including yourself, on policy matters, not on account of her gender?

BOB BROWN: That’s right. And Emma, I’m not saying that the – and never have indicated, and nor would I, that all the attacks are sexist. I’m just saying there is an added component of sexism in the attack on this Prime Minister which I’ve never seen with any other prime minister. You wouldn’t expect this on a bloke as a prime minister, and we all have to be aware of it. It’s time we got past it.

EMMA ALBERICI: Are you concerned that the Government has become too distracted by issues surrounding the leadership?

BOB BROWN: Yes, I think that’s a problem, and there’s an internal component to that which, as I’ve been saying recently, the Prime Minister needs to stamp her authority on that and I think she’s moved some way towards doing that in just the last couple of days.

That’s not new to politics, but it is very diverting and I think the people in the Labor ranks who are fostering it are doing themselves a lot of harm. If they want to be out of office at an election next year, then they’re headed that way. They need to stop and think about that. And this prime minister needs to be given a little bit more oxygen.

In my experience with her, despite our conversation thus far, this prime minister has stayed true to the commitments she made in the agreement with the Greens to formulate government. I spoke with Tony Abbott about it. We didn’t come to an agreement. We did with Prime Minister Gillard. Somebody had to form government in this minority situation.

She had the gumption to do it and the wherewithal to do it and she stuck by her work with the Greens in delivering. And as Tony Windsor said …

EMMA ALBERICI: Not entirely though. Not on logging in Tasmania.

BOB BROWN: That wasn’t in that agreement with me. That’s an agreement she made with the Tasmanian Premier and …

EMMA ALBERICI: Which she has betrayed?

BOB BROWN: No, which has been betrayed by Forestry Tasmania, which is a Rambo organisation out of control where the Premier of Tasmania Lara Giddings needs to bring them back into control. They’re riding over her signature and that of the prime minister of this country. And money’s – Australian taxpayers’ money’s pouring into Tasmania to help contractors get out of what is a business in collapse – there’s no sales overseas of woodchips for the first time in 40 years.

But, the other side of the bargain, which is to protect these great World Heritage value forests – which are great job producers for Tasmania; they’re central to Tasmania’s presentation worldwide – is being bulldozed and chainsawed by this Rambo organisation.

Now, that requires some political gumption that’s missing in Hobart, but the Prime Minister should also move in to make sure that her word is not being clear felled by this organisation which didn’t sign up to that document.

EMMA ALBERICI: Is Julia Gillard the best person in your view to lead the Labor Party?

BOB BROWN: Well Labor will always determine that. What I – they have made her the leader. She came through the next – the last election and made an agreement with the Greens.

As Tony Windsor observed today, this Parliament’s working perhaps better than any in recent history in terms of giving dividends out to the Australian people and we’re going to see a lot of that this year. And we in the Greens are determined to help that outcome, but with our own ideas and with a responsible attitude to a good economic arrangement.

That’s why I’m talking with the Government about better superannuation arrangements. As we move through the mining tax legislation to have increased superannuation allocations for Australians into the future, we want to see the taxation arrangements fixed up so that you don’t get a windfall if you’re rich compared to a penalty if you’re poor, and it’s very simple to do that. We’ve put forward good ideas for that and this will make superannuation fairer.

EMMA ALBERICI: And we’ll get to that – we will get to that in a minute, but I just wanted to stay with this theme for a moment, because today Rob Oakeshott mentioned that he’d been sounded out by some Government MPs on the issue of a potential challenge to Julia Gillard’s leadership. Have they also approached you to gauge your opinion on the matter?

BOB BROWN: No, I think they knew they’d be wasting their time, Emma. So, no, I’ve been left of that particular approach.

EMMA ALBERICI: Wasting their time in what sense?

BOB BROWN: Well they wouldn’t have got far with me. My job is, as leader of the Greens, to be providing the stable leadership which we’ve got second to none in this country and to be delivering outcomes. And I’ve got a great team. What happens within the Labor or the Coalition ranks is up to them.

EMMA ALBERICI: So you’d support whoever was the leader of the Labor Party?

BOB BROWN: Well, I’m not supporting a particular future leader. I’ve made an arrangement and signed off on it with Christine Milne, with the current Prime Minister and Treasurer in this government.

But, yes, if there were a change we would expect that we’d come to an arrangement with whoever the Labor leader was.

