Transcript of
Senator Mitch Fifield
Shadow Parliamentary Secretary
for Disabilities, Carers and the Voluntary Sector
Sky News AM Agenda
Kieran Gilbert and the Hon Dr Craig Emerson MP
19 October 2009
8:40am
E & OE
Subjects: ETS, asylum seekers, Peter Costello and Brendan Nelson
KIERAN GILBERT:
Welcome back to AM Agenda. With me now Liberal frontbencher Mitch Fifield and Small Business Minister Craig Emerson. Gentlemen good morning to you both.
CRAIG EMERSON:
G’day Kieran.
MITCH FIFIELD
Good morning Kieran.
GILBERT:
Mitch, first to you. Malcolm Turnbull won the support of the Party Room, how strong was that support?
FIFIELD:
We had a terrific discussion last night and the room was pretty united in the fact that it’s important to sit down, it’s important to negotiate with the Government. One of the heartening things I found from last night is that we had a four and a half hour discussion. I can’t remember the last time the ALP ever had a four and a half hour discussion on anything.
EMERSON:
Well you wouldn’t know.
FIFIELD:
But it’s important to have these discussions. It’s important to air views. And when you’ve got colleagues representing diverse electorates it’s important that they have their chance to have their say and that happened last night.
GILBERT:
You are one of the finance area Ministers Small Business Minister Ian Macfarlane says it is cost neutral, that’s a good start?
EMERSON:
Well we want to see the costings. We welcome the outcome of the Party Room meeting yesterday. The negotiations, it appears, can now commence. We haven’t seen the amendments. We’ve got a press release. I understand there will be a meeting later this afternoon, but we need to see both the costings, Kieran, and also the impact on emissions. Because the argument that the Coalition is putting is that it won’t cost anything and, but we do need to understand that a scheme that doesn’t affect anyone wont affect emissions either. So, but let’s have a look at what they’ve come up with. We think the Coalition has at least been constructive to this point and we want to engage constructively with the Coalition.
GILBERT:
Mitch you’ve said you don’t want a vote before Copenhagen. Are you happy with these talks? And secondly, I mean the, I suppose the real test comes in a couple of weeks, doesn’t it, when you have to decide whether you do support any agreement if it’s reached?
FIFIELD:
No one in the Coalition thinks there should be a vote before Copenhagen.
EMERSON:
That’s not right.
FIFIELD:
The Government has yet to advance a reason as to why it is essential to have a vote before Copenhagen. But it may well be, and it looks like it will, insist on a vote before Copenhagen. So we are taking the responsible and reasonable approach of sitting down with the Government to put forward amendments and to negotiate.
GILBERT:
Ian Macfarlane says he’s got a small book of dissenters that won’t back any compromise, that won’t support any vote, before or after for that matter, are you one of those in the black book?
FIFIELD:
Well I think to be fair to all of my colleagues, the Coalition Party Room, as a collective, has reserved its position until we see the results of the negotiations. Now we can’t make a call on what we will do in the future, because we don’t know how these negotiations will pan out.
GILBERT:
What would you be leaning towards, I mean if there is an agreement, they agree to most of your amendments, would you be willing, would you be open to a vote before?
FIFIELD:
Well I am not going to prejudge what the outcome of the negotiations are. The Coalition is entering the negotiations in good faith and I’m sure Craig would agree it’s not helpful to the negotiation process if there is a running commentary from Coalition colleagues on what may or may not be the outcome of any given range of scenarios. We are not going to know until the negotiations have been concluded. But what we’re aiming to do is some very practical things. We want to see agriculture excluded. We want to see fugitive coal mine emissions excluded. And we want to see, if we can, reduce the cost of electricity. The impact on electricity prices, which from the Government’s own work, is looking like a 40 per cent increase in wholesale prices, 18 per cent increase in retail prices. We’re putting forward a proposal which we think can see those increases cut in half, and that’s important for small business.
GILBERT:
Craig I put a similar question to Greg Combet and it sounds like you, the language from the Government is very conciliatory, you want to show you are being constructive. But on the one hand you are being constructive, but on the other you are saying let’s ram this through before December.
