sharon grierson interview

Sorry, I haven't put up the audio recording yet.

Steven Schubert: It’s a bit late, but congratulations on your re-election.

Sharon Grierson: That’s quite alright... We’re coming up to our first birthday, so we’ll celebrate instead.

SS: You got over fifty per cent of the primary vote and a 4.4 percent swing… [in the primary vote] what do you attribute that to?

SG: Several things, I suppose. Firstly that Kevin Rudd and change was very popular at the time, so as ordinary as it is, a government does run its course and Howard was seen to have run his course, so it was time for change. So that certainly helped. I think there is a personal element in it. Since I came into this position, I always thought with demographic change the margin could never probably be higher than 15 per cent. This is no longer safe seat territory. This, as you know, is a university city, so there’s a lot of demanding intellectual and social egalitarian thought here. There’s also a traditional, industrial, IR, blue collar, we-want-our-rights-recognised type. And there’s also a growing demographic of young people, as well as the traditional growing demographic of aged people. So, I suppose if you want to look for the personal element it’s by the capacity to engage will all of those people in a credible way. So I would hope it shows a credibility more than anything, because in Newcastle, that’s the thing that I think people really do appreciate. It’s never about you, it’s always about them, and if you show that interest and develop those relationships, well the Newcastle people appreciate that.

SS: Can you really say that Newcastle is not a safe Labor seat?

SG: Absolutely. I can, quite easily. I don’t think there’s any such thing in the whole country. But particularly, I don’t think Newcastle’s a safe seat. It’s a very demanding seat. You’ll see historically it’s thrown out state members particularly, it’s never thrown out a federal member in its time. It is a federation Labor seat, it’s voted Labor for 107 years, but you take them for granted and you will go. So when I did come in, in 2001, I had a big swing against me, as a new person, known in some circles, but not all. Also, it was the Tampa election, where there was a great deal of insecurity, where people went back to saying no we don’t want change, we want to stay safe in our known world. I actually got a phone call during that election from the party secretary saying “we think you’re going to lose the seat.” Well I was sure I wasn’t going to lose the seat. So it’s not a safe seat at all.

SS: You issued a press release recently about the community cabinet meeting in Newcastle, and you said it’s a demonstration of the Rudd government’s commitment to the region. What is that commitment and what has the region gotten out of it?

SG: I think that it demonstrates, one, that Kevin appreciates the fact that there is a seat like Newcastle which has voted Labor for 107 years. I think he also understands the changing environment of a city like this. It is a litmus test. It is market testing capital of Australia. It is a seat where all portfolios, all demographics apply. So I think he understands how important a key seat like Newcastle is. If you want to know what’s going right, what’s going wrong, you come to Newcastle. He was determined to come to Newcastle. We’re only the seventh seat in Australia to have a community cabinet. Now at that rate, there’ll probably only be 30 seats in the whole country that get a community cabinet between now and the next election. So it’s quite an achievement. That’s the commitment in terms of Kevin’s understanding of the sort of seat we are. What do we get out of it, we got that engagement, participating in our government, but we also, in that process, about 160 people get private meetings with a cabinet Minister, and I think four got meetings with the Prime Minister. But more importantly for me, each department secretary, the head of each government department is there as well, sitting next to their Minister. Now, to get those bureaucrats out Canberra onto the jet and up here with the Prime Minister and his cabinet, to have them sit down with 160 ordinary constituents who have something to say, I just think that’s a wonderful process. If it was just about sitting the cabinet ministers on the stage and doing that PR exercise, that would be just tokenism. But when 160 people in that one hour individually meet with a Minister… with the department secretary there to solve those problems, I just think that’s a wonderful direct contact with your government and a direct experience that you wouldn’t have otherwise.

SS: So are you implying that the department secretaries with the power to do things on the ground?

