Briefings sway senators on need for cuts

SENATE votes will be swayed by Joe Hockey’s new report on the nation’s future.

SENATE votes will be swayed by Joe Hockey’s new report on the nation’s future as crossbench senators emerged from confidential briefings to accept the need for more budget savings.

The first briefings on the Intergenerational Report have helped make the case for more savings but have also left senators wanting other changes — such as industrial relations reform — to keep older Australians in the workforce.

While the Treasurer has sought to emphasise the positive aspects of the report, Family First senator Bob Day said the briefing left him with a grim view.

“Socially it’s all good — people are living longer,” Senator Day told The Australian. “But the economics of all that are just bleak.”

Senator Day said the key issue for the future was workforce participation and that industrial relations changes would be needed to make it easier for people over 70 to keep working.

Liberal Democratic senator David Leyonhjelm said immigration could be higher than the 215,000 assumed in the long-term outlook.

“There’s quite a lot of scope for increasing it as one of the ways to deal with this IGR crisis, as long as they’re the people we want.”

Senator Leyonhjelm said the central message of the new document was that more savings would be needed to prevent huge deficits, in addition to budget changes the government has ­already legislated.

“You’d have to say that unless our governments do more serious surgery on our fiscal position, we do have a huge problem coming down the track,” he said.

Mr Hockey is planning a series of “town hall” meetings with voters in the weeks ahead to gauge the response to the new report, while an advertising campaign is also expected.

Labor Treasury spokesman Chris Bowen is accusing Mr Hockey of using new report as a “political” document and “a prop to aid his flailing campaign to sell his unfair budget”.

The next test for the government in the Senate appears likely to be its changes to university funding, generating savings but increasing fees.

Clive Palmer said he would never do a deal to deregulate the sector and his WA senator Zhenya Wang, who has said he supported deregulation, claimed he had changed his mind. But he also said he was bound by the party’s position. “My personal opinion doesn’t really matter — I am only one-third in the party room,” Senator Wang said.