EMERSON:
We’ll it’s been our program, our timetable all along. Remember the Emissions Trading…
GILBERT:
You’re trying to put pressure on the Coalition.
EMERSON:
No, to get it through before Copenhagen. And Mitch just said no one in the Coalition has argued for a vote before Copenhagen Tony Abbott just this morning. Tony Abbott is a very senior Coalition member and he said, ‘it could indeed help the outcome of the Copenhagen climate change talks if Australia agreed in advance not only to a carbon emissions target but also on a mechanism to deliver it.’ Now there are people in the Coalition who are arguing for a vote before Copenhagen, on the same basis that the Government is. But there was more confusion this morning unfortunately, because I heard Ian Macfarlane say that they wouldn’t be adopting any delaying tactics to try and get in past Copenhagen. Then Malcolm Turnbull earlier has said that it may well go into the New Year if there is no agreement they are going to keep talking. Now going into the New Year takes us into, what, February and the resumption of Parliament. Greg Combet made the point that business itself is seeking an outcome before Copenhagen so that it can start doing its planning. Again we’ve got Ian Macfarlane, Tony Abbott, and Malcolm Turnbull and now Mitch all with different positions on whether there should or should not be a vote before Copenhagen.
GILBERT:
What’s your response to the Tony Abbott statement and opinion piece today in The Australian newspaper?
FIFIELD:
Well Tony agrees with all of us and recognises that this is the biggest structural change ever put forward by a government to the Australian economy. And Tony agrees that it is important to get this right. It’s important to take the time to get this right. And the point that Malcolm was making this morning was if that means going into the New Year then so be it. We are not going to seek to unnecessarily delay or obstruct, but it is important with something of this magnitude, that we get it right.
GILBERT:
He doesn’t agree with you on every point though, you missed the last point and that is that he is saying there should be a vote before Copenhagen.
FIFIELD:
No. Tony wasn’t saying there should be a vote before Copenhagen.
EMERSON:
I just read it out.
FIFIELD:
No, he wasn’t saying there should be a vote before Copenhagen. He was saying that he could see a benefit. But that is not to say that the overwhelming weight of argument is in favour of a vote before Copenhagen. That’s not Tony’s view. That’s not the view of anyone in the Coalition.
GILBERT:
Ok, let’s move on. We’ve only got about seven or eight minutes left on the program. There are a couple of issues I want to touch on. Asylum seekers. Now another vessel was intercepted, we were informed overnight just off Ashmore Reef, 39 people on that. Two boats yesterday, one off Indonesia, one off Malaysia, in distress, needed help from HMAS Armidale. I mean this is continuing and the Government says it is all about push factors. How can the Government not accept that some of your policy might have led to this flow?
EMERSON:
Because it is about push-factors. Italy has received 36,000 Asylum seekers in a year. Now that is not because of the Rudd Government’s policy on Asylum seekers. It reflects the fact that there has been a brutal civil war in Sri Lanka. There is, as we all know, terrible trouble in Afghanistan, with ethnic minorities…
GILBERT:
It’s been there since 2001.
EMERSON:
No there are real problems in Sri Lanka right now and a lot of people want to get out.
GILBERT:
Afghanistan since 2001…
EMERSON:
And the Hazara people are claiming that they are being persecuted and a number of them were approved as genuine Asylum seekers just recently. So these problems, they come in waves around the world and there is at present a surge in displaced people around the world. Tens of millions of displaced people around the world. Now take the comparison with Italy, 36,000. Since this Government came in, less than 2,000 people have arrived by boat here. They will be assessed under the same procedures as under the Coalition, by the United Nations High Commission on Refugees processes. And if they are found to be genuine refugees they will be able to stay, if they are found not to be genuine refugees they will be turned around and sent back.
GILBERT:
Mitch there is a dilemma in your party as well I mean I know the focus needs to be on the Government, its policies, because it is under its watch that we are seeing these dramas at the moment. But many in your side of politics do not want a return to the tough Howard era approach, do they? Small ‘l’ liberals, Petro Georgiou, Judy Moylan among others.
