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Senator Marise Payne is the Federal Shadow Minister for Coalition of Australian Governments (COAG) and Modernising the Federation. Based in Parramatta, she has an intimate knowledge of Western Sydney and has been a strong advocate for the region for over 12 years.

DG: Could you tell us about your role as a shadow minister and your responsibilities in Western Sydney.

MP: I would like to explain a little about my shadow portfolio which is the Council of the Australian Governments and Modernising the Federation. But the most important aspect of that at the moment in the current political environment is the work of the Council of Australian Governments or the COAG because we are very concerned to hold the Prime Minister to account in his running of COAG between the Commonwealth and the States. They have control of that agenda. A lot of the agenda is running significantly behind and in fact in a recent report by the COAG Reform Council on the Seamless National Economy. They actually identified four key reform areas where there is serious lagging in the agenda. Now that threatens productivity in Australia, obviously. That includes energy, infrastructure, transport reform and road reform. So when you look at the way they intersect, some of those are pivotal for increasing productivity in Australia, particularly after the global financial crisis and it's not enough to say 'we're doing OK in parts' and as the Government seems to do, conveniently ignore the others. So we're very concerned to hold them to account, to make sure that Australians know that they're responsible for this agenda, that they keep putting the items on the agenda. It seems to us that COAG is pretty much a one way street at the moment, in fact it's not a one-way street, it's a one way street with a dead end. Things appear to be going into COAG but not emerging again. Issues such as housing supply, housing affordability, which obviously in Western Sydney have very significant impacts on the community, particularly as development is being watched from all fronts. I spoke in the chamber this week about some of the growth in the north-west and south-west sectors where both the federal and state governments combined want to see cities of over 300,000 people in both those locations.

DG: Is it Chamber of Commerce?

MP: No, this is the north-west sector and the south-west sector, so the Rouse Hill and Leppington areas. In of itself, this is not necessarily a bad thing, but it most absolutely needs to be matched with the growth in infrastructure and the supporting resources from the same authorities, from the state and federal governments. So whether it's in rail infrastructure or road infrastructure or basic health infrastructure, education infrastructure, we don't see at the moment at least, the commitments coming with that. And it's no use in 20 years, saying 'look what we've got - big cities, now we better build some railways'. That's not the way to do it anymore. I think that's an approach that's been taken historically and it's not going to work any more so we need to be planning ahead.

DG: How important is small business in the Western Sydney region?

MP: As you know I've been working in Western Sydney for over 12 years so it's a very important part of New South Wales to me. The economic size of the region, the population size of the region means that small business in Western Sydney plays a pivotal role in Australia as well as in New South Wales , so where policy impacts are seriously felt for example by small business, this is a very good barometer, this area. Recently I had Joe Hockey visit the Penrith Chamber of Commerce and the Penrith Business Alliance late last year and one of the issues they raised with him was the access of small business to credit and the mess that the Commonwealth Government had made with their approach to the bank guarantee and the challenges that businesses were finding. It becomes almost an unsustainable proposition if they can't get adequate access to credit and a number of the very senior and experienced members of both the alliance the chamber explained to Joe as the Shadow Treasurer, the challenges that they were facing in their business environments and that's a policy issue that we've been very concerned about and in fact there's a Senate inquiry into the access of small business to finance occurring right now. I've made public statements encouraging businesses in these areas in particular to make submissions - even brief submissions - to that inquiry, that's the process by which the Senate hears so much more about what's going on in the community so it's important for people to have a say. For us, small business is the engine room of the economy. We know that government doesn't create jobs; business creates jobs and we've long held that as the Coalition and the Liberal Party's view and that's very important to us. We've been at great pains to pursue those issues.

DG: What are the other major issues facing people living in Western Sydney?

