Sky News AM Agenda with Kieran Gilbert

Subjects: Prime Minister’s popularity, carbon pricing, PM in the US.

Transcript, E&OE

8 March 2011

KIERAN GILBERT: We're going to go now to our panel. The Trade Minister, Craig Emerson, joins me from the Sky News Centre and from Brisbane the Deputy Opposition Leader in the Senate, Senator George Brandis, also the Shadow Attorney General.

Craig Emerson, first to you: this poll, a disaster at 30 per cent. As you heard Martin [O’Shaughnessy] say there, a clear rebuke in his view of … over the carbon tax. It seems pretty obvious that that's the case.

CRAIG EMERSON: Kieran, putting a price on carbon is an important reform, and important reforms are rarely popular. The big reforms in economic policy, the big environmental reforms, are rarely popular.

Now there are two choices. One is to say it's unpopular and even though it's in the national interest we won't do it, that is, to duck out of it, which is really what the Coalition did when it was in government. John Howard actually released an emissions trading scheme very late in his prime ministership.

They were always going to get around to doing this but they never did actually get around to doing it because he saw this as a reform, an important reform, but one he didn't think he could prosecute. Well Julia Gillard has more courage than that.

This is a very important economic reform. It's a very important environmental reform. They are rarely popular but they are in the national interest and that's why we'll press ahead with it.

GILBERT: But Craig, it's also about the broken promise and the credibility here. There's an enormous task, it seems now, for the Prime Minister to re-build the trust in the electorate, her approval rating down in this poll dramatically by 11 points.

EMERSON: Well, it is true that Julia Gillard said before the election that there wouldn't be a carbon tax. In the same breath she said, however, ‘I don't rule out putting a price on carbon’. We are putting a price on carbon. We tried to do so three times in the previous term to be defeated in the Senate by the Coalition and the Greens.

We will put a price on carbon. This is a fixed price initially, then it goes to a floating price, an emissions trading scheme. We said that we would put a price on carbon. We're going to do it.

GILBERT: Okay. Senator Brandis, the Opposition Leader, his ratings aren't that … anything to write home about either really - 39 per cent, disapproval over 50 per cent, identical to what the Prime Minister's are. Is that a worry for you that even when you get a bounce as a party, Tony Abbott still lags behind?

GEORGE BRANDIS: No, it's not a worry at all, Kieran. We're perfectly well content with the … this opinion poll and can I just address the broader issue for a moment, if I may?

This is what happens to you when you win an election by deceiving the people. And as much as Craig tries to run away from describing this as a tax, Julia Gillard herself conceded on the day that she made the announcement with Senator Bob Brown that this was effectively a tax.

Now, you can't escape the fact that Julia Gillard is in office today because the week before the election she promised emphatically, in scripted, considered remarks, that there would be no carbon tax under the Government she leads. And in order to tie up the Greens' support and to be installed into office she has abandoned that commitment.

And the Australian people have seen through her. They have worked out that they don't like this Prime Minister, that they … that there … you can't believe a word she says, and I think that is why her approval rating has collapsed as dramatically as it has.

GILBERT: Senator Brandis, you talk about that initial reaction to the broken promise, it was a broken promise by … from her own words. They are now adopting a …

EMERSON: No, it's not.

GILBERT: … well, she concedes that, adopting a carbon tax. But the fact … there is a long time now between where we stand and when it's introduced.

It's only the first two weeks of this debate and Tony Abbott, still no jump for him. Are you worried that he's going to be seen simply as negative, as a wrecker, and there won't be any commensurate rise for him and his approval?

BRANDIS: Well, look, no, I'm not worried at all and I don't understand this argument that by opposing the carbon tax Tony Abbott and the Coalition are being wreckers. The fact is that the Government stands for a carbon tax and the Coalition is opposed to a carbon tax.

Just because we don't happen to agree with the Government, just because we happen to think that a great big new tax being imposed on Australian households is a bad idea, doesn't mean that we're wreckers. It means that we think this is a very bad idea, and most Australians agree with us.

GILBERT: Okay. Gentlemen, we'll take a quick break and we'll talk more about the carbon tax right after this break. Stay with us.

[Ad break]

GILBERT: Welcome back to AM Agenda. With me this morning, the Trade Minister, Craig Emerson, and the Deputy Opposition Leader in the Senate, Senator George Brandis.

Craig Emerson, last night Gail Kelly, the Westpac boss, expressed support for a carbon price. In fact, she wants an ETS sooner rather than later. Would you urge other business leaders to do the same thing, to get out and back you if that's what they believe?

EMERSON: I think a large number of businesses do support putting a price on carbon. They even did so, as I alluded to earlier, when John Howard very belatedly said he would do that. And so, yes, of course, business that wants some certainty would be getting certainty.

You see, this is one of the fundamental issues in an economic reform. You've got the Labor Government, the Gillard Government saying that to provide some business certainty we will fix the carbon price for a period of three to five years.

That is actually specifically to give some certainty to business and that's what they're craving because if we're going to get the new investment in electricity generation they need some certainty, and I think that's what people like Gail Kelly and others are saying.

Then there is the transition to the floating price, the full emissions trading scheme, over time. It's not, as George has just misrepresented, a tax on households. It is an impost on the large emitters, the large emitters of carbon, and we have always said that they will then seek to pass that on, at least to some extent, in higher electricity prices.

But every cent of the proceeds from the issuing of these permits will go to compensating households for any increase in electricity prices and to supporting businesses in making the transition to a low-carbon future.