But my intention to is to – and was when we signed that agreement, that Julia Gillard would be the prime minister of this country who took the country to the next election. We’ve got a lot of work to do before we get there and a lot of good things coming down the line for the Australian people out of this arrangement with the Greens supporting the Gillard Government and the independents in the House of Representatives.

EMMA ALBERICI: Now I’ll pick you up on what you mentioned just a moment earlier about your proposals for superannuation. You want to lift the taxation on contributions. Where’s the wisdom in that?

BOB BROWN: Well we want to drop it, the taxation on low income earners.

EMMA ALBERICI: But not on 12 per cent of earners.

BOB BROWN: That’s the 12 per cent top income earners who get 50 per cent of the tax breaks. Now how about the people in the middle and lower down get a fairer go? Most people in the middle won’t be affected by our proposal. But at the moment, Emma, if your income’s so low that you’re not being taxed, you pay actually 15 cents for each dollar you put into your superannuation.

EMMA ALBERICI: How many people on the lowest tax rate actually have extra money at the end of the week to put into superannuation?

BOB BROWN: We want to encourage them to do that because they deserve in retirement a bit more money in the bank. But let me say this: that wealthy people under the Greens configuration will still get a 15 per cent cut in their tax rate. Suits win-win. And …

EMMA ALBERICI: No, surely that would be a disincentive for people to put money into superannuation which potentially could starve superannuation funds in Australia of money?

BOB BROWN: It’s not disincentive if you’re paying 45 cents in the dollar.

EMMA ALBERICI: As opposed to paying 15 cents which they currently are?

BOB BROWN: And you put – yes, well, that’s right: it will increase the tax rate, but it’s still not going to go to anywhere near the tax rate they will pay on the income if you’re very wealthy. There’s still going to be a 15 cents-in-the-dollar prize for you if you invest your money into superannuation. And that’s a big win.

At the moment it needs to be understood that forgoing usual tax rates costs the Exchequer $30 billion a year, Emma, and that’s predicted to go to $40 billion by 2014-’15.

Now that’s money that’s not going to hospitals and schools, it’s going in a tax break and half of it is going to 12 per cent of the populace who are the big income earners. What we’re saying is: they can forgo a little of that.

We can help people on lower incomes have more superannuation, and roughly, the income will stay the same. It’s a pretty good arrangement.

EMMA ALBERICI: But the government that brought in superannuation, the whole idea of the concessionary tax rate was to encourage Australians to put away money for their future. Now if you’re essentially doubling and more what people are paying in tax for their contributions, then surely they’ll revisit that investment and perhaps put their money elsewhere, which again as I stated earlier, might well starve Australian superannuation funds of cash.

BOB BROWN: Well I don’t think it will. There’s a lot of people out there support this. And remember: part of the superannuation philosophy was to have people rather than going onto the pension, having money stored away for when they retired. And we want to encourage more Australians to be able to do that.

So, lifting the potential for that to many more of the 88 per cent of Australians who aren’t in that rich bracket is a good thing. We want to see more Australians feeling independently able to make ends meet when they retire and not worried about how they’re going to get along with a pension.

Pensions are essential. They’ll be there for good. But if people can save a bit more than that, well, that’s what we’re in the business of encouraging.

EMMA ALBERICI: It assumes that people in the low tax brackets, those earning $30,000, $40,000 a year, have spare cash to voluntarily contribute to superannuation, which is simply not borne out in the facts.

BOB BROWN: Well, I don’t know that you’re right there. I think most Australians want to have good superannuation when they retire. I haven’t run into any who don’t.

EMMA ALBERICI: It’s about having the spare cash to commit to it though, isn’t it?

BOB BROWN: Well, yes, but, you know, let’s be – let’s again get back to the fact that women across the board earn less money, still, in this country. Why shouldn’t we be helping those who are on lower incomes in that system be able to put a bit more aside for their retirement?

We should be doing that. And this scheme is one that I think Labor will look seriously at, by the way. There is a new superannuation round table, proposals like this will no doubt be seen by that superannuation round table. They’ll go to Treasury. But they’re for making this a fairer, happier society, and that’s what we’re about.

EMMA ALBERICI: Bob Brown, thank you very much for your time.

BOB BROWN: Thanks, Emma.