I guess more broadly across Western Sydney, I would have to say that transport is one of the key issues for people and they deserve a better deal in this area. So every time people in Western Sydney hear Mr Rudd talk about stimulus spending and they're standing on a platform at Penrith station or Emu Plains or Parramatta and they're wondering what is happening to railway infrastructure in this part of the world, they can be"reassured" that not a cent of the stimulus package was spent on rail infrastructure in Western Sydney. Every time they're wondering what's happening in relation to roads in Western Sydney, where stimulus has been spent on roads in other parts of Australia, less than $1 million was spent on major highway and freeway projects in Western Sydney, where it was needed most. Given how much money was distributed around the countryside and the great claims that the Prime Minister makes about that money, you'd think we could have found a little more, particularly in terms of the burgeoning growth of these areas. So these are some of the issues that we've been pursuing for this part of my constituency and I guess Dmitry I'd finish on the question of health reform. It seems to me the Prime Minister's approach on the health reform package is to say 'it's my way or not at all', basically. Now, this is an extraordinarily significant proposition for change in health in Australia and to say that states with populations and economies the size of NSW and Victoria should deal with it in a month because he says 'that's what I want', seems to be not a very good example of"co-operative federalism" which is of course his popular phrase. It's so co-operative that the states are having to air their concerns publicly through media outlets, not in any co-operative sense as far as we can see, to get any traction and that's not a very persuasive approach to business I don't think. So we are of the view that this is not co-operative federalism by any stretch of the imagination and the information which the Prime Minister has provided around these reforms appears to us to be fundamentally inadequate to enable the states to make a decision and that certainly looks like the position that they're taking. You have to ask yourself for example in New South Wales and even in Western Sydney, where there are small but very important hospitals across the region; Auburn, Mount Druitt, for example. What is going to happen to those hospitals if we change to the model that the Prime Minister is suggesting? They're very important hospitals to this part of the community, as important in their own way as Nepean and Westmead. Very, very important facilities. We now have a situation I understand from local media, very well-reported local newspaper media, that if a child needs emergency surgery and is admitted to Mount Druitt they can no longer be operated on at Mount Druitt, they have be transferred to Blacktown, but Blacktown doesn't have a paediatric ward so they may have to be brought back to Mount Druitt. We're descending to a level of bare management - most would say mismanagement and I think that's a great shame because everybody knows that the doctors and the nurses and those who are actually at the coalface in these facilities, in our hospitals, are extraordinarily dedicated, extraordinarily committed professionals doing a very important job but they are let down very much by the administration. The Prime Minister and the local members can't even tell us how the health administration in this part of Sydney would work. What the size of the local health area network would be. What would be comprised within that network? That really - if you think about the timeframe - that really isn't good enough to then ask the states to sign up to what appears to be a deal without a lot of detail. So they're some of the issues which we've been working on - I hope that's helpful for you.

DG: Back to local transport infrastructure, I hear there will be $2.5 billion invested to improve rail travel times by two minutes. Is this going ahead and is it 100 per cent state money?

MP: Well I think that remains to be seen. I think what we have now is another plan announced by the New South Wales State Government which comes hard on the heels of a series of other commitments, in fact if I show you a copy of these remarks I made in the chamber this week, at one stage there was one announcement made nine times by four different premiers. That's a pretty good record of stunts, if you ask me. So it remains to be seen - I don't think the people of New South Wales should have any faith in the capacity of this state government to deliver one single centimetre of infrastructure until they see a sod turned and construction actually begin and actually finish. We are not able to rely on any announcement, on any plan, on any masterplan or anything like that. You actually can't believe it until you see it. That's why there's a lot of people still in a state of disbelief about commitments which have been made over the last 15 years because they've never seen them come to fruition.

DG: And with the health reform, I've never heard any particulars or any details, how about top politicians at your level or members of parliament - do they receive any explanations?

MP: We have as much information as you do. We rely on the same happy snaps of the Prime Minister in various hospital wards making staged announcements of bits of a plan, as you and the general public do and I think that's an indication of how ill-prepared they are in this process. I understand that a lot of very genuine people have made submissions to the reform process, they've met with the Prime Minister and his representatives, his minister and so on, they're very genuine people who have some real concerns and some valid propositions about how health might be changed in this country. Whether they actually are being dealt with seriously in the respectful manner that you would hope is another question altogether because we're still waiting for a lot of the detail. I think the debate next Tuesday in Canberra between the Prime Minister and Mr Abbott on these issues will be very interesting.

DG: But the Prime Minister wants to launch this project in a month?

