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

 

 

Tony Abbott, welcome to Sky News. You’ve been warning of the dire impact of this carbon tax since it was first announced. In the lead up to today though you’ve warned the impact will take time to be felt, there will be a slow burn on this or a python squeeze as you put it. But just when do you think Australians will feel the sort of negative effects that you’ve warned of?

 

David, I think that the average family will certainly understand the impact of the carbon tax when they get their next power bill. I think the winter power bill will certainly bring home to people the impact of this bad tax based on a lie.

 

 

But the point is they’ve already been compensated for that haven’t they? Low and middle-income families, pensioners, self-funded retirees.

 

 

You only give people compensation when you’ve done them harm and the fact that they’re getting tax cuts based on a tax increase is not going to impress people. They know that a tax cut that’s paid for by a tax increase is not a real cut, it’s a con.

 

 

But it’s not going to leave them out-of-pocket is the point. Those people receiving that compensation won’t be necessarily worse off.

 

 

David, even on the Government’s own figures, millions of households will be worse off and even those that are allegedly being compensated by the Government I think are going to be deeply and understandably sceptical.

 

 

But do you acknowledge some of the claims you’ve made have been over the top? For example, will the coal industry still shut down in your view?

If you look at the Government’s own figures David, absent carbon capture and storage, domestic coal-fired power generation drops from over 70 per cent of the total to 10 per cent of the total. Now, the whole point of a carbon tax over time is to make the coal and gas and oil industries uneconomic. That’s the whole point. If you don’t price coal out of the market, what are you doing with a carbon tax in the first place?

 

 

But again we’re talking over a very long period of time here aren’t we? - Because in the lead up to the introduction of this carbon tax, investment in coal exploration has actually increased, increased more than other mineral resources.

 

 

And that’s all driven David by demand out of China, India and elsewhere. Now if China was to do the same thing that we’re doing, obviously overtime all that demand would dry up, but I just repeat my fundamental point. The whole point of a carbon tax and Christine Milne is the only one who’s honest enough to admit it right now, but the whole point of a carbon tax is to make coal and gas and oil uneconomic. If it doesn’t it’s not doing its job.

 

And what about the town of Whyalla? The Government’s made a lot of your claim that it would be wiped off the map. It’s still there today, will it still be there for good?

 

 

Look, no-one said that the buildings would be destroyed, but certainly without the $64 million worth of compensation you would not have the steel plant open and an open steel plant is the foundation of Whyalla’s economy.

 

 

So it’s going to be ok thanks to that industry assistance that you opposed.

 

 

Well the point I made was that if you didn’t have the carbon tax, you didn’t need the industry bailout, but what we’ve seen just in the last couple of days, we’ve seen a Geelong bailout, we’ve seen a La Trobe bailout and that’s on top of the Whyalla bailout.

 

 

Now, you have given a solemn pledge to repeal this carbon tax. Will you also give a solemn pledge to achieve the five per cent reduction in emissions that you and the Government both agree on? Is that guaranteed under an Abbott Government?

 

 

We believe that we can get a domestic emissions reduction of five per cent, the interesting thing David about the carbon tax is that it doesn’t actually achieve an emissions reduction of five per cent. We actually have an emissions increase of eight per cent, would you believe, by 2020 despite a carbon tax that will then be $37 a tonne.

 

 

That’s because under the Government’s scheme, international emissions reductions can be purchased. Are you saying you’ll achieve five per cent entirely with Australian emissions reductions – that’s going to be expensive?

 

We believe we can, but our Direct Action policy is capped so we will spend the money that we’ve announced and we will achieve the emissions reduction that we get and we believe that we can achieve a five per cent reduction by the direct action measures that we’ve announced.

 

 

But if the $10 billion you’ve committee doesn’t achieve a five per cent reduction so be it. You’re not going to spend anymore?

 

 

We won’t spend anymore, but we do believe based on the letters of comfort that we released back in 2010 when we first launched the policy, we do believe that it is possible to get 140 million tonnes a year of abatement for the kind of money that we’re making available.

 

 

With a lot of trees being planted by the sounds of it?

 

 

Well that’s a part of the policy, but there are other parts to the policy as well. Carbon in soils is very important, smarter technology is very important. What’s often forgotten David in this whole debate about the carbon tax is that over the last two decades Australian emissions intensity has actually fallen by 50 per cent without a carbon tax as companies take sensible measures to reduce their power bills, reduce their fill bills. Now, what we’re providing is additional encouragement for businesses to do the kind of common sense things that they’ve been doing now for a long time.

 

 

Now the big difference of course in the two approaches here is yes a lot of companies as you say have been doing things like that off their own bat, but the Government is putting a financial penalty if you like in place on those big emitters – a disincentive for them to keep going the way they’re going. Is there going to be any sort of incentive or disincentive for those big emitters under your plan or can they just keep going business as usual?