SG: Well they’re the people who are accountable for that departments activities. So we can devise the policies and we can put the budget with those policies and say these are the outcomes we want. But the people who implement it are the department personnel and the secretary is accountable for that being done, with the Minister having the absolute accountability. So, I actually think it’s matching what the bureaucracy think is happening with what is actually happening on the ground is a really good thing. In terms of what we got out of it… at the time the announcement that Kevin made was a national announcement and it was additional nursing places with Newcastle particularly being awarded 50 mental health nurse places. Now, they’re worth about $8,000 each, so… that’s almost half almost half a billion dollars injected into our university and into the capacity building of health, and particularly mental health services. That was a pretty special thing too. But for me probably the most special thing was that on that day Kevin committed to paid maternity leave. As a woman who’s always worked all her life, particularly worked with other women who have raised children and families in their jobs… standing next to him when he says we will definitely [implement paid maternity leave was special]. The Productivity Commission has just put out a report on paid maternity leave. It is time that Australia bit the bullet and publicly funded paid maternity leave. We’ll have a look at what the Productivity Commission says and we’ll come up with the model we think is affordable and best for the country. So that was pretty special too.

SS: Do you agree with the Unions NSW stance that 18 weeks isn’t long enough?

SG: I’m not going to comment on that but that’s a strong campaign and it’s been a very good one in raising awareness of the need for people to have paid maternity leave. The Productivity Commission came out with 18 weeks, I’m not even sure what our commitment will be. But as a woman, I know that those first three or four months at least are so critical for a woman to be able to be with their child. The other argument is about productivity in this country. You can’t just say to woman ‘you’ll lose your job, or you’ll have to make a choice,’ well choices are fine but we should be able to fund some of them so people can make the best choice. I just think it’s a very essential part of our development. I guess we may have to do it in stages, I don’t have a problem with that, but I would have a real problem with us not doing it. Even if it’s 12 weeks, 14 weeks, 16, 18 to start with and then we move on, I think that’s wonderful.

SS: Briefly turning to today’s news, the Reserve Bank today cut rates by one per cent, which was out of the blue. How do you think the working families of Newcastle will respond to Wayne Swan giving the banks a justification for not passing on the full cut?

SG: I don’t think he did that. I think the media presented that he had done that. In his statement then he basically said two things. One was that they may not want to pass it all on. Two, that we would always encourage them to do so. Now, I think that it’s come out very strongly that you do have to be very economically responsible in this situation. Today the Reserve Bank has awarded a one per cent cut. It is staggering and it also would suggest that banks are more exposed than they’ve been telling us. And that’s the concern for me, having been on the economics committee of parliament, and having met with the Governor of the Reserve Bank of a few years. When the sub-prime situation broke in America, the first hearing [afterwards] he [Reserve Bank Governor Glen Stevens] said banks should ‘fess up now and tell us what their exposure is. That they’ve been borrowing from the future fund, that they obviously have a short fall of cash is terribly significant. That the downturn is now much more than we anticipated. It’s a big move today. I heard just then that Westpac are passing on .8 per cent, well that’s great, because if they are, that’s almost the full amount. If they are doing that, the pressure will be on the other banks to do that too. The debate in the media probably had to happen. Portraying [Wayne Swan] and Kevin as being soft on the banks, even though I saw the full transcripts and that wasn’t the case, at least that debate has probably pushed the banks to understand that they’re on notice. But that one big bank has passed it on so quickly suggests the others will. The other thing, we’re putting four million dollars into the second tier banks, like credit unions, building societies, Wizard, those sort of people to keep the pressure on the banks to say we are not going to let you become all powerful and capture the whole mortgage market. We’re going to keep the mortgage market competitive by propping up the ones who may need it at the time. Because debt has to be refurbished internationally every three months and so those institutions have to go out to the world market every three months to cover their debt. Well there’s just no money out there, there’s no credit out there. So I don’t think Kevin justified, I don’t think Wayne Swan gave an excuse to the banks. I think the media probably highlighted parts of their speeches, and in a way that’s probably had a good outcome.

SS: But if that perception is out there in the media could the big banks, the remaining big banks that haven’t declared their hand, use those comments as a justification for holding back cuts?

SG: I wouldn’t say yes or no. What I’d say to you is the relationship between governments, banks, reserve banks, APRA, ASIC, is always one that you want to keep honest, open and certainly rigorous. So I don’t think we’d ever want to see any cosy deals done between governments and banks, but we certainly also would want to see positive relationships. I don’t agree that Kevin and Wayne were going soft on banks. I think there’s been a very good relationship that’s honest but rigorous and demanding. I would hope that nothing less than that would be what we see from our government.

