Joint Doorstop Interview with the Hon. Julie Bishop MHR, Perth
Posted on Tuesday, 15 March 2011
Subjects: Julia Gillard’s carbon tax; Work for the Dole; nuclear power.
E&OE……………………….…………………………………………………………………
TONY ABBOTT:
Look, it’s great to be here in the electorate of Curtin. I’m very pleased to be here with Julie Bishop, my deputy and also the local member. We are here in a house which has been built by Dale Alcock and his team and this is typical of the kind of everyday activity which is going to cost so much more under Julia Gillard’s carbon tax. The Housing Industry Association has estimated that the average new house has 160 tonnes of emissions in its construction. At $26 a tonne carbon price, that would add to $6,240 to the price of building your typical Australian new home. What this means is that basically this monster tax impacts on everyone and everything. It won’t clean up the environment but it will clean out your wallet and it will wipe out jobs which is why the Coalition that I lead is so opposed to Julia Gillard’s big new tax. We think that climate change is real. Mankind does contribute to it. We do need to take action against global emissions and that’s why we have a strong and effective direct action policy to deal with it.
I’m going to ask Julie to say a few words and then I might ask Dale Alcock to say a few words as well because he is a practitioner for many years in this industry. But before I do, I just want to make a couple of other observations. The Prime Minister was on Q&A last night trying to rationalise her pre-election dishonesty. The fact is it was a performance worthy of Walt Disney. There was the pre-election lie and there’s the post-election deceitful rationalisation. Lies are compounding lies here. This excuse, ‘the Greens made me do it’, just doesn’t wash. What kind of a fair dinkum prime minister would be browbeaten into breaking an election commitment by the Greens, and if there’s any verisimilitude at all in this it demonstrates what I’ve been saying all along – that Labor might be in office but the Greens are in power. The real Prime Minister of this country looks like Bob Brown not Julia Gillard.
The other point I want to make is that you just can’t trust anything that this Government says or does. They said before the election that they supported Work for the Dole. Figures that have come out just today show that Work for the Dole, like so many of the things that this Government said it supported pre-election, is being allowed to wither on the vine. Now, this is a real problem for the unemployed people of our country. It’s a real problem for the whole process of welfare reform in this country. Not only is Work for the Dole good for people without work but it’s also an important part of a system with a bit of rigour in it. That’s what the Howard Government created. That’s the inheritance which this Government had. This is the inheritance which is being squandered by this Government in the whole area of welfare reform and employment services as in so many other areas as well.
Julie?
JULIE BISHOP:
I’m delighted to have Tony Abbott here in my electorate at this home that is being built by Dale Alcock because it demonstrates that the cost of this carbon tax will flow though the whole economy. Over the last couple of days, Tony and I have been meeting with a whole range of businesses and industries in Perth, including manufacturers, building suppliers, people from the mining and resource sector and all of them have deep concerns about the impact of this carbon tax. It’s not just the major manufacturers or the major polluters, as Julia Gillard and Bob Brown like to call them, this tax will impact across the economy. We already know we have an issue with housing affordability in Western Australia. To impose a tax on the whole economy that will impact on transport costs, building costs, electricity costs, energy costs generally, will make houses even that more difficult to afford and for people already on a mortgage they are going to have to look at an even greater mortgage in order to afford a home given the impact of this carbon tax.
The Julia Gillard-Bob Brown Government really should think again. If they want to impose this tax on Western Australians on top of the mining tax they should go back to the electors and seek a mandate to do so.
TONY ABBOTT:
Ok, Dale?
DALE ALCOCK:
From a housing industry point of view we really struggle with affordability currently. Anything that effects affordability negatively going forward we’re mightily concerned about. So, $6000, if it was around that figure, that’s something we’re really concerned about. I guess on the back of federal Government initiatives like the mining tax, the insulation debacle, the last thing we need is an ill-conceived, ill-thought-out and rushed introduction of the carbon tax because quite frankly as an industry we’ve got enough to deal with just tackling affordability. Thank you.
TONY ABBOTT:
Very good. Thank you, Dale. Ok, do we have some questions?
QUESTION:
Mr Abbott, sorry you mentioned briefly before Julia Gillard’s I suppose frank admission on Q&A last night. Do you find this sort of some, I suppose, refreshing honesty on the PM’s behalf?
TONY ABBOTT:
I don’t think there was anything frank or candid about what the Prime Minister said on Q&A. She claimed last night that somehow the Greens had made her break her word as if she’d never heard of the Greens before the election, as if she had not the slightest idea about the likely composition of the Senate after the election when she made her statement. No, it was a dishonest statement when it was made and we had a dishonest explanation last night. This is a Government that just can’t be trusted.
