Interview with Laurie Oakes, The Today Show

Subjects: Election 2010; Kevin Rudd; the Coalition’s paid parental leave scheme; the Coalition’s real plan for direct action on climate change; border protection; industrial relations; aged care; superannuation; House of Representatives Question Time.

E&OE

LAURIE OAKES:

Mr Abbott, welcome to the programme.

TONY ABBOTT:

Nice to be with you, Laurie.

LAURIE OAKES:

In the light of that latest poll have you started measuring the curtains at the Lodge?

TONY ABBOTT:
Look, Laurie, this isn’t about me and my chances. It’s about our country and its future. And that’s why I keep saying we’ve got to end the waste, we’ve got to pay back the debt, we’ve got to stop the big new taxes and we’ve got to stop the boats.

LAURIE OAKES:

And stay on message, which you’re doing there I notice.

TONY ABBOTT:

Thanks.

LAURIE OAKES:

Now, there’s a story in the papers today about allegations that party officials, Labor but some Coalition too apparently, are gambling on this election, betting on the results in some seats. What’s your attitude to that?

TONY ABBOTT:

Look, I don’t think it should happen. I’ve never put a bet on an election result, and I would certainly want to discourage it.

LAURIE OAKES:

Nick Xenophon says that you and Julia Gillard should ban your people from doing that. Will you impose a ban?

TONY ABBOTT:

I am a reluctant banner, but I would certainly be very happy to say that it should not be happening.

LAURIE OAKES:

While we’re talking Sunday papers, what’s your comment on Alexander Downer’s claim that the Coalition used to feed information to Kevin Rudd so that he could use it against Party rivals like Laurie Brereton?

TONY ABBOTT:

My understanding, Laurie, is that Alexander has disputed the story, and I doubt that it’s true.

LAURIE OAKES:

So, why did he say it? Are you saying he didn’t say it?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, he’s put out a statement, and he disputes the story.

LAURIE OAKES:

Ok. Well, you told Malcolm Turnbull once that you were a weathervane. Does Australia need a weathervane as a Prime Minister?

TONY ABBOTT:

It was a bit of light-hearted banter.

LAURIE OAKES:

It was followed by the word ‘mate.’

TONY ABBOTT:

Yeah, and it was light-hearted banter, and obviously I want to do what I’m saying I’m going to do. And that is, as we said earlier, it’s to end the waste, it’s to repay the debt, it’s to stop the new taxes and stop the boats, Laurie.

LAURIE OAKES:

That was specifically about your attitude to climate change and an emissions trading scheme. You’ve had more positions on that than the kama sutra, haven’t you?

TONY ABBOTT:

That’s an old joke, Laurie.

LAURIE OAKES:

But it’s true.

TONY ABBOTT:

Look, I have always thought that climate change happens. The important thing, though, is how do you deal with it, and I think that the best way to deal with it is to take practical action that will achieve the 5 per cent emissions reduction target by 2020.

LAURIE OAKES:

That’s now. But last year you wrote an op ed piece in a newspaper saying the best thing for the Coalition to do was to pass the emissions trading legislation, get it out of the way.

TONY ABBOTT:

I was trying to support the leader. And, obviously, the leader then had a rather different position to me on this.

LAURIE OAKES:

Then you said climate change was crap.

TONY ABBOTT:

I think what I actually said was the idea of the settled science of climate change is a bit aromatic.

LAURIE OAKES:

And then you said you only said that, in fact on this programme you said you only said climate change was crap, because you were trying to persuade a group of Liberals in Beaufort, Victoria that negotiating an improved ETS scheme would be the best thing to do.

TONY ABBOTT:

Sure, Laurie. Look, we can go over all the history. But the important thing -

LAURIE OAKES:

Then you had another position when Malcolm Turnbull did negotiate a compromise, you pulled the rug out from under him, and you became leader and said no ETS now or ever.

TONY ABBOTT:

The important thing, Laurie, is what will happen if the Coalition wins. We will achieve our 5 per cent reduction through some direct action measures. What will happen if Labor wins? If Labor wins, we’ll have a carbon tax, simple as that. And that will put up the price of everything. A $40 a tonne carbon tax will double the price of electricity.

LAURIE OAKES:

But isn’t it important if you become Prime Minister that Australians can believe what their Prime Minister says?

TONY ABBOTT:

It is. And I am very happy to pit my record against that of Julia Gillard. Why should the public trust the Prime Minister when not even Kevin Rudd could?

LAURIE OAKES:

But I’m interviewing you today, not Julia Gillard. Another weathervane example. You said you would not have a new tax under any circumstances. A month later you announced there would be a 1.7 tax levy to pay for your paid parental leave scheme. Weathervane?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, Laurie, the point is that paid parental leave is not only a visionary social change, but it’s an important economic -

LAURIE OAKES:

We’re talking about the broken promise on taxes. Within a month. You couldn’t hold a position for a month.

TONY ABBOTT:

The point I’m trying to make, Laurie, is that paid parental leave is a very important social change and an economic reform. And if we are going to get it any time soon it does have to be paid for.

LAURIE OAKES:

So, another example where people couldn’t believe what you said?

