TRANSCRIPT
Of
SENATOR MITCH FIFIELD
Sky News AM Agenda
Ashleigh Gillon & Senator Mark Arbib
28 July 2008
8:30am
E & OE
SUBJECTS: Emissions Trading Scheme, Liberal leadership, Peter Costello, by-elections, Alcopops tax
ASHLEIGH GILLON:
Well Australia’s emissions trading scheme will continue to be the big issue this week as the Coalition tries to get its message sorted out. As the Shadow Treasurer Malcolm Turnbull said yesterday we can expect to see some pretty serious changes to the Coalition’s policy on this over the coming days.
MALCOLM TURNBULL:
The Party is entitled to change its policy, and every member of the party room or indeed of the Shadow Cabinet or the party room, is entitled to propose changes to policy and, as I said, inevitably, our policy will change. I mean we can’t have a policy at the next election which doesn’t take into account all the developments of next year, possibly a Labor Emissions Trading Scheme passed through the Parliament, certainly a very different approach from the next US president.
GILLON:
Divisions in the Party over the scheme could have serious implications for the Liberal leadership but yesterday key Coalition figures were out in force, certainly presenting a united front.
TURNBULL:
We’ll see a Liberal Party that is united and committed to a common goal.
TONY ABBOTT:
It’ll be a good meeting and I think that we’ll be strong for it.
GREG HUNT:
I can guarantee that there will be 100% support going forward.
GILLON:
And joining me now from Melbourne is Liberal Senator Mitch Fifield and from Sydney the New South Wales Labor Senator Mark Arbib. Mitch Fifield firstly to you, just how important do you think it is for the Coalition to get their story straight on this scheme this week?
SENATOR MITCH FIFIELD:
Well I do think we have our story straight Ashleigh. The Coalition has done a lot to reduce Australia’s emissions. In government we established the first dedicated greenhouse office, we established mandatory renewable energy targets, we established the Asia Pacific partnership for climate change, we had a plan to protect the region’s great forests, we had a terrific solar rebate scheme and we were on track to meet our Kyoto targets. We also had a policy going into the election to establish an emissions trading scheme by 2012. We inherited that policy as a new opposition. But we’re not the Howard Government, we’re not the Howard Opposition, we’re the Nelson Opposition and we’ve got every right to make our own way, to find our own path and to establish our own policy. That’s what we’re going to be doing on Wednesday and it’s critically important I think that as a nation which produces only 1.4% of global emissions that we don’t subject Australian households, we don’t subject Australian families and businesses to unnecessary pain if we’re not going to have the great global emitters the US, China and India on board.
GILLON:
Well Brendan Nelson has acknowledged in The Australian newspaper today that the handling of this by the Coalition over recent weeks has been “messy” in his language. We seem to have been getting conflicting messages, especially from Brendan Nelson and the Shadow Treasurer Malcolm Turnbull. But Brendan Nelson says he wants to take a harder line, as you say, wanting to get the commitment from the US, China, India before going ahead with this scheme. Do you expect the Party to fall in line with him this week on that?
FIFIELD:
Well as I say it’s appropriate that we take into account developments which are happening both domestically and externally. We’ve had the release of the Government’s Garnaut Report. We’ve had the release of the Green Paper by the Government. We’re going to take all of these things into consideration, but our prime objective is going to be the welfare of Australians. Yes we want to do what we can to reduce emissions, but our prime consideration is going to be family budgets, household budgets. Do we want to see a situation which is predicted in Labor’s Green Paper where we’re going to have a 16% increase in electricity prices for Australian families? Where you’ll have a 9% increase in other energy costs and a 0.9% increase in the CPI? We want to make sure that Australians aren’t copping pain for no good benefit.
GILLON:
Well yesterday we saw the Liberal frontbencher Tony Abbott acknowledge just how tough a job Labor has in implementing this scheme, here’s some of what he had to say yesterday.
ABBOTT:
Kevin Rudd wants to put an extraordinarily complex change that will impact on almost every sector of our economy but will raise almost every price to our people, he wants to put that in place by 2010, he’s got the Devil’s own job in front of him.
GILLON:
Senator Arbib in the context of high interest rates, petrol prices, general economic uncertainty this is going to be a tough sell isn’t it?
