EO&E..............................................................................................................................................................

 

 

It’s really good to be here near Gosford at Sulo with Lucy Wicks, the Liberal Party’s candidate for Robertson and Karen McNamara, our candidate for Dobell. I want to thank Michael Huston and all the team here at Sulo for making us so welcome and also for making Joe Hockey and Arthur Sinodinos so welcome. This is an important local manufacturer. They are engaged in a never-ending struggle to survive and it is important that we don't make that more difficult. I am against the carbon tax because I want to reduce families' cost of living pressure. I want to help businesses like this and their workers and I want a government that makes our economy stronger, not weaker. That's why the next Coalition government as its first item of business will repeal the carbon tax. 

 

Now, what we have seen today is complete chaos and confusion from the Government. The carbon tax has only been in place for five days and already they are talking about how to fix it. Well, there is only one way to fix it and that's to get rid of it and if you want to bin the carbon tax, you've got to change the Government. I think that's the clear message that the Australian people are getting from the confusion inside this Government, that if you want to bin the carbon tax, you've got to change the Government. 

 

I am going to ask Lucy and Karen to say a few words. Then obviously I will take some questions. So, Lucy, why don't you go first?

 

 

Thanks, Tony. It’s been a great pleasure to be here visiting Sulo, it is a great manufacturing company here on the Central Coast. Manufacturing, of course, is one of our key industries on the Coast. We are really proud of them but the fact is that the carbon tax is going to deliver an extra $188,000 to the costs of their electricity this coming year and that's $188,000 that will have to be pulled out of profits from this company or alternatively increase their prices. I stand with Tony Abbott and with Karen McNamara here today and we are serious in our resolve that we will scrap this carbon tax and the next election will be a referendum on the carbon tax.

 

Thank you, Lucy. This is a tax that is based purely on a lie. The only thing that this tax is going to achieve is hurting the wallets of the people of the Central Coast. We are already doing it tough and we need some help and that's why the Liberal Coalition government under the leadership of Tony Abbott will get rid of this tax.

 

 

The point I should also make is that the only candidates in this election on the Central Coast who are determined to get rid of the carbon tax are Lucy Wicks and Karen McNamara. If you want to get rid of the carbon tax, you have got to vote for the Liberal Party and you have got to vote for Lucy Wicks or Karen McNamara.

 

Are there any questions?

 

 

Tony, today there was a survey by the Australian National University, which suggests that even though big polluters think that you will obviously repeal the carbon tax, they still think they are going to be paying one by the start of 2020. They think it is inevitable anyway. What do you make of that?

 

 

I think that since Copenhagen it has been increasingly obvious that the rest of the world is running away from carbon taxes and emissions trading schemes at a million miles an hour and the latest example of a country which is rethinking its approach is New Zealand. I am going to be introducing John Key at a lecture in Sydney later on today and they have said that because of the international economic circumstances, because of the cost pressures on their businesses, they are not going to extend their scheme as planned and so I think the message that's coming to the Australian people loud and clear from the rest of the world is don't touch these taxes with a barge pole because they hurt your cost of living, they threaten your jobs and they don't help the environment.

 

 

Why do you think that business thinks that a carbon tax is inevitable or a carbon price is inevitable?

 

Well, the businesses that I am talking to aren't giving me that message at all. Take this business, for instance. They just want to get on with producing a good product in the most environmentally efficient way. They do an enormous amount of recycling. They don't just recycle their plastic, they have got water recycling schemes and all sorts of things operating here. Australian businesses are world leaders when it comes to environmentally friendly manufacturing processes, but by making their costs go up, we drive production to places with lower environmental standards. So, the perverse outcome of this carbon tax is not going to be less pollution, it will be more pollution.

 

 

The Australian National University study finds that most businesses are now making changes to become more efficient. Does that mean that the scheme is starting to work?

 

 

No, it doesn't. Something which is often forgotten in all the sound and fury of the Labor Party's propaganda campaign is that over the last two decades Australian industry has lowered its carbon intensity by 50 per cent. Our emissions intensity has been halved over the last two decades because, without a carbon tax, businesses have been taking sensible measures to cut their power bill, to cut their fuel bill. Take Linfox, the transport company. Linfox say they have reduced their emissions by 35 per cent since 2007 through the common sense expedient of training their drivers to take the foot off the accelerator. Take Visy, for instance. I mean, Visy have innovative co-generation schemes where they are burning rubbish rather than putting it into landfill, and this is less than zero emissions power generation because it’s burning for power, rubbish that would otherwise be emitting big time in landfill. So, these are the sorts of innovative solutions that businesses have been putting in place for at least 20 years now without a carbon tax and the paradox of the carbon tax is it is often going to make those sorts of initiatives harder rather than easier.

 

 

The Government’s trying to have a lower price on the carbon trading scheme. Would that help businesses cope?

 

 

Look, it just shows that this is a Government which is in chaos five days into the carbon tax. Five days into the carbon tax and they are already trying to change it. You can't fix this carbon tax, you've just got to get rid of it and the only way to bin the carbon tax is to change the Government.

 

 

Can I just ask about asylum seekers? A story in The Australian suggesting that some of the people smugglers use our Navy as like the NRMA in terms of coming to rescue people at sea that may be in trouble?

 

 

Under our policy, naval commanders on the spot would have the option of turning boats around if it was safe to do so. Now, obviously I wasn't on the spot yesterday but those commanders on the spot under our policy would have had the option of turning that boat around if, in their judgment, it was safe to do so. Under the current Government's policy, all they can do is bring people to Australia. Well that's absolutely the wrong message to be sending to the people smugglers and their customers.

 

 

They asked the boat to turn around and go back to Indonesia and they ignored that. So, should force be used?

 

 

Under our policy, they would have the option of taking those steps that are necessary to get that boat turned around and what used to happen under the Howard Government was that naval personnel would board boats and they would ensure they were seaworthy. They would remove fuel from the vessels so that the only option for those vessels was to return to Indonesia.

 

 

But this would obviously mean that there’s got to be greater cooperation between Australia and Indonesia because some of these boats have been in the Indonesian search and rescue zones. Are you confident that Indonesia is prepared to work with Australia a lot more cooperatively?

 

 

Look, I am, I certainly am and the point that I made on President Yudhoyono's last visit to Australia, not the one that took place this week, was that together we have tackled this problem in the past and together we can tackle this problem in the future.

 

 

Has any member of the Coalition asked to find a job for a staffer for Peter Slipper? Any member?

 

 

Look, this matter has been entirely dealt with already.

 

 

On South Korea, what should Australia do or say to South Korea about its new plan for scientific whaling?

 

 

We oppose whaling. We have opposed whaling for a long time. The Coalition has consistently opposed whaling in government and in opposition and we would respectfully say to the South Koreans, don't do it.

 

 

Can I get a quick comment on last night's State of Origin - New South Wales just missing out?

 

 

Look, I think everyone who supports the Blues would be terribly disappointed but it was a great game of rugby league, one of the very great games of rugby league. Queensland were worthy winners and it just means that we here in New South Wales will have to try even harder next time.

 

 

Just on Clive Palmer, why did you ask Mr Palmer not to run for Lilley?

 

 

That’s yesterday’s issue and I dealt with all of that yesterday.

 

 

Do you want him to contest preselection for Queensland for the LNP?

 

Yesterday's story. 

 

I think we're done. Thank you.

 

[ends]