28-February-2011
Portfolio Media Releases
Topics: Labor’s carbon tax lie, cost of living pressures.
E&OE
STEVE VIZARD:
Shadow Finance Minister Andrew Robb joins me, Andrew thanks for your time.
ANDREW ROBB:
It’s my pleasure Steve.
STEVE VIZARD:
You’ve just stepped out of a shadow cabinet meeting to talk to us. How much of today’s meeting, your meeting is going to be dominated by this issue?
ANDREW ROBB:
Well we just had the first hour and it was the only issue that we discussed for that first hour and it will continue for a while yet, so I think the parliament this week will be dominated by it. In fact I think for the rest of this term of this government, however long that is.
This issue must stay front and square because it is an abomination. It is just politics. It will not achieve any environmental benefit. It will just see prices up, jobs exported and emissions exported.
STEVE VIZARD:
Andrew I want to start with the matter of principle in terms of the substance of the tax itself. Did Australians vote for a carbon tax and has this government got a mandate to introduce one?
ANDREW ROBB:
There are 150 members of the parliament and one person only one person, that was the Greens member who is now the member for Melbourne who stood on a platform of a new carbon tax or a new carbon price.
The Labor Party and the Coalition both went to the election saying we would not introduce a new carbon tax, so it is not valid, it has no support in the electorate, there is no mandate whatsoever for Julia Gillard to fundamentally betray the promise she went to the election with.
STEVE VIZARD:
I want to just play you what she said yesterday. She said there’s been a change of circumstances since the election, a very surprising claim but here’s what she said: “some circumstances have changed in the meantime. I didn’t predict before the election that we’d have the parliament we have today, but we do have the parliament that the Australian people elected and I want to work with that parliament to get things done. That means that in working with people in the parliament who genuinely want to tackle climate change and price carbon. I have agreed that we would start with a fixed price and then move to the full emissions trading scheme.”
Is a desire to from government sufficient to break a promise, does that constitute a change of circumstance?
ANDREW ROBB:
No, it is just political opportunism and of course one other major change of circumstance which Julia Gillard did not refer to was that in the last six to eight weeks President Obama has declared that the United States will not have a price on carbon, will not have a tax on carbon, will not have an electricity tax, really this is what this amounts to. So even on the environmental front you’ve got the biggest producer in the world saying they will not go ahead with it.
They’ve said, the Labor Party, Professor Garnaut, Penny Wong, Julia Gillard, in the past have all said that there is no point in Australia going it alone and yet here we are going it alone just so Julia Gillard can try and save her government and her political skin.
STEVE VIZARD:
We’ve heard the prime minister say that John Howard did this with Meg Lees trying to get up the GST. Couple of questions here did you ever think you’d hear Julia Gillard reference John Howard as a role model in conducting government?
ANDREW ROBB:
Julia will do anything that is required, but again she’s misrepresented the situation. Of course with the GST John Howard went to an election and he took a lot of skin off. A lot of members lost their seats. It was a very close election but he got a mandate at an election. Julia Gillard has promised not to do this, now having formed a government she is now doing it.
There will be no chance of people, or there will be at the next election, because if we get in we will scrap it.
STEVE VIZARD:
Can I ask you this, this comes hot on the heels of information that the prime minister never met or took advice necessarily from the chief scientist Penny Sackett who is outgoing and who had plenty to say and who was a conduit, a very responsible conduit, for information relating to climate change. Coincidental?
ANDREW ROBB:
This is solely a political matter. They have not bothered with any of the science, they have not bothered with the impact that this will have on people’s lives. They don’t understand the cost of living pressures that people have got out there.
You slap another major tax on electricity it feeds into every cost pressure throughout the economy. Middle income and higher will be facing $1000-a-year at least in the first instance, others will be facing something in between that and $100 and $200, so you’ve got a massive impact and of course the compensation will come off quickly as well. They’ll make a big song and dance about the first year or two of compensation for low income earners, but it will come off quickly and the whole economy will then have the weight of this tax for forever more.
So it’s not surprising she has not consulted with the people who would understand the scientific impacts of this, there have been lots of questions asked about that, but this is basically an economic issue and it’s an issue of saving Julia’s political skin.
And it’s an act of betrayal for which I think people should maintain their anger all the way through to the next election.
STEVE VIZARD:
Andrew Robb, let’s just look at some of the details about this, such as are understood. It looks like this is going to be debated rather and passed before the current Senate runs out which means this will be passed presumably with the new Senate which will give the Greens more leverage, Bob Brown more leverage. If that’s likely it is more likely to have a re-distribution of wealth and of income which is going to far exceed compensation on a pure level isn’t it?
ANDREW ROBB:
It will mean a multi-billion-dollar tax. The previous one that they had in order was starting at $10 or $11 billion a year and growing and that would be churned back through the economy and largely made available to low income, so there is quite a significant major redistribution of income from those paying the tax to people who are dependent on the tax, but as I said it is a con in any event because that compensation will be there to get the thing in and to remove the political resistance from low income people, but it will diminish rapidly the compensation and you will find that money going into the government coffers for other programs.
It’s a con of the first order and I do feel that people have to understand that this is just another tax it will have a massive impact on their cost of living from day one for most people and more than that it will make a lot of businesses uncompetitive. The aluminium industries that we’ve got, the cement industries that we’ve got, the steel industries that we’ve got, many manufacturers who are reliant on large amounts of electricity. Many of those will find that they are no longer competitive.
Those business will outsource their activities to China, to Indonesia wherever and the same emissions will go up in to the sky, often more because they are less efficient in those countries. So you have no environmental effect because a ton of CO2 going up to the sky in Melbourne has the same effect of one ton going up in Beijing.
So you’ve got this futile exercise with no one else in the world doing what we’re doing. We’d be leading the world, a big tax on the things that we do well and a big tax on people’s cost of living, it makes no sense.
They just want to be seen to be agreeing with the Greens, will vote on it after the Greens take power. They’ve delayed a lot of the sittings so that it will push a lot of legislation back until after July when the Greens have the balance of power in the Senate. It is such a cynical exercise and it makes my blood boil to be honest.
STEVE VIZARD:
Can I be, it gives you a little issue yourself because Malcolm Turnbull, former leader, arguably lost his leadership over his response to climate change, he was more an advocate of strong intervention from your party’s point of view, puts him in a cleft stick this doesn’t it, is he going to tow the line, where will he be able to sit in terms of being an advocate for your party’s position?
ANDREW ROBB:
Well, Malcolm I think decided not to pull up stumps and resign as he originally indicated and stood again for Wentworth and won it handsomely. When he took that decision I think he agreed to comply with the positions of the party and I don’t think will do anything other than that.
There are issues that often crop up where you find yourself agreeing with some, but not with everything the party adopts. We’re a team though so you have to take the view of the majority, the overwhelming majority in the party room are violently opposed to this new tax and I’m sure Malcolm will do what he’s required to do and that is run the party line and do it effectively.
STEVE VIZARD:
Good on you, I appreciate your time.