SENATOR MARK ARBIB:
Oh it’s going to be extremely tough Ashleigh, and as Professor Garnaut said himself, we are in a diabolical position, a diabolical policy position here. We could do nothing, and the Liberal policy now looks like it’s going to be ‘let’s do nothing on climate change,’ more conservative than John Howard’s actual position, but we believe action is required now. We’ve talked about an emissions trading scheme in 2010. We’re moving towards it. Kevin Rudd is showing great leadership in doing it. We’ve got to bring the community with us though because there will be a cost, and Kevin Rudd has actually levelled with the community and told them there will be a cost, but hopefully through the profits out of the carbon trading scheme we’ll be able to offset some of the costs especially for lower and middle income families and for business as well.
GILLON:
But do you think Brendan Nelson could in fact be on the right track here in guessing that voters could get cold feet when it comes to looking at the costs involved and when it comes the crunch time of actually introducing the scheme?
ARBIB:
Well there’s two things going on at the moment with Brendan Nelson. The first is, he’s trying to protect himself in his own caucus and his own Shadow Cabinet. We all know Malcolm Turnbull is moving himself towards a shot at the leadership and my belief is this policy is more about him backing down to the climate sceptics in his own party and trying to position himself in a much stronger position to take on Malcolm Turnbull. But also, it’s about a lack of leadership. I mean you’ve got on the one hand Kevin Rudd showing great leadership moving forward on this issue. On the other hand you’ve got Brendan Nelson, who really, a policy to do nothing now. I mean his policy, this is amazing, his policy on emissions trading is more conservative than John Howard’s and John Howard didn’t even believe in climate change.
GILLON:
Senator Fifield, Mark Arbib raises a point there, of course if the Coalition does decide to take a tougher line on this it will be opening itself up to being again labelled as climate sceptics. Of course, we seem to have already been there, done that and had that debate. Isn’t it time to move on and look forward?
FIFIELD:
Well I don’t think that having concern about household budgets and the plight of Australian businesses makes you a climate sceptic. Labor’s approach is in 2010 they will apply a new tax to pretty much everything in Australia. Everything in Australia will cost more because of Labor’s new climate tax. And what Labor is doing is while Australians are paying more, they’ll be wishing, hoping and praying that the US, China and India come on board. They’re putting Australians in a situation where they’re saying ‘Cop the pain, pay more, there’s no guarantee that the rest of the world will come on board. We could put Australia at a great economic disadvantage. But trust us, we hope and think and pray that perhaps, maybe, might, India, China and the US will come on board.’ We don’t think that’s good enough. My view is that we need to make sure we get this emissions trading scheme right. We need to wait until we have major emitters signed up. There’s no point Australia going it alone. Australia is 1.4% of emissions. If we reduce that, it’s not going to make any effect globally. The only way that you can have a global effect is to have the US, China and India on board. We shouldn’t ask Australians to cop a new tax, to cop the pain, without any guarantee that this will actually have any benefit for the global environment.
GILLON:
But surely Senator we do see that other countries around the world have already looked at starting to introduce their own ETS schemes. Australia, although small and although our emissions are relatively small as you point out, we are a relatively wealthy country, why shouldn’t we take that leadership role?
FIFIELD:
Well we should take a leadership role. And we took a leadership role in government by establishing the Asia Pacific Climate Change Partnership, something which Labor have de-funded. We did take a leadership role, we established the solar rebate, something which Labor have damaged by introducing the means test. Labor have basically killed the solar sector in Australia. Labor are also going to be making it much harder for other clean technologies. LNG, LPG will be taxed. They will be more expensive under Labor and we’ll find ourselves in a situation where potentially, in the case of LNG, we’re actually exporting jobs overseas as well. I don’t think that’s good policy. We need to make sure that we look after Australia’s economic interests first and if we can also join together with major emitters to do something practical to reduce global emissions then we should do that. But we shouldn’t just hope and think and pray that others will do it. We’ve actually got to see them sign up, we’ve got to see them sign on the dotted line before we ourselves commit.