MP: Yes. He wants the premiers to agree in the middle of April we understand, although we don't have a date yet for the COAG meeting. So if I was a premier, I would have the same concerns that have been expressed by his Labor colleagues in the states and by the Liberal premier of Western Australia. Who knows we might have more Liberal premiers after tomorrow.

DG: But it looks like he doesn't want to listen to his colleagues. Last time he was talking to our Premier and he was not receptive at all. She was talking like a schoolgirl to him and he ignored her. It was just ridiculous.

MP: Yes, it was a difficult situation for her; it looked to us like his contempt for New South Wales continues and for the most populous state and for a state with a key city like Sydney that obviously isn't good enough from a Commonwealth Government.

DG: Are there any particular plans on that improvement? Do you know or does anyone know what will be happening or will this be the same scenario as the Cross City Tunnel, basically when the money has been spent, roads on the top of the tunnel sabotaged, just to make this project happen, but still not happening...

MP: Well, I think when we were talking about that before, my concern was that you could probably fill a small room with the number of plans and announcements and launches and multi-billion dollar propositions that have been advanced in New South Wales by this government and previous premiers in the last 15 years. But very few of them have actually resulted in physical construction of infrastructure and if I was an interested person in New South Wales wanting to know what we could expect, I literally wouldn't believe it under any circumstances from this government until I physically saw it happen in front of me. One of the transport propositions, the Parramatta to Epping rail link, just take that as an example. First announced in 1998 for completion in 2006, but we haven't seen a single piece of dirt shifted in relation to that and the start date has been deferred until about 2020. So that is typical, that is indicative of the approach that this government takes. The Northwest rail link, first announced in 1998 for completion this year, 2010. If you lived in that region, you wouldn't want to go looking for it in 2010, would you? Then they said 2017, then they scrapped it and now it's not even going to start until 2017 - that's almost 20 years after they said. So they're the sorts of examples which I'm forced to rely on because we don't have anything better from the State Government.

DG: But I'm asking at least about, I know they throw slogans at us and promises and like Rudd says about the health system, that 'if you want a better health system, you will vote for it' and that's the best he could do. But talking about this $2.5 billion dollars, I'm asking more about, has anyone seen the engineer's reports?

MP: I don't have that level of detail. We can check for you, but I don't have that level of detail.

DG: Just, in the sake of interest, do they do any work with real professionals or they just keep these issues on the agenda among politicians because it's not good enough, because they're supposed to work with real professionals who develop...(inaudible).

MP: Yes and I understand what you're saying. And to be fair to the public servants and the bureaucrats who are part of this process, I think by and large, they're professionals who do do that sort of preparatory work. If you look at the transport plan which was released recently, it certainly has that sort of material in it. It's a question of the political will and the question of political commitment to actually make it happen and that's what this government is lacking. And, as you say, the Prime Minister says if you want a particular sort of health system, then you will vote for it, well actually, no, you have to tell us, Prime Minister, what it is exactly that this implies, your proposition implies for the health system in which we work every day. And if you're a resident who wants to be able to take their child to a hospital in Mount Druitt or a hospital in Auburn because that's where you live, then you need to know that your plan, Mr Prime Minister, is not going to put in jeopardy those hospitals and at the moment we have no assurance that that's the case. That's would I would say.

DG: How do you think your leader Tony Abbott is performing and can he make history and defeat Kevin Rudd at the federal election this year?

MP: I think that Tony Abbott as the leader of the Coalition has an extremely valuable ability to cut through to the nub of an issue, to the core of an issue and ask some very key questions of the Prime Minister and his ministers. We're looking at the way the building the education revolution money is being spent, we're looking at the difficulties - difficulties is an understatement - that this government is having with border protection, we're looking at the phenomenal maladministration of the installation of insulation in this country. That we came to a point where people lost their lives because of the administration of a program in this country, then that speaks volumes about this government.

So we, Tony Abbott has been saying and we have been saying that it is a very challenging task for us to win the next election. There's only been one one-term federal government in the history of Australia's federation so it would be a very significant undertaking to make this one a second. But we will leave no stone unturned to make sure that Australians know how inadequate this government is and that they are basically all talk and no action. If you're really looking for results, you're not going to be able to find them.