SS: In regards to the education revolution, what will Newcastle Uni get out of it?

SG: Newcastle Uni already gained $13.7 million in the budget for infrastructure, so capital investment because we all know that was taken out under the last government. Everyone’s been crying out for infrastructure improvement money, so we rolled out half a billion [dollars] straight away, knowing that’s a critical situation. We firstly rolled that out and then we set up the higher education infrastructure fund, which universities would be able to access over time, but we did roll out straight away half a billion to help universities. We have said that the education revolution for universities is about making sure they have the capacity to respond to the needs of students, to respond to the needs of the economy, to respond to the needs of their local regions etcetera, in their capacity building. The Heath Fund will be a very special way of making sure there is always ongoing funding for facilities improvement, and particularly research facilities as well. The other major contribution we’re making in the education revolution is to get rid of full fee places for domestic students. We don’t think it should be on how much money you have or you can borrow. We think placement in universities and access to universities should be available on merit to everybody. We have increased scholarship figures to compensate for doing away with that domestic full fee income. We have funded so many more full fee paying places to the universities and we set up a scholarship system, and the figures are quite huge. It’s 11,000 new supported places by 2013, we’ve doubled undergraduate scholarships to 88,000 by 2012 and we’ve nearly doubled postgraduate scholarships as well. We’re certainly making it more available. We’ve had some priorities, maths and science, that’s good for our university, nursing places, early learning, so those are all areas our university are very active in. So it will be good for that. Now, if I’m going to be really hard on Newcastle University and say it’s the student experience data and statistics that I’ve always felt haven’t been where we want it to be, and I know we’re looking at 2005 and 2006 figures I think are the last ones that came out. That’s the are that I would always like to see, quality teaching and learning that’s suitable for students, that I’d like to see some improved outcomes in.

SS: But this fund is for infrastructure not for…

SG: Yes, it is and then there’s a scholarship system.

SS: But, Newcastle Uni has cut a lot of subjects, particularly in humanities, including gender and women’s studies, as an example. Are there any plans to invest in course work and teaching?

SG: I don’t know. I suppose it’s early days for us under things like social inclusion. We value social inclusion, we have a Minister for social inclusion. We wouldn’t want to see areas of the curriculum disappear, but I don’t know how Julia Gillard is going to marry those two things. I do watch our university and our university specialised, and it’s done so in its engineering, it’s now set up the Clean Energy Centre. I think it’s wonderful it’s set up the Clean Energy Centre and is willing to make it a major research area. We know it’s medical research is first class in terms of HMRI. It’s specialises obviously in health and nursing, and that’s fine. [The University’s] Wollotuka, indigenous studies, it has its own specialities. I would agree with you that I’m still looking… I see the Confucius centre set up, I see some of those new areas being developed out of the humanities and social science areas, but I do think that’s an area that Newcastle University has floundered in a little. It used to have a great presence in classics and all sorts of other things in the past but I suppose it is at a stage where it’s reinventing itself, as many universities are. I would watch with interest, but I don’t know that the funding will ever dictate. Universities are autonomous and would want to be autonomous in terms of their course I would have thought.

SS: There’s been a lot of debate about the pension rate. Pensioners receive, I think, I little less than $550 a fortnight, yet a full time student on youth allowance receives around $410 a fortnight. Why is this so?

SG: I don’t know why it’s so. I don’t think there’s any logic or rational thoughts about it. I guess they’ve been based on certain base figures and they’ve just been adjusted over time. I don’t know why the base was always lower for students and I do know that costs for students, poverty levels for students are unfortunately very high. There’s a lot of data to show that students are living on the poverty line or below. I don’t think you should have to suffer for your education or suffer for your art either. But certainly for many students, they certainly do have to subsist rather than thrive. You know we have a pension review and a taxation review under way. All entitlements are being reviewed under the taxation review so all the allowances are being reviewed. I don’t know if that will mean greater equity or satisfaction to people, but at least it is happening. I would think most of those things were set historically and never really appraised properly. They are being appraised properly now, and that means adequacy and certainly base lines are looked at. That can only be a good thing.

SS: Newcastle Uni recommends that for each subject a student should be spending 10 hours a week on that subject, so a full time student is looking at about 40 hours a week of study. Is it fair to expect students to go out and have to find a part time job just to live, on top of this 40 hours a week of study?

