INTERVIEW WITH MARIUS BENSON, ABC News Radio

MARIUS BENSON: Chris Bowen, the main story around this morning politically is the suggestion that Julia Gillard in Cabinet opposed key Labor policies. Those policies included increases to pension and paid parental leave. You were in Cabinet; is there any truth in that?

CHRIS BOWEN: Well, Marius, let me put it this way: we don’t discuss Cabinet discussions and no Government ever does. But as Human Services Minister, the Minister responsible for organisations like Centrelink, I’ve worked very closely with Julia Gillard in delivering these reforms and she has been completely supportive of them from the beginning. And she understands the importance of these reforms to help with the cost of living pressures on Australian families and she has been backing them 100 per cent, unlike Tony Abbott, of course, who once said that paid parental leave would be introduced over his dead body.

BENSON: But what about the politics of the argument about these increases? For example, that Julia Gillard argued that pensions were money not well spent because ‘old people never vote for us anyway’.

BOWEN: Well, look, I’m not going to comment on anonymous claims about confidential Cabinet discussions. But Marius, let me repeat, in terms of the policy Julia Gillard has backed its implementation from the get-go, from the beginning, and as Deputy Prime Minister was very important in the development of the policies and has supported them completely, and continues to support them and continues to be very proud of them, as she should.

BENSON: But she may publicly support them. The suggestion is in private, she tried to prevent them becoming party policy.

BOWEN: Well, Marius, as I say, I worked closely with Julia Gillard in developing and implementing these policies, and she supported them 100 per cent, as you would expect she would.

BENSON: Did she support them in private or merely in public?

BOWEN: Well, Marius, you’ve got an anonymous, unsourced allegation about what may or may not have been said in a Cabinet meeting. What counts is the policy has been delivered, implemented, with the full support of the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, from the beginning.

BENSON: When you say this is an unsourced allegation, it comes from a much-respected journalist in the form of Laurie Oakes, and the assumption is that it comes from Kevin Rudd. This is not the first leak since Kevin Rudd was rolled; there’s been a series of them, and the impression is that Kevin Rudd is leaking against Julia Gillard and vice versa. A damaging impression for Labor.

BOWEN: That might be your assumption and your impression, Marius. I’ll leave it for the commentators to speculate on all this sort of stuff. We’re just getting along with the job of an election campaign where we’re making our case to the Australian people about our plans for the future and our record of the past. And there’s always going to be speculation about these things; I know journalists love to speculate about who did what, who said what. That’s not my role.

BENSON: Do you think Kevin Rudd is being a team player now for Labor?

BOWEN: Well, look, Kevin’s running in the seat of Griffith, and that’s what most people do when they’re running in an individual seat is concentrate on that seat and that’s what he’s doing and that’s what you would expect individual candidates to be doing.

BENSON: But he’s actually excised ALP references from his campaign material, cut out the ALP logo from his campaign posters.

BOWEN: Marius, I think everybody knows that Kevin Rudd is a Labor candidate, just as everybody knows Malcolm Turnbull is a Liberal candidate. And I think we can get too excited about these things. Nobody would question Kevin Rudd as being a Labor candidate for Griffith, just as I see Malcolm Turnbull doesn’t have the Liberal logo on his posters but everybody knows he’s the Liberal candidate for Wentworth.

BENSON: Just on the campaign itself, Queensland has obviously been identified by both sides as the frontline in the battle for the election. The picture has emerged of Queensland simply having pork barrels rolled out everywhere. Is that the campaign strategy, as many visits as possible by leaders and toss money around?

BOWEN: Well, Marius, we’re into week two of the campaign. I imagine both leaders will be travelling wide and far across the country. It’s no surprise that Queensland has a lot of key seats, a lot of close seats, and both leaders will be visiting there regularly, but they’ll be visiting across the country. And this will be a lean campaign from our point of view. Every commitment we make during this campaign is being paid for, fully funded, not only fully costed but fully funded. And the challenge for the Liberal Party now is to comply with the Charter of Budget Honesty and provide all their policies for costing now that the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Outlook has been released. They said they’d do it once the Fiscal Outlook was released. It’s now been released; they need to now meet their commitment and get their policies fully costed.

BENSON: Are voters outside Queensland, though, entitled to feel that they’re being relatively ignored while all the money’s being tossed Queensland’s way?

BOWEN: Look, there’ll be a range of commitments across the country in any campaign and that’s appropriate, that’s always been the way it is and it’s perfectly appropriate to do so, and those commitments will be made across the breadth of the country.

BENSON: Chris Bowen, many thanks.

BOWEN: Nice to talk to you, Marius.

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