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

 

 

It’s good to be here at the Boyne Smelter. I want to thank Pacific Aluminium for making myself and my colleagues - Ian Macfarlane, the Shadow Minister for Resources and Ken O’Dowd, the local member - so welcome. Gladstone is the carbon capital of Australia. Along with places like Whyalla and the Latrobe Valley, this is in the front line of the carbon tax. There are so many major businesses and major employers here in Gladstone that are going to be hit by the carbon tax, but none more so than this major smelter. It is the biggest aluminium smelter in Australia. It employs directly about 1,500 people, indirectly thousands more, and yet this smelter is going to be impacted drastically by the carbon tax to the tune of something like a hundred million dollars a year. 

 

By 2020, the aluminium industry in Australia will be paying something like $350 million a year under various green schemes, particularly under the carbon tax and if we want to keep an aluminium industry in this country, we just have to axe the tax. On the Government’s own figures, aluminium production in Australia is down 62 per cent because of the carbon tax, but it’s very hard to see how the aluminium industry can survive at all in this country if the carbon tax stays. 

 

So, the Coalition will repeal the carbon tax, because we want to help ordinary families with their cost of living, because we want to help businesses like this survive and the jobs here to flourish and because we want government policy to make our country stronger, not weaker. 

 

Now, what we’ve seen from the Government over the last few days is panicked attempts to change the tax just six days into its operation. Well, it is absolutely crystal clear that you can’t fix this tax, you’ve just got to fight it. The only way to fix the carbon tax is to axe the carbon tax and that’s what the Coalition will do.

 

I’m going to ask Ian Macfarlane to say a few words and then Ken O’Dowd to add something about the local impact of the carbon tax here in Gladstone and then we’ll take some questions.

 

Thanks, Tony. Look, a kilogram of aluminium used in the transport industry in a vehicle saves ten kilograms of CO2. The reality is that the world needs aluminium. This plant is amongst the most efficient in the world; the lowest emitter of CO2. It’s using some great Australian technology to do it. It doesn’t make sense to put a chain around its neck to lower its competitiveness against a less efficient plant overseas and see that aluminium made overseas costing us jobs and increasing emissions.

 

 

Gladstone, as Tony said, is the carbon capital of Australia, but Gladstone is home to 6,000 direct jobs in the aluminium industry. Now, I’m here fighting with them for their survival and it’s so important to the whole infrastructure of central Queensland and indeed Australia’s economy that we must keep our industries going. Losing jobs and compensating the people who lose their jobs is not the answer. Thank you.

 

Ok, are there any questions?

 

Mr Abbott, has the carbon tax debate died off a bit this week and, if so, haven’t you failed in your message?

 

Well, if the carbon tax debate is dying off, it’s because one side has opted out of the debate; one side has surrendered. I don’t see the Prime Minister talking about the carbon tax because she knows this is a debate she is losing hands down. In fact, to the extent that any government ministers enter the debate, it’s not to talk about the carbon tax - the phrase which never escapes their lips - it’s to talk about compensation, but the point that the public understand is that A) the compensation is grievously inadequate, B) the compensation is for today, the tax is forever and C) you just can’t believe this Government. The public know that when this Prime Minister makes assurances that they will be better off, they think hang on a minute, this is the Prime Minister that told us six days before the last election, "there will be no carbon tax under the Government I lead." Now, this has fatally wounded the Prime Minister’s credibility. It’s destroyed her integrity and that’s what’s haunting this debate and why the Prime Minister is so reluctant to enter into it.

 

You've said that places like Gladstone are going to be wiped off the map because of the carbon tax. Clearly things are booming at the moment. Doesn’t that kind of contradict the message that you’re trying to send?

 

 

Talk to the people who work in this plant. Talk to the people who are responsible for keeping this plant going. They think that the carbon tax is going to be ultimately toxic for plants like this because, in the end, you can only make aluminium where you have affordable electricity and the whole point of the carbon tax is to make Australian electricity much, much more expensive, because our electricity comes from coal and coal - according to the authors of the carbon tax - is something that we’ve just got to stop using.

 

 

Doesn’t your credibility take a hit when companies are investing in the region, yet you’re saying that they’ll be significantly badly hit?

 

 

Well, I think that a lot of companies think that the Government is going to lose the election and the carbon tax will be scrapped. Now, that’s the point. In order to protect industries like this, we’ve got to axe the tax. The only way to fix this tax is to axe it.

 

 

How does the future of this smelter compare to others across Australia? Because it seems to be in a good position, comparatively.

 

 

Every aluminium smelter is in diabolical trouble under a carbon tax. This is one of the newer ones. It’s just been modernised. So, this particular smelter is in a better position than others, but the whole of the aluminium industry is in jeopardy should the carbon tax remain.

 

 

With Indonesia, the Government talking about I suppose rejecting the tow back of asylum seeker boats. What’s the fallback policy for you?

 

 

I just want to make it clear that my senior colleagues have been in touch with the Indonesian Government this morning and that’s a misrepresentation of their position.

 

 

What is their position?

 

 

Well, the position of the Indonesian Government is that they are happy to work constructively with Australia to tackle this problem but it’s well known that the Indonesian Government thinks that Australia is just not serious. The Indonesian Government looks at the way we have handled the Captain Emad debacle and they think, what’s going on in Australia? How can they keep lecturing us on the need to crack down on people smugglers when they’ve got a people smuggler operating in Canberra under their noses, and when the media get him, not the Government? The Government lets him go. Now, the only person that this government has managed to process offshore is Captain Emad and he was self-selected for offshore processing.

 

 

Chris Barrie, the former Navy and Army chief who was partly responsible for enforcing the turn back the boats policy during the Howard years, he’s now said that the doesn’t support the policy and that it would encourage reckless behaviour and people to resort to desparate measures. Why would you still maintain that policy?

 

 

Again, I think that is a misrepresentation of Admiral Barrie’s position. I just make a simply point. The Navy has done it before. They can do it again. The Navy professionally did it then under the Howard Government. The Navy’s professionalism is no less today than it was back then. What they did before they can do again and under the Coalition government there will always be the option of turning boats around where it is safe to do so.

 

 

Bu Chris Barrie doesn’t support it. He is someone with years of experience. Are you saying he doesn’t know what he’s talking about?

 

 

Again, I, with the respect, think that you are misrepresenting Admiral Barrie’s position. Admiral Barrie, along with all other serving members of the armed forces, understands that the armed forces are under the direction of the government of the day. That’s what civil control of the military means.

 

 

Do you agree with Alexander Downer when he says that Julia Gillard needs to toughen up on the policy?

 

 

Look, Alexander Downer is a friend and a former colleague. He always has interesting things to say and what’s absolutely crystal clear is that this is a government which has no policy whatsoever other than to put out the welcome mat for people smugglers. That’s their policy. First of all, they had the so-called East Timor solution. Then they had the Malaysian people-swap. Now they have the ‘let’s hand it all to a committee’ solution. That’s no solution at all. This government has had every conceivable position on the whole question of people smuggling except a policy that worked.

 

 

Back on the carbon tax, Mr Abbott, given that the aluminium sector, including this smelter, doesn’t pay $23 a tonne - it pays, it has a rebate of, I think 93.5 per cent out of that $23 - isn’t it a bit misleading to suggest with all the pressures from around the globe that it’s the carbon tax is rendering this sector unviable?

 

 

That rebate erodes every year. They’