QUESTION:
Do you think that you ever changed your message on climate change depending on your audience or who you’re talking to?
TONY ABBOTT:
The important thing is governments shouldn’t say one thing before an election and do something completely afterwards. That’s called breaking faith with the electorate and governments which do that should be punished, they should be punished. Now, if the Prime Minister genuinely changed her mind after the election on a subject as important as this – this great big new tax that is designed to radically change the way every Australian lives and every Australian works – if she genuinely changed her mind she should have had the decency and the honesty to seek a mandate at the next election. That’s what she should have done.
QUESTION:
You and Ms Bishop have said very different things about nuclear power. Does the Liberal Party have a position on nuclear power or doesn’t it?
TONY ABBOTT:
We have no policy to introduce nuclear power in this country.
QUESTION:
Just back to climate change, do you believe carbon dioxide is a major contributor [inaudible] global warming?
TONY ABBOTT:
Climate change is real. Mankind contributes to it. It’s important to have a strong and effective policy to limit carbon dioxide emissions and that’s what the Coalition has.
QUESTION:
And in your opinion, I mean, do you think the planet’s warming [inaudible]?
TONY ABBOTT:
This debate is not about climate change. The debate is about how to deal with it. Climate change does happen, is happening, it’s important that we deal with it the right way. That’s why the Coalition has a strong and effective Direct Action policy that will actually reduce emissions. All the Government wants to do is make daily life much more expensive.
QUESTION:
But yesterday you said that carbon dioxide wasn’t proven to be the environmental villain that others said it was so why do you still want to reduce emissions?
TONY ABBOTT:
This debate, as I said, is not about climate change it’s about how to deal with it. We’ve got a strong and effective policy to deal with it.
QUESTION:
[Inaudible]
TONY ABBOTT:
And obviously we want to see emissions reduced by five per cent by 2020 and we’ve got a strong and effective policy to bring that about.
QUESTION:
So if Liberal Party doesn’t have a position on nuclear power are you concerned that Ms Bishop is advocating that this should be considered?
TONY ABBOTT:
Well, I’ll get Julie to say a few words in a sec. But look, I’m perfectly happy to see a debate and I’m perfectly happy to see other countries do what’s in their best national interests. But we have no policy for the establishment of nuclear power in this country. It’s my understanding that there are no proposals for the establishment of nuclear power in this country. It’s my further understanding that the generation of electricity by that method would be much more expensive in this country than generation by coal or by gas, and there’s really no point going to a different technology if it’s going to drastically raise the price of power. Julie.
JULIE BISHOP:
Yesterday Tony Abbott and I were speaking about nuclear power and making two very valid but completely different points. Tony said that the Coalition has no policy to introduce nuclear power and that is a fact, and that is not disputed by anyone. I was talking about the after effects from the concerns in Japan over the nuclear reactor there and I said that if it is a priority globally to reduce greenhouse gas emissions then countries such as Japan will continue to look at nuclear power, and the debate will continue globally. But the point Tony made and the point that I agree with is that the Coalition has no policy to introduce nuclear power.
QUESTION:
But do you think we should have nuclear power in Australia?
JULIE BISHOP:
No, as I said, the point we were making yesterday was that the Coalition had no policy. I was talking about the global context. Now if the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is your top priority as it was for Kevin Rudd then the world will continue to debate whether nuclear power is right for their country or not. Japan has 54 nuclear reactors, it has a number currently underway, it has a number planned. France gets 80 per cent of its energy from nuclear power. So different countries have different needs. In Australia the Coalition has confirmed that we don’t have a policy to introduce nuclear power.
QUESTION:
Mr Abbott, are you against Julia Gillard’s carbon tax or are you against a carbon tax in general?
TONY ABBOTT:
I’m against a carbon tax whoever is proposing it because a carbon tax won’t necessarily reduce emissions but it will certainly smash the average household’s cost of living. As I keep saying, Julia Gillard’s carbon tax, it won’t clean up the environment but it will clean out your wallet and it will wipe out jobs big time. You’ve got to ask yourself this question: what has Julia Gillard got against the people of Western Australia, against the state of Western Australia to keep hitting Western Australia’s vital industries and vital jobs with these big new taxes? This is two big new taxes, two big hits particularly against the state of Western Australia and the West Australian economy with the mining tax and the carbon tax. As I said, I think the people of Western Australia are entitled to say to their Prime Minister ‘what have you got against us? What have you got against our industries? Our industries are responsible for almost 50 per cent of the export income of this country, and you are constantly trying to penalise our industries with your big new taxes. Well, it’s just not on, Prime Minister.’ I think that’s the message from the people of Western Australia to our Prime Minister in Canberra. Thank you.
[ends]