 

Well the difference David between the Labor Party and the Coalition is that we will have incentives in place, they just have penalties in place and over time the penalties will just get tougher and tougher and higher and higher and yet even on their own modelling, they don’t reduce emissions by 2020, even in 2050 when there is a tiny reduction in emissions, it’s based on buying 400 million tonnes of carbon credits from overseas and in fact it’s based then on a 1.5 per cent of GDP transfer of resources from Australia to these foreign carbon traders. Now I think the more people understand about this carbon tax, the more ludicrous it looks.

 

 

Now on the benefits, the compensation that are flowing from today and have already been flowing for some as I’ve mentioned, those low and middle income earners, pensioners, self-funded retirees. You’ve said you’ll give them tax cuts without a carbon tax, but will they? Can you give any sort of pledge that they won’t be worse off under your plan?

 

 

Well I believe that they will be better off under our plan, because they won’t have the tax, but they will get to keep a significant part of the tax cuts and the benefit increases that they’ve just been given. You see at the moment, the tax cuts and the benefit increases are just compensation for a tax increase, but they will get to keep certainly some of what they’ve got, but there won’t be any of the tax increase. So these will be real tax cuts and real benefit increases under us in a way that they’re not under the Government.

 

 

But you can’t guarantee can you that the prices will necessarily fall once you get rid of the carbon tax – some may, but some may not. Is there any way of making sure that everyone whose put up a price because of the carbon tax brings it back down again?

 

Well if it’s just because of the carbon tax, the ACCC will be there to say look you’ve lost the carbon tax, you better bring your price down and if you don’t there are the usual range of penalties that the ACCC can impose.

 

 

Can I turn Mr Abbott finally to asylum seekers and the stalemate that continues there.

 

 

Sure.

 

 

The Government’s Malaysia plan which you’ve made clear you will never support. I just want to just try and pin down exactly what your concern is. There are protections there for people we would send there to give them access to health and education. They wouldn’t be sent back to their home country, they would be allow to work. What’s wrong with that? What’s your particularly concern about it?

 

 

Well none of those protection as I understand it are enforceable and people like Scott Morrison who have been to Malaysia unlike the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison has actually been to immigration detention centres in Malaysia. He’s inspected schools and health facilities in Malaysia and he believes that they are derisory these protections. I want to make this very important point David. This is a Prime Minister who on the carbon tax has justified her betrayal of the Australian people by saying she had to work with the Parliament she found. On Andrew Wilkie’s mandatory pre-commitment she dropped that promise saying she had to work with the Parliament she found. She dropped her company tax cut by saying she had to work with the Parliament she found. Now, she’s refusing to work with the Parliament she’s got on something as important as border protection. If she really does want offshore processing, get the kind of offshore processing that this Parliament will support otherwise the Prime Minister is just not fair dinkum.

 

 

Hypothetically if she did offer you a trial of your plan – temporary protection visas and Nauru for three months, six months, would you take it and then consider if it doesn’t work looking at Malaysia?

 

 

Well I’m very happy to support any move by the Government to implement what the Coalition believes are the right policies – very happy to support that, but I simply don’t support the wrong policies and as Scott Morrison, as Joe Hockey, as member after member of the Coalition has made absolutely crystal clear, we don’t support the Malaysian people swap – don’t now, won’t tomorrow, won’t ever. It’s a dud deal for Australia; it’s a cruel deal for boat people. Now, if the Prime Minister comes forward and says, look okay, I might want more, but I accept that this is all I’m likely to get out of the current Parliament, fine, we would welcome that and we would do what we could to support the Government. Whether this Government would be capable of implementing even the right policy successfully is a moot point, because as I said yesterday at the Liberal Party Federal Council, I don’t believe this Government has its heart in it. I think this Government is too conflicted, too compromised. It has too much of the taint of failure about it ever to put effective border protection policies in place and that’s why I think the public have concluded that if you want to stop the boats, you do have the change the Government.

 

 

And you will be meeting the Indonesia President when he visits Australia this week. Will you be talking to him about this issue and what will you say to him about your plan to turn back the boats to Indonesia?

 

Well David one thing I will never do is conduct megaphone diplomacy with the Indonesians, that’s one of the reasons why this Government has got itself into so much trouble, because they broadcast to the public what they were going to say and what they had said. I’m looking forward to a discussion with the Indonesian President. I think this is an absolutely critical relationship for Australia. I want to kick it off on the best possible foundation and the conversations that I have with the President – what I say to him, what he says to me, what Julie Bishop might say to the Foreign Minister, what he might say to her, all of that is going to remain in the vault where it belongs.

 

 

Alright, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, thank you.

 

 

Thanks so much David.

 

[ends]