FIFIELD:
Well I think an overwhelming majority of the Coalition Party Room are of the view that what this Government is doing isn’t working and that something different needs to happen. Two things have changed since this Government came into office. The first was the rhetoric of the Labor Party, not just in Government, but in Opposition. In Opposition Labor flagged very loudly and very clearly that they were going to take a different approach. And that message was heard around the world. And they continued that rhetoric when they came into Government. And since August, when the Government abolished the Temporary Protection Visas, we have seen something of the order of more than 40 vessels come, more than 2000 Asylum seekers. The push factors have always been with us. There has always been turmoil. What’s changed is the Government’s rhetoric and the abolition of the TPVs. And we shouldn’t underestimate the significance of the language that a Government uses. That language sends a clear message to the people smugglers. And the combination of the Government’s language and the abolition of the TPVs has given people smugglers a good product to sell. And that’s what they are doing.
GILBERT:
Isn’t it simplistic for you and the Government to say that it is all about the factors overseas? I mean surely the policy at home has got to play some role?
EMERSON:
Well let’s have a quick discussion about Temporary Protection Visas. Ninety percent of the Asylum seekers who were given Temporary Protection Visas under the Coalition, stayed. They were allowed to stay, right. Now we have removed Temporary Protection Visas, but when Temporary Protection Visas were first introduced in 1999, there was a surge, a massive surge, like more than 5,000 people arriving in a year in boat arrivals. So it’s just logically impossible to argue that the removal of Temporary Protection Visas has been a contributing factor. But if the Coalition persists with that argument then it is incumbent upon them to say what they are going to do about Temporary Protection Visas. I predict when we go to Mitch, he’ll say we don’t have a policy on that, you’re the Government. Well we did have alternative policies, Kieran, when we came to Government. The Coalition is trying to get through this without an alternative policy, without saying what they will do about Temporary Protection Visas.
FIFIELD:
Well we’ve said that the Government should establish an inquiry. Now when we say an enquiry, we are essentially saying that the Government needs to ask itself the hard questions, it needs to ask itself the questions that we are posing. Which is, what has caused this increase in boats coming to Australia? Now if…
EMERSON:
Well you’ve said it is Temporary Protection Visas
FIFIELD:
If the Government did that inquiry they’d probably find that their language hasn’t helped. They’d probably find that the abolition of TPVs hadn’t helped, which then leads you to, what do you do? Now I think there are a number of people, a number of colleagues have a disposition towards bringing back some sort of Temporary Protection Visa. We are going through our own policy process, and that will be one of the things we look at. But it is incumbent on the Government to ask itself those questions.
GILBERT:
And just one last thing, we’ve got about a minute to go, Mitch, the end of an era today. Peter Costello and Brendan Nelson to hand in their resignations from Parliament to the Speaker.
FIFIELD:
Indeed. It is a sad day for the Liberal Party but I also think it is a sad day for the Parliament and Australian politics. They’ve both made tremendous contributions. Brendan Nelson putting the focus back on standards in education. Peter Costello the best economic manager that we’ve ever had. I think also significant is that Peter is one of the great parliamentary performers. He made Question Time interesting. It’s hard to watch the House now without falling asleep. He put a bit of passion in there and a bit of humour. And he used passion and humour to convey important messages to the community and I think we will miss that.
GILBERT:
And do you have a job in mind, does the Prime Minister have a job in mind for Peter Costello? Brendan Nelson’s already got one.
EMERSON:
No, look they are both, Peter and Brendan, political rivals but they have made a very important contribution and I agree with the colour of the Costello Question Time.
FIFIELD:
You’re not bad Craig, you liven it up a bit.
EMERSON:
Well thanks mate, I didn’t know you watched it from the Senate, mustn’t be much happening in the Senate whilst they are watching Question Time in the House. But anyway, I wish them both all the very best for the future.
GILBERT:
Craig Emerson, Mitch Fifield as always, great to see you both. Of course we wish both men all the best for their futures as well. And that’s all for this edition of AM Agenda.
ENDS