E&OE……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

We do have shadow finance minister Andrew Robb on mornings and he believes the accounting practices of the Gillard government must be investigated by the Auditor General. Good morning to you minister, shadow minister rather.

 

Good morning Cristy-Lee how are you?

 

Very well thank you. Why does there need to be an investigation?

 

What we are seeing, it’s not just this carbon tax I mean we’ve had now I think so many decisions which have been incompetent in the sense of the live cattle job for instance I mean it’s really now done very long term damage to that industry.

This is the last straw you are saying?

 

In through all of this they have built the debt up massively and they’ve kept saying they are going to bring the budget to surplus well in my view that’s a political objective it’s not really their economic objective and they are starting to shift so much money outside the budget so that it doesn’t appear on the bottom line.

 

And what they are doing for instance, you take the National Broadband Network, that’s going to cost $50 billion and it will be money that has to be borrowed and it’s got to be paid back, but it doesn’t appear in the budget papers.

 

Now they’ve done the same thing again with this carbon tax they’ve got a $10 billion slush fund really because it’s money that is going to be provided by nominees of the Greens and the government to businesses, green businesses to help them develop their businesses.

 

But a lot of it will be very high risk, the banks won’t do it, this fund will do it again that fund is not on the budget papers, but it’s still the money has to be found. It will be borrowed so it’s really all smoke and mirrors and it’s misleading people.

 

And all it’s doing is they’re getting deeper and deeper into hock and that’s our money, we are all the taxpayers and they are misleading people and we are saying that it’s reached a point where we really need the Auditor General to come in and have a look at the way in which they are accounting for all these tens-of-billions-of-dollars that don’t end up in the budget bottom line.

 

We need, it’s almost, fraudulently really the way in which they are accounting for these things and it’s making people feel comfortable about what’s happening when if they really knew the cost of it they’d be horrified.

 

We just heard from one local who was for the carbon tax.

 

Now she’s mentioned that the carbon tax is a positive thing because of that hit on people’s pockets and people won’t really start to take note of their carbon emissions or how much industry is letting off these carbon emissions until there is an impact on their pockets.

 

Would you agree with that statement?

 

No, I don’t because the rest of the world is not doing it. The trouble is that, sure, if all the science stacks up, and the world wants to make a change and reduce the amount of carbon dioxide, well you need all the countries in the world to put that price on, and then people would respond to that; and it would be fair.

 

The trouble is at the moment, you think about it this way, if Western Australia put a tax on and none of the other states in Australia put the tax on, what would happen over the next five to ten years?

 

There’d be a whole lot of businesses and jobs all move out of Western Australia, move to other parts of the country.

 

And that’s in a sense what is happening. Australia is putting a tax on, but no other countries around the world are putting a tax on.

 

So over time, all our high tax will do is make us less competitive, therefore industries that otherwise would have occurred here, in Western Australia and other parts of the country, will move to China, they’ll move to Indonesia, they’ll move to the United States, et cetera.

 

All we’re doing is shooting ourselves in the foot because this is largely a political decision to keep the Greens on side, to keep the Labor Party in Government and to keep the prime minister in her job.

 

This is not a tax, in my view, that’s designed to, won’t achieve what they say it will. It won’t do anything for the environment.

Shadow Minister we’re just about to run up to the news but thanks for joining us on North-West Morning with us today.

 

My pleasure all the best.