ARBIB:
Ashleigh can I just say this is a policy from the Coalition to do nothing. The science is in, Professor Garnaut has delivered a paper now on the economics which show the cost of doing nothing on climate change and the cost of not introducing an ETS is much greater than actually taking the action. We…
FIFIELD:
But Mark (inaudible)…
ARBIB:
Hang on, hang on, let me have a go. We stand more to lose in Australia in this country than any other. We’re a dry country, a dry continent, we’re also a country that’s based on agriculture. And our agricultural system is already suffering through massive drought. I mean even Barnaby Joyce the other night was talking about how he believes in climate change and the effect it’s having out there in rural areas. The truth is we are looking after our economy as well. We are not the only country moving towards an ETS. Look what’s happening in Europe. They’ve already got it in place. 27 nation states already have it. In the United States, New Zealand is moving towards it, Japan is moving towards it, Canada is moving towards it. So this rubbish that somehow we’re leading the pack, is just, it’s rubbish. We are, we are doing it responsibly. We’re going to ensure that we take the community with us and we’re also going to ensure that those people that are affected the hardest, low income, middle income, some of those companies that are most affected will get compensation.
GILLON:
Well we all know that the Coalition and business groups have got some serious concerns about this 2010 start up date, here’s some of Malcolm Turnbull talking about that yesterday.
TURNBULL:
Labor’s timetable is rushed and they are making mistakes. And 2010, I promise you – and I say this from my experience as the Environment Minister last year – is too soon to get this right. They are already making mistakes and there are more to come and it puts our economy at risk.
GILLON:
Senator Arbib, can this really be done in this short time period, the start up date in 2010, would Kevin Rudd be regretting committing to that early start date?
ARBIB:
Well we’ll have to see, won’t we? But we believe it can be done.
FIFIELD:
He’s regretting it!
ARBIB:
I’m not in the Cabinet Mitch so I don’t know the figures. But Kevin Rudd believes it, Penny Wong believes it and I certainly believe in them. So I think it is definitely possible and we’ll be working towards it. I mean we can’t wait. We know that, as I said, the information is on the table, we’ve got the science, we’ve got the economics, if we wait any longer then we really will be culpable to future generations. It’s something that we have to take action on now. On one side you’ve got Kevin Rudd showing leadership, on the other side you’ve got Brendan Nelson and the Liberal Party who are really living in the past. Their position now is, as I said earlier, more conservative than John Howard. They’re living in the past.
GILLON:
Well look we do need to take a quick break Senators, but coming up after the break we will delve more into the Liberal leadership tensions which are running of course as the undercurrent to this debate. More coming up soon.
Commercial break
Hello and welcome back to Agenda. Well the Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson has acknowledged that the handling of the Liberal Party’s reaction to the emission trading scheme has been messy over the last few weeks. Yesterday the Shadow Treasurer though insisted he is on the same page as his leader despite everybody else seeming to sort out some pretty key differences between the lines being spruiked by both of the men. Let’s have a look at some of that by Malcolm Turnbull yesterday.
TURNBULL:
Brendan Nelson and I have been saying that, as has Julie Bishop, as has Greg Hunt, Helen Coonan, Chris Pyne, Joe Hockey, everyone that has been talking about it ever since the green paper came out. So we’ve all been singing off the same song sheet.
GILLON:
And the Shadow Environment Minister Greg Hunt for one doesn’t think that debate over the emissions trading scheme could be the catalyst for a change in the Liberal leadership. Here’s Mr Hunt yesterday.
BARRIE CASSIDY:
…could you ever see the day when Brendan Nelson would be asked to step aside as Alexander Downer did and make way for Peter Costello?
HUNT:
Brendan is going to take us to the election.
GILLON:
I’m joined of course by Senator Mitch Fifield and Senator Mark Arbib. Senator Fifield, do you agree with Greg Hunt’s comment there?
FIFIELD:
Absolutely, Brendan will take us to the next election. He’s showing tremendous leadership. I think he has a much better read on the mood and thinking of the Australian people than Kevin Rudd as evidenced by the fact that he doesn’t think it’s appropriate to introduce an emissions trading scheme which could see 25% of Australia’s coal-fired power stations shut down, the La Trobe Valley devastated, all in the hope that major emitters might do something. I think Brendan’s showing great leadership and doing a good job.
GILLON:
But do you think Brendan Nelson is better in tune with the Australian people than Malcolm Turnbull on this issue for example?