DG: About the border protection, just recently on AM Agenda on Sky News, we had a Liberal person mention that we had six people when the Coalition Government was finished, there were six people in the detention centre on Christmas Island, now we've got 1,900 and everyday we're getting more. But at the same time, Rudd was saying vice versa. Even his politicians were talking about 1,900. They can't deny it and he is on television saying the completely opposite thing.

MP: Well, on border protection, we see them making plans to shift people from Christmas Island to the mainland. There are very significant concerns about whether those people will have been assessed by the Department of Immigration before they are shifted to the mainland. The maladministration of that area of policy has resulted in this. Again, it's a case of standing up, making a grand announcement in relation to management of a particular policy area and not having any follow-through. So when the Prime Minister determined that one group of asylum-seekers on a boat would be taken to Indonesia without adequate diplomatic engagement with Indonesia in advance, without an appreciation or an understanding of what needed to be done to manage that process properly. What did we end up with - a group of asylum seekers sitting on a boat, in Indonesia, interminably. That's not proper administration of policy. And then to say it's someone else's problem - it's not someone else's problem. The buck is supposed to stop with Kevin. Well it would appear that that's only when he chooses for it to.

DG: Talking about diplomacy, now we've got the second time the American president hasn't come. And I think it's not only so busy because of his health reform unfortunately what I heard is when Howard was prime minister, other presidents were actually crowding his reception area, standing in a queue to see him and he just couldn't afford to see all of them. Now what I heard, Rudd, asked for a couple of appointments when he was overseas, with presidents of the Phillipines and some other much smaller and much less substantial countries than Australia.

MP: I think the cancellation of or the postponement of President Obama's visit is disappointing for Australia. At the same time though, to be gracious to the President, it is I think important to acknowledge what is happening in the United States for him at the moment. But more broadly on international matters, it seems to me and to our foreign affairs spokeswoman Julie Bishop, that a lot of this government's foreign policy is being reduced to negotiating points for the security council bid and if you look at the extension of our engagement in Africa for example, a sudden and for many people, a perplexing level of interest in Africa, from the perspective of the opposition, it looks uncannily like it's directly linked to the security council bid and I think all of those issues are linked. I hadn't heard those stories before, but I understand the President will reschedule in June; we will have to wait and see. He obviously thinks his own domestic health reforms which he's engaged in are ones which he needs to stay there and pursue.

DG: Maybe because Rudd is spending too much time overseas, that's why, because everybody's probably sick and tired...(inaudible)

MP: Seeing him turn up on the doorstep.

DG: Yes.

MP: Well you know, as I've always said Dmitry, my mother always taught me never to go where I wasn't invited and I think that's a good policy for Australian prime ministers as well.

DG: On a personal note, what are some of your interests outside of politics? What do you like to do in your spare time?

MP: My partner and I particularly like the area that my family is from, which is the New South Wales Southern Highlands. So if you're not going very far afield, then that's a particularly beautiful place to go. It's a stunning part of New South Wales and my family is very long term settled in the Southern Highlands since the 1840s. So we like to spend time there whenever we can and in fact one of the great advantages of that part of the world is they've recently started hosting beautiful outdoor concerts in one of the local vineyards. It's an amphitheatrical space in the vineyard where you just sit on the grass and they construct a stage at the bottom of the hill and we've been to two concerts there in the last couple of years and they're magnificent. We both love sport, the cinema and music, all great ways to relax. I'm a huge football fan as you already know. My team though, doesn't always go down well in Western Sydney, is the St George Illawarra Dragons. So I'm a big football fan. Grew up with that passion from my father, very much and my brother and all the rest of our family are St George fans, although I keep it to myself when I'm at Penrith and Parramatta games.

DG: Who is your favourite musician?

MP: That's a very hard question. We have very eclectic tastes. My tastes run from classical music which I was brought up with to good old pub music - that does it for me.

Senator Marise Payne is the Federal Shadow Minister for Coalition of Australian Governments (COAG) and Modernising the Federation with Dmitry Greku, Publisher/Editor, GWP Magazines.