TONY ABBOTT:

I think it was a situation where I changed my mind about how we were best going to achieve a very important social change, and a very important economic reform.
LAURIE OAKES:

There’s a lot of mind-changing though on paid parental leave itself. First it was only going to happen over your dead body.

TONY ABBOTT:

Look, I’ve been quite upfront about the fact that I did change my mind on this issue.

LAURIE OAKES:

On a lot of issues.

TONY ABBOTT:

But that’s what people do. When they are mature people they are capable of growing and changing in response to changing circumstances.

LAURIE OAKES:

But it keeps changing. In your book Battlelines you said you’d come round and believed in a paid parental scheme which was a modest scheme, funded by a small levy on all business. Then you produce something that’s not modest at all, very generous, people get full pay up to $150,000 a year and it’s paid for by a tax only on big business.

TONY ABBOTT:

And I think if you go back to Battlelines, Laurie, you’ll see that the scheme the Coalition has proposed is quite similar to the scheme that I came up with in Battlelines.

LAURIE OAKES:

The scheme you came up with is not modest. Battlelines said it would be modest.

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, look, people can argue the toss backwards and forwards, but do we or don’t we want a fair dinkum paid parental leave scheme. Years and years ago I didn’t. I have grown in to this position, and I don’t apologise for growing out of old-fashioned positions and coming in to better positions, which better reflect the enduring values of the political movement that I now lead.

LAURIE OAKES:

People change their minds, but you change yours a lot for a bloke who wants to be Prime Minister. I mean, now you’re talking about changing the paid parental leave scheme again. You haven’t held a position through the election campaign.

TONY ABBOTT:

Labor can’t have it both ways. On the one hand they can’t say I’m an old-fashioned ogre, and on the other hand say that I change my mind too much.

LAURIE OAKES:

But do we want a Prime Minister who changes his mind all the time, and who you can’t believe what he says because he’s a weathervane?

TONY ABBOTT:

As I said, Laurie, I’ll leave all this to the public to judge. I mean, on the one hand you’ve got the Labor Party saying that I’m desperately old-fashioned and reactionary. And on the other hand, you’ve got the Labor Party saying that I change my mind all the time. So I think the Labor Party needs to get it’s story straight.

LAURIE OAKES:

It’s not the Labor Party saying it, I’m saying it.

TONY ABBOTT:

I think Labor needs to get its story straight, Laurie.

LAURIE OAKES:

You know I’m not spouting Labor Party lines. This is fact. I’m quoting you, not the Labor Party. Let’s look at immigration. Where do you stand on immigration at the moment? You announced a week ago that you wanted to halve the intake.

TONY ABBOTT:

What we need, we need to get the intake down from the current unsustainable levels. We had 301,000 in 2008, we had 277,000 last year, and we’ll get it down to a maximum of 170,000 in the first term of a Coalition government.

LAURIE OAKES:

So you’re a small immigration man.

TONY ABBOTT:

I’m an appropriate immigration man, and I want a strong Australia, over time a strong Australia will be a bigger Australia but not nearly as big as the kind of figures that recent levels of immigration would give us. We don’t need 43 million people by 2050.

LAURIE OAKES:

Well, in late 2008 you said, and I’m quoting you again not the Labor Party, you said ‘one of the Howard Government’s greatest and least recognised achievements was to rehabilitate the immigration programme, increasing numbers to record levels.’ A big immigration man?

TONY ABBOTT:

And the interesting thing about the Howard Government’s record in immigration, Laurie, is that public support for the programme increased at the same time as the numbers increased, and one of the reasons for that was because the Howard Government stopped the boats. One of the problems at the present time is that public support for immigration is falling away, because the Rudd-Gillard Government has not been able to control our borders.
LAURIE OAKES:
And you know that the asylum seeker boats don’t affect the population because refugees who arrive that way are taken off the top of our program, so it’s got no impact on population. Now, let me put this to you. In January, you said, “There’s no reason to think that Australia has a fixed carrying capacity. My instinct is to extend to as many people as possible the freedom and benefits of life in Australia.”
TONY ABBOTT:
Of course I said that, but the point is, Laurie, recent immigration numbers have been…
LAURIE OAKES:
But that was only January.
TONY ABBOTT:
Yes, but one can be in favour of an immigration program, I mean, I was born overseas myself, Laurie. I support an immigration program, I support migrants. The Liberal Party always has and always will be a pro-immigrant party, but it’s got to be a sustainable program. That’s the whole point of bringing the numbers down from the current unsustainable figures to a sustainable figure and unlike Julia Gillard, who tries to have a population debate without talking about immigration, I’m being upfront with people and I’m saying that if we are elected, immigration numbers will come down…
LAURIE OAKES:
You’ve done a total 180 degree turn since January.
TONY ABBOTT:
The point I make, Laurie, is that there’s got to be public support for the immigration program and with out of control borders, it’s very hard to have public support for the immigration program. If the people think that a component of our program has been sub-contracted out to people smugglers, they’re not going to be very supportive of immigration.
LAURIE OAKES:
On another weathervane issue, WorkChoices, your current policy is not to touch Julia Gillard’s industrial relations laws. You say that they deserve a fair trial and business deserves certainty. That wasn’t your view only, what, two months ago.
TONY ABBOTT:
The point is, I have been absolutely crystal clear…
LAURIE OAKES:
About changing your mind?
TONY ABBOTT:
…because I accept the verdict of the people in ’07 and over the last few months, in particular Laurie, I’ve been talking a great deal to the business people who live under these laws, to the people who work under these laws and they say they can live with imperfect laws. What they can’t live with is constant change and that’s why I say I am going to give them a period of certainty and stability.
LAURIE OAKES:
But as recently as your Budget speech in May, you said these laws would destroy small business.
TONY ABBOTT:
That’s not quite what I said. What I said is I would like to see more flexibility and the interesting thing about the legislation is that it does provide for flexibility.
LAURIE OAKES:
You said a few months ago it was massively unfair to small business.
TONY ABBOTT:
And as I said to you Laurie, I’ve been talking to small business and they say, sure…
LAURIE OAKES:
But why didn’t you talk to them before you said it was massively unfair to them? Off the top of the head?
TONY ABBOTT:
They make the point, Laurie, that there are aspects of the legislation that they don’t like, but what they want above all else is a period of stability and certainty and that’s what they’ll get under me.
LAURIE OAKES:
So are you a weathervane?
TONY ABBOTT:
I’ll leave others to make their judgements. What I am tyring to do is the right thing by the Australian people and as circumstance change, sure, the appropriate policies will change, but at the moment, what we need above all else is to end the waste, to pay back the debt, to stop the big new taxes and to stop the boats.
LAURIE OAKES:
In the notorious 7:30 Report interview with Kerry O’Brien, you said in the heat of discussion, I can’t read my writing, but, no, you said “In the heat of discussion, you go a little bit further than you would if it was absolutely calm, considered, prepared, scripted.” Now, that’s an exact quote. A lot of people leapt on that as questioning your truthfulness. I was more concerned what it said about you, the admission that in the heat of the moment you go further than you should. Is that a good quality for a Prime Minister?
TONY ABBOTT:
It’s something that has got to be kept under the best possible control Laurie and that’s something that, obviously, I’m very, very determined to do.
LAURIE OAKES:
Alright. Now, you’ve got a policy out there today on aged care. Can you tell us about that?
TONY ABBOTT:
Yeah, sure. It’s $935 million and our objective is, first of all, to get more beds and second, to get more high care beds and third to cut the red tape, which is such a practical problem, for the nursing home operators.
LAURIE OAKES:
Julia Gillard’s also announcing a policy today. She’s going to allow super funds to offer a simple, low cost product called MySuper, which she says will give average workers an extra $40,000 when they retire. Do you favour that system?
TONY ABBOTT:
I understand that this is one of the recommendations of the Cooper Review. What we’ve said Laurie is that we will carefully consider those recommendations. We haven’t given a formal response to them, but we will carefully consider them.
LAURIE OAKES:
What are you going to do about Parliament? I know that this is not a mainstream issue, but it’s a beltway issue.
TONY ABBOTT:
It’s important to me, Laurie.
LAURIE OAKES:
Well, I think it’s probably important to Australians, even whether or not they realise it. Are you going to do something about it?
TONY ABBOTT:
The problem in Parliament, Laurie, is that all people see is Question Time and Question Time is basically adults, responsible adults, shouting at each other. It’s not a good look and it doesn’t actually enhance our system of government. So, what I want to do is to try to get away from the ferocious adversarial partisanship of Question Time and one way to do that, or to help do that is to limit the length of ministerial answers, to limit the length of questions, to try to ensure that the answer is directly relevant to the question and to make sure that we go straight out of Question Time into the Matter of Public Importance debate without waffley ministerial statements on this like the accessibility of cinemas. So I will change, or I will seek to have the Standing Orders changed.
LAURIE OAKES:
Kevin Rudd, of course, used to sometimes go for 12 minutes of a boring answer to a question. What limit will you put on it?
TONY ABBOTT:
He said, he was, as you said Laurie, the Bradman of Boredom. It was an excellent line.
LAURIE OAKES:
He was indeed.
TONY ABBOTT:
I think four minutes is more than ample time to get out a ministerial answer. If you need more time than that you should have a ministerial statement. So there’ll be a one minute limit on questions, and a four minute limit on answers. This is the system that’s worked pretty well in the Senate and I think it can work well in the House.
LAURIE OAKES:
A quick final issue. The Greens look like having the balance of power in the new Parliament. Could you work with the Greens if you were Prime Minister?
TONY ABBOTT:
I don’t know Bob Brown well, but we have got on well on those occasions where we’ve needed to talk about things. I think he is sincere, I think he sincerely wants a carbon tax, which is one of the reasons why a re-elected Gillard Government is going to be a real problem. I will do my best to work with whoever I have to work with, but I will have my objectives and they’ll be clear ones - to end the waste, to pay back the debt, to stop the big new taxes and to stop the boats.
LAURIE OAKES:
On message and we thank you.
TONY ABBOTT:
Thanks Laurie.