SG: I don’t think it’s fair. I don’t even think it’s in the interests of the country. Free education isn’t one of our policies, unfortunately. But I do know that we can’t walk away from the fact that it is really tough for our students. And it is tough for families if they are supporting two or three students. As a mother myself, my daughter, after she had been employed for a while, she wanted to be independent. I always find the age of independence very difficult too. But we haven’t gone to an election on policies to change that. When it was increased for Youth Allowance and Austudy… that’s tough. Because I actually think that people should have self-determination, young adults and that their studies shouldn’t be made so difficult. And certainly it is most difficult for the most needy of families that don’t have a lot of support. So, there isn’t a lot of equity at the moment for students, and there’s certainly not enough support. But what we can deliver, I don’t know. I guess we’re targeting areas like maths and science and making it easier for people to not have to pay HECS etcetera in some of those areas, but I don’t see any of our policies reducing the burden on students unfortunately, at this stage. But hopefully, overtime they can.

SS: So you don’t think it’s realistic that the Youth Allowance rate will change significantly anytime soon?

SG: As part of the review, I would hope the base line might be adjusted to be more reflective of costs. You’ll know that there’s rental allowance with those sorts of things. But Newcastle and the Hunter, Newcastle particularly, I think it’s the highest in the country rental costs, growth in rental costs. So that must be affecting students as well, and they are, I think, over looked. Pensioners have been vocal and that comes from their life’s experience and their ability to have good networks. Student networks have been reduced since VSU. So yes, I do think they need advocates and they need advocacy amongst our government to improve their situation because it’s certainly less than ideal.

SS: So would you say that the low rate is holding back the education revolution by not allowing students to afford to study full time?

SG: I think it must make it much harder for students to achieve their optimum, and I think it would compromise their experience and their ability to gain as much from a university education as they should. I do think that students have to be self-supporting is less than ideal. I didn’t ever have the opportunity to go to university full time, I was always part time, so I was always working, but my partner at the time was a full time university student, and it’s a wonderful opportunity we were able to give the baby boomers, thanks to Gough Whitlam, and they had a very, very fortunate time. I don’t think today’s youth are as fortunate and I think there are more barriers put up for them to take on education, especially in an area like the Hunter where still many families have never experienced higher education opportunities. So there is still a culture of get out and get a job, or it’s not the family way to all go to university, so I do think the barriers are too high in an area like this.

SS: So if the barriers are too high why aren’t Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard doing something about it?

SG: Well as I said to you I hope they do. We won’t be able to do it overnight but by reviewing some of the systems we have, by emphasising certain learning areas and making it easier for students in those areas, certainly we will. But I guess we have to decide, a productivity agenda can’t just be about economic success. It has to be about building strong individuals and strong communities and sustaining knowledge amongst our communities for all sorts of reasons, not just economic wealth. I don’t think we’re at that point yet. I’d like us to be at that point.

SS: You said on the 5th of August that “It is vital that Newcastle continues to work on its credentials as a centre for innovative solutions to climate change.” Does such a solution involve stopping coal exports from Newcastle harbour?

SG: Well, no, it won’t. It won’t at this stage for many reasons. One of course, obvious reason is that the economic productivity of our region is very dependant on that. The direct and indirect jobs are in the tens of thousands and any transition to a clean energy economy, which I would love to see, will never happen instantly. It can’t happen by turning off coal overnight. But certainly, my belief is that we do need to be a sustainable region, we do need to reduce our carbon foot print, and that’s why I’m very proud to say the National Solar Institute will be at Newcastle. We do have the Energy Flagship here, the energy centre here. I’m very pleased with Newcastle University. If I’ve contributed anything, I think it’s to make people aware of the need to reduce our carbon footprint. We are a carbon dependant region, under climate change, our economy will be the most vulnerable of all, because of that high dependence on carbon based economy. I understand a lot of people’s desire to eradicate coal straight away. You’ve been to China, where they build one coal fired power station per week, and one nuclear power station per month. Our efforts aren’t going to change that, but our efforts in research in terms of clean coal may change that and may impact on that. I see that Germany has just built the first coal capture and storage attached to a new power station. Some of the technology comes from us. I just think it’s critical if we are to… China’s economy is about not just wealth for their nation, but bringing their people out of poverty. They aren’t going to stop trying to bring their people out of poverty, and that will mean energy, it will mean industry, it means production to produce, eventually, wealth for their people. In the time I’ve been a Member of Parliament, I think the annual incomes [in China] has gone from $10 per person to now, I think it’s thousands per person. That’s an outstanding achievement by a country. But how do you trade off wealth against our own individual environmental needs? I don’t think that’s a fair trade off. I’m really pleased that the Rudd government has put billions into clean energy and clean coal research and activities. In an ideal world where you controlled everything, yes, you might be able to stop coal production. But we don’t live in that world, we live in the real world and we have to take the real challenges on and become part of the solutions, as well as acknowledging that we are part of the problem.