FIFIELD:
Brendan’s showing great leadership and the good thing is that Brendan and Malcolm are on the same page. Both of them share the same concern that we don’t want Australians to have to pay more for their goods and services, more for their energy than they need to if in so doing it won’t make a difference to global emissions. Professor Garnaut was correct when he was talking about the dangers of inaction but he was talking about the dangers of global inaction. We shouldn’t go it alone as Australians.
GILLON:
Well the other rumour, of course, doing the rounds is that Peter Costello could have another tilt at the leadership. Here’s Tony Abbott again on that yesterday.
ABBOTT:
…there was a clear pecking order in the Liberal Party – Howard first followed by Costello. Now, when we had John Howard around, I wanted John Howard to be our Prime Minister and our leader. We don’t have John Howard around any more. We do still have Peter Costello in the Parliament and I’d like to see him stay in the Parliament and make a contribution.
ANNABEL CRABB:
Where’s Brendan Nelson in the pecking order?
ABBOTT:
Well, Brendan Nelson is our leader and he’s doing a good job.
GILLON:
Well Mitch Fifield you’re a big fan of Peter Costello do you think he’ll stick around and perhaps have a go at the leadership?
FIFIELD:
Well Peter made it clear the day after the election that he wasn’t available for the Liberal leadership and it remains the case. He’s not available. He’s doing a terrific job as the Member for Higgins and I hope he stays in the Parliament, but he made his position clear after the election.
GILLON:
Mark Arbib, if the economy does falter could a return of Peter Costello send shivers down the spine of Labor?
ARBIB:
Well I don’t think so. I mean at the last election voters did have a choice. Howard and Costello went into the election as a leadership team and voters knew if they voted for Howard they were going to get Costello and they decided they didn’t want them. So I think overall that would be a hard case for them to sell. Also, Peter Costello was viewed by most voters as being out of touch with their average needs and concerns so I think they would have a big problem selling him there. In terms of WorkChoices, he was one of the leading people putting forward the WorkChoices legislation which really hurt working families so I think we would be obviously waiting to see what Mr Costello plans to do. The longer he hangs around it looks like he will be positioning himself for the leadership, otherwise why is he staying? If he’s not looking for the leadership why hasn’t he retired and gone on into the private sector. So there probably will be a change. I notice Mitch had to sort of keep a straight face when he gave his last answer but we’ll all wait and see.
FIFIELD:
Mark have you worked out yet how simultaneous by-elections would save a million dollars? I notice the electoral commission said that there wouldn’t be any such savings. Have you worked that one out yet?
ARBIB:
Well that’s the advice I have Mitch, yeah, that it would save money.
FIFIELD:
We’ll go with the AEC.
GILLON:
Senators we are running out of time but I do want to just quickly cover another issue. Today we’ve seen sprit sales soar by 50% following the introduction of the Alcopop tax. Mark Arbib that wasn’t the plan was it when that tax was introduced?
ARBIB:
Well these are the first figures we’ve seen. These are figures that have been released by the industry, so they’re pretty selective. They’ve been fighting a pretty hard rearguard action on this one, the spirits industry, so it’s only a snapshot. Let’s wait and see. You always need to see these figures over a longer period of time. The Herald’s figures that were released this morning show that alcohol sales have actually gone down, so that’s a good sign. We’re confident that the policy we’ve put in place in terms of Alcopops will drive down binge drinking and it’s something we’ll be standing by.
GILLON:
Mitch Fifield just quickly your reaction to those figures out today?
FIFIELD:
We’ve always said that this Alcopop tax was a con and a sham. That it was a tax grab. These figures prove it. There’s been a 10% increase in spirits consumed as a result of this policy and in addition to that Labor is raking in an extra $600,000 each and every day in taxation. So the effect of this policy is that it has actually increased the amount of spirits being consumed and it’s putting more money in Labor’s coffers. I think those figures speak for themselves.
GILLON:
Well look I’m sure we’ll be hearing a lot more about that story later in the day but for the moment that is all for this first edition of Early Agenda. Be sure to join Kieran Gilbert this afternoon at 4:15 for the avo version. That’s all for now, thanks for your company.
ENDS