Bill Shorten grilled on his 2018 promises

BILL Shorten has denied he is stirring up a class war in a fiery interview with Karl Stefanovic, who branded his National Press Club speech yesterday ‘much to do about nothing’.

BILL Shorten has denied he is stirring up a class war with his 2018 promises in an interview with breakfast TV host Karl Stefanovic, who branded his first major speech of the year “much to do about nothing”.

The Labor leader also defended his promises to look at raising the minimum wage, private health insurance price hikes and a federal corruption watchdog if he became prime minister.

Mr Shorten had highlighted cost of living pressures, wages, and the need to restore public faith in politics after the “circus” of 2017 in an agenda-setting speech in Canberra yesterday.

This morning, Mr Shorten defended the speech in a breakfast television interview with The Today Show host.

“You mentioned a whole bunch of things but it was much to do about nothing really, wasn’t it?” Stefanovic asked.

He dubbed the speech “a lot of bubble and squeak and not much meat”.

Mr Shorten backed his call for politics to be better in 2018.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten addressing the National Press Club in Canberra yesterday. Picture: Kym Smith

“What we have got to do is convince Australians — it doesn’t matter if you are Liberal or Labor — that we’re not in it for ourselves but for the people of Australia,” he said.

“That’s why I addressed restoring faith in the system by setting up a national integrity commission and by dealing with what I think is the number one issue for Australians — a sense that cost of living is out of control.

“The people are getting left behind and we can do better.”

Mr Shorten said all he was doing was “standing up for working class people and saying cost of living is out of control”.

“I think class war is when a government is giving millionaires tax cuts yet they are making millions of ordinary Australians pay more taxes,” he said.

Mr Shorten also bluntly ruled out scrapping the private health insurance rebate this morning after refusing to rule it out twice during the speech yesterday.

The government seized on the reluctance, with Health Minister Greg Hunt warning that abolishing the rebate would make premiums unaffordable for people on middle and low incomes.

The Labor leader said this morning the government simply “wasn’t listening yesterday”.

“We are very clear that we think there is a role for private health insurance but it’s got to work for people,” he told the Nine Network.

“I mean, if they are going to get billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidy and they are making 25 per cent profits, surely where do people come into the equation here?”

Asked how he would look at raising the minimum wage, Mr Shorten said it could be done by restoring penalty rates, highlighting that women were underpaid, and making enterprise bargaining easier for workers.