I spoke earlier to the Liberal’s Shadow Finance Minister Andrew Robb about day one of the new Parliament, how things are shaping up and in particular who is going to get this job as Deputy Speaker.

 

Andrew Robb thank you for joining us, first up, the first day of Parliament the Speaker has been elected but we don’t have a deputy speaker yet, will the coalition be putting forward Bruce Scott?

 

 

Well we really will make a decision once we see how the Government responds in half an hour or so. They’ve sort to play tricks with the Speaker himself and you can see this morning he had been some what offended by the actions of his own side. He had the strong support of the Coalition but they’ve spent weeks looking for somebody else.

He did say you know one day the true story of the past few weeks might come out. What do you think he was indicating?

 

 

It was a sort of loaded response I think. Well I suppose clearly he feels his family and himself have been put through the wringer by his own side. Yet clearly he has the confidence of the Parliament and certainly the Coalition side.

 

 

But the Coalition only wanted him because you didn’t want to lose one of your own number, it cost Labor one of their number.

 

 

But Labor had 750,000 less votes than the Coalition, won less seats, yet secured Government with the support of the Independents, if they want Government they need to supply the speaker, that’s tradition.

 

Do you think they should have also now supplied the Deputy Speaker or will that come from the Coalition?

 

Well I think what traditionally happens, should apply, what normally happens the names are invited for Deputy Speaker, both sides put up a candidate and usually cause the Government’s got the numbers, all there but one, they win the deputy speaker role, then there is an assistant deputy speaker if you like who normally then comes from the Coalition or the Opposition side.

 

 

The Coalition signed an agreement with the Government and the Independents, that there would be a Speaker from one party and a Deputy Speaker from the other party.

 

 

Well there was a pairing arrangement that we had signed a document for on the understanding that the proposition had been put to us for the arrangement was Constitutional. Now it’s clearly not constitutional, it raises great doubts. We went into that arrangement, all sorts of Legislation has passed and it’s then quite challengeable.

 

 

So even without a pairing arrangement you could still put up a deputy from the Coalition couldn’t you?

 

 

Well we’re ready to put somebody up potentially but we will see how they respond in the house, they talk about a new paradigm. 

 

 

So they put up a Labor candidate, you won’t put someone up?

 

We want to keep our actions sort of private until we see how the Government reacts. They talk about a new paradigm; they talk about cooperation, consultation and all the rest. All they have done so far is play tricks. We’ve seen even with the agreement they have struck with the independents, that key elements of that have now been excluded in terms of what will be put before the House tomorrow so…

 

 

We are going to explore a bit of that later on. Let’s turn to some portfolio matters. Access Economics has raised concerns that the Budget could slide back into deficit in 2013-2014 rather than continuing in surplus as Treasury and the Government expect. You share that pessimism from Access?

 

We’ve been saying from day one, that this budget was a house of cards. The assumptions on which year three and four is built, the result of that are clearly heroic and false and are optimistic in the extreme. No one supports the numbers except Treasury and the Government. 

 

In our view all along there would be a major supply response to China, the demand out of China. No matter how well we’re doing in the next two years, there will be a major supply response around the world. 

 

The are thousands of projects coming on stream in Russia, Eastern Europe, South America, Mongolia you name it and in a lot of cases just the infrastructure has been built to get those, all those resources into China. So we will see a big supply response that will put downward pressure on commodities and then the whole budget strategy falls apart.

 

 

If the problem is that there’s going to be too much supply of mineral resources here and around the world and that’s going to push down prices and affect the profits and the budget bottom line. Is there an argument to try and address that supply issue? Trying to limit supply through, for example a mining tax? 

 

No, no. Look we’ve got an opportunity because of the demand from China and we’ve got much better infrastructure, ports and rail and all the rest of it to service that demand in the next couple of years. 

 

We need to make the most out of that opportunity and we need to use that money to pay down the debt. This is the problem, the government is not acknowledging that this economy is vulnerable in the next three or four or five years. The great vulnerability if the commodity prices collapse or even if they come back significantly, we are deeply exposed. 

 

Everything that should be done now, if you thought that you’re going to lose your job in twelve months time you would be seeking to pay off the mortgagee as best you could, get you balance and savings in the right order. Not spend much money. Get yourself prudent financial management of your own concerns, no different with a country and yet we’ve got the government with this reckless spending. Tens of billions of dollars spending from the stimulus program, this is an irresponsible government who don’t know how to manage money and all their trying to do is now tax things. Carbon tax, mining tax, they want to get money by taxing.

 

    

Just finally on that carbon tax issue, the government of course is now setting up this multi party committee to look at how to put a price on carbon.  Tony Crook, the Nationals MP has today suggested that he might consider joining that Committee as well. Why doesn’t the Coalition at least be apart of the process here to get the outcome it wants?

 

 

Because membership of the committee requires you to sign up to a belief that a carbon price is the only answer.

 

 

There’s plenty in Coalition that thinks that’s right.

 

 

Well that’s not true. Our policy which we took to the election with overwhelming support and bear in mind that it had a sixty six, thirty three vote in the Liberal Party room.

 

 

That’s what I mean you’ve got thirty three there who believe a price on carbon is a way to go. Why can’t they take part in this committee?

 

 

We are a party that has got a strong policy position which is actually consistent with a lot of the big industrialised countries around the world and with China and India they are taking direct action. Tell me where in all those big countries which are producing lots of CO2, where there is a price on carbon that’s being established?  None of those countries. 

 

We should not get ahead of the world. Nothing has changed since Copenhagen, nothing has changed since this issue was considered by the Parliament at the start of this year when it was soundly beaten. 

 

This issue needs to be considered in a thoroughly comprehensive manner and not just take up the position of the government. We have put a forward market mechanism, we have put forward a means of delivering the targets, the same targets as the government but not getting too far ahead of the world. Not exporting jobs, not exporting emissions. That’s what will happen if they go head long into a price on carbon.

 

 

Andrew Robb lots happening today we better let you get back to it. Thank you very much for joining us.

 

 

My pleasure, thanks David.