That's what Gail Kelly understands; that's what the business community understands. But the uncertainty would come from Tony Abbott's opposition to putting a price on carbon and his so-called direct action plan, that is, he'd rip the whole structure away and put in a completely ineffective plan that would just create a new round of uncertainty for business.

GILBERT: Okay. Senator Brandis, if people like Gail Kelly, well respected businesspeople, start coming out as she did last night, and endorse the Government's approach, that's going to be very difficult for the Coalition to counter.

BRANDIS: Well I don't know about that. I mean I can understand why business is craving certainty because you've got a Government that spent an entire election campaign saying ‘the one thing you can be sure of is that if we get back into power there won't be a carbon tax’.

And no sooner do they get back into the power then they say there will be a carbon tax. So we know where the uncertainty is being created. I can give you certainty and I can give business certainty. If there is a Coalition Government elected at the next election, there will be no carbon tax. How's that for certainty?

EMERSON: Yeah, well it's completely irresponsible. It's completely irresponsible because there's no basis for investment.

BRANDIS: Why is it irresponsible when it was your … Craig, how could it be … you say it's irresponsible when it was your own policy on which you got elected in August last year?

EMERSON: We've just covered that. We said that we'd put a price on carbon. The Coalition has said …

BRANDIS: You said there wouldn't be a carbon tax and now there is one.

EMERSON: … that it will not put a price on carbon. Let's be clear. It will not put a price on carbon. It would mean that Australia is part of the past but not part of the future. Other countries are moving to put a price on carbon in their own various ways.

What the Coalition wants to do is to leave Australia as part of the past. We want to be part of the future, and that means reducing carbon emissions, an important environmental outcome, and imparting the certainty that our businesses crave.

And the most reckless thing that could be done is what Tony Abbott is saying that he would do, and that is remove a price on carbon and put in place a completely ineffective and incredibly expensive direct action plan, which only goes one quarter of the way to achieving his carbon target, one quarter of the way.

BRANDIS: Craig, Craig, let's get something …

GILBERT: Senator, let me interrupt. Senator Brandis, I will allow you to respond to that last assertion …

BRANDIS: Thank you.

GILBERT: … if I can, on the fact that Abbott says there's not going to be any hit in the bottom line or the hip pocket from your strategy.

BRANDIS: That's right.

EMERSON: Thirty billion dollars.

GILBERT: How is that viable?

EMERSON: Thirty billion dollar hit.

GILBERT: Let Senator Brandis …

BRANDIS: Well that's not, that's not right, Craig. That costing is something that was developed by political staffers in Penny Wong's office. So that's the Labor party talking to itself, so I don't think we'll worry too much …

EMERSON: [Indistinct]

BRANDIS: … no, no, no, it wasn't actually, it was the minister's office, so we won't worry too much about that. Greg Hunt's direct action plan which actually buys back carbon and abates carbon emissions by actually buying it back through literally direct action will … we estimate will cost about $10 billion over 10 years.

Now that is something that can be well absorbed in the budget and we've already announced the savings during the course of the election campaign that would enable that to be absorbed in the budget without a massive hit to Australian households.

GILBERT: All right. Gentlemen, we're going to have plenty of weeks to talk about this carbon tax, so we'll pause there for the moment.

Just quickly, both your thoughts on the Prime Minister in Washington. A bit ironic, wasn't it Craig, that the President says he was instantly charmed just as the polls show that less Australians are charmed by the PM. But some interesting pics there in the Oval Office of them playing with the Sherrin.

EMERSON: Yes, sure. I wish they were playing with a rugby league or a rugby union ball, but everyone to their own taste. Look, the President has been very gracious in his support for Prime Minister Gillard. We are great allies. To use the Australian term, we're great mates.

We've been side by side with the Americans over a very long period of time, and I know from talking to Prime Minister Gillard and some other senior members of the administration with whom I've developed a friendship, that there is a genuine warmth in the relationship between President Obama and Julia Gillard, and that obviously came through at the press conference today.

GILBERT: Okay. Senator Brandis, your thoughts? It does seem that there is a rapport there?

BRANDIS: Well, look, let me just correct one thing Craig said: it's not President Obama's support for Prime Minister Gillard, it's President Obama's support for Australia.

EMERSON: I don't think you were watching, George.

BRANDIS: Now it always … I was, Craig, and please don't think that this is about … all about Julia Gillard; this is all about Australia. Now it always amuses me as a Liberal Party politician to see Labor Party leaders celebrating achievements of former Liberal Governments.

The ANZUS alliance, whose 60th anniversary this visit commemorates, was of course the great foreign … greatest ever foreign policy achievement … of the Coalition, having been negotiated in 1951 …

EMERSON: All right. Yeah.

BRANDIS: … and then consistently supported by my side of politics in the 60 years since.

GILBERT: Okay. Well, I'll let you …

BRANDIS: And most of the time supported by the Labor Party.

EMERSON: Thank you, that's very generous of you, George.

GILBERT: I'll let you finish on that note, Senator Brandis, claiming a win there and we're going to wrap up our conversation. Craig Emerson, good to see you as well.

EMERSON: Thanks, Kieran.

GILBERT: And we'll catch up next week, Senator Brandis, thanks a lot.

BRANDIS: Thank you very much, Kieran.

GILBERT: And that's all for this edition. I'm Kieran Gilbert, thanks for your company.

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