SS: Before the election I think Labor promised about half a billion dollars for research into clean coal technology, and I think about $55 million was for Newcastle and the Hunter. That’s an awful lot money to invest in a technology that respected people like Tim Flannery are saying might not work.

SG: Well, “might not work” has much scope, because we know, we’ve demonstrated in Australia that we can catch carbon off power stations, the CSIRO have done that, and there has been a successful pilot in sequestration in sequestering it in the ground. That doesn’t mean it’s commercially viable, that’s always going to be the decider: Can we do it and make free enterprise invest into that without researching and without some regulation? So we’re investing into the research, we’re also investing into the regulation through our Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. So it’s going to take all those things to make it attractive for industry to move from the coal we have now, coal fired power stations or whether it be blast furnaces, and of course a lot of that coal is going to make metal. Catching carbon of blast furnaces is a great need as well. You also know that a down turned economy will be very difficult. Businesses will go under, people will lose their assets, their savings and their jobs. We have a difficult time to get some balance into the equation. That’s what we will do.

SS: In the election campaign, you criticised Bob Baldwin for quote “An election-eve discovery of solar power,” and you said “Only Labor’s comprehensive policies to fight climate change will drive sustainable energy investment in Newcastle and the Hunter.” But is it hypocritical for you to talk about sustainable energy while millions of dollars of funding are going into research for the possibility of clean coal?

SG: No, I don’t think it’s hypocritical, it’s not a case of one or the other. I’m a real advocate for solar research. I’ve had the great privilege of visiting America and going to the newest solar plant there in Nevada and meeting with David Mills… a scientist from Sydney University who now has his own company over there. I’m very excited to think that one day solar could power the whole national grind in a country like Australia, but it isn’t going to happen overnight. In the mean time, you and I both want our lights on and we want our computers to work and we want all those things to happen. We want heating, we want opportunities. In the mean time, we have to continue to provide secure energy here… Our secure energy system is dependant on the coal industry, our job is to make it more efficient while we do the transition to newer, cleaner and more sustainable forms of energy.

SS: So is the government investing more money in clean coal or solar and wind and renewables?

SG: Well it’s very much the same money, half a billion dollars was put into each, the clean coal fund and the renewable energy fund. They’re two big funds that are out there at the moment, funding research. And when do introduce CPRS, twenty per cent of that continues to go into energy research. The breakdown is not developed at this stage, but twenty per cent of all credit money, money from the emissions trading scheme goes into research to keep that going. So no, we haven’t [invested] more in one than the other, they’re both equally important. I’ve also supported in Newcastle a submission for the clean energy enterprise connect centre, which is about helping small businesses, SMEs (small and medium enterprises) to bring their products and services in the clean energy area to market, and particularly to export markets. I’m doing everything I can to build the critical mass I think we need to become the centre for sustainability in this nation. I have a firm belief we can become the centre for sustainability. We have CSIRO, the University is positioning itself that way, if we can do the pre-energy enterprise connect centre, which has the support of many sectors here in the community. We’re building the service economy to support that as well. I’m meeting at the end of next week or so, when we go back to parliament, with Megan Clark from BHP, because BHP are taking its research jobs out of the city. I’m trying to convince them that they should be partnering with the University of Newcastle or CSIRO to retain that capacity here but to direct it more to clean energy, as it’s us that’s mining their coal for them and taking it out through their next, new-to-be coal loader, although with the take over bid, it’s all going to be one big happy coal chain here, BHP and Rio Tinto combined. So I’m doing everything I can to build the understanding in this community that we have an opportunity to reduce our carbon dependency and become a sustainable region.

SS: If that’s the case, shouldn’t we be investing more in renewable energy research?

SG: Well I don’t know that you and I can decide that. You really have to understand, and I’ve heard this said by experts, that if clean coal isn’t going to work we better find out now, as Ross Garnaut has said. We’d better do everything to find out now. If it’s possible, yes that’ll be wonderful. If it’s not possible, we’d better know so that we can do something about it, because it is possibly the most important determiner of this country’s future, whether clean coal is real. The alternative of course, would be nuclear, if it was the holy grail of nuclear, which is nuclear fusion, which has no waste and no risk, but no one’s discovered that yet and scientists from America tell me it ain’t going to happen in my life time. So we don’t have a lot of alternatives to provide base load power.

SS: Would you support nuclear energy being used in this country?

SG: No I don’t support nuclear, unless it was what hasn’t been discovered yet. No I don’t support it, I think the risks are too high. Having been to Japan and having individual Members of Parliament come across to me and say “We have accidents all the time,” I just think we haven’t gotten to a point where the technology is reliable enough.

SS: Last question, and it’s not a federal issue. I’m wondering what your opinion is about the curfew and lockout in the CBD?

SG: I’ve never liked a fun police attitude. I do think that we have to invest in to young people, in terms of their understanding, their knowledge. As a former school principal, I know the power of education and preventative programs. Investing into young people’s education, whether it be life education or not, I think is terribly important and I’ve never thought that by just imposing curfews you can change behaviour and modify behaviour sufficiently to sustain that. There’s been mixed reports in the media that it’s worked or it hasn’t worked. I actually think that the city should be a living place. Having been to cities around the world that are 24 hour cities, they’re much safer than here. But because of the age generation difference between you and I, I still want to go out in my city, and it might be very late at night or it might be early in the night. I would like to be able to go out and enjoy my city at night no matter what the time, in a safe environment. But I think until we can all be out there enjoying ourselves, so a lot of that depends on the entrepreneurs, the providers of entertainment services in the city that get me out at night, as well as you, then the city belongs to the wrong people. You can’t just have scapegoats for what’s a very complex problem. It’s about service delivery, it’s about policing, it’s about transport, it’s about the quality of the venues and entertainment here, it’s about hotel regulation. You cannot just have a simplistic result. So I’ve never thought that a curfew would be the best and easiest way. It might be a quick fix for a short term, but it’s not going to solve all the problems of a city, in a city like Newcastle that’s going through change and development. It’s not going to be the be all and end all. So I also think that young people were often the scapegoats in that argument. I think that was wrong, I don’t think that’s the way. I think young people have a right to go out late at night. As you pointed out, they might be knocking off at midnight because they’ve been working to support their university degree. One of my daughters worked in hospitality, so I know her hours, that’s when you can knock off and you can start having a bit of fun yourself. I think it was problematic, I think it was often media driven. I do think there was a need for better regulation and policing of hotels that provision it. Anecdotally, young people tell me you could have your drink spiked any night in Newcastle, that you can experience violence in any pub in Newcastle most night. Well, you shouldn’t be able to. Where are the security guards? Where are the hotel proprietors who are being responsible? I don’t think that the right approach by itself. Yes, if things are out of control you might introduce it for a short time, and the trial showed that for a short time it’s been changed already and loosened. Hopefully we’ll continue to be able to do that so we get back to a way forward for the city. But a way forward for the city will really come about by some better planning and organisation for the city. I do want to see some better master planning of our city. Because we are a city that has had Honeysuckle, and I was a director of Honeysuckle, so I’ve seen that growth. We’ve got Newcastle hospital being redeveloped, we’ve got a city centre, Civic sort of area, propels coming forward, west end is starting to happen. But we’ve not ever looked at our whole city and its needs and I do think the major cities program that we’ve introduced may have an answer for us. It’s not just about developments, it’s about making our city livable and sustainable and survivable. I just think that’s a real need for us to have a thrust about cities in the future, to answer what I think is a more complex problem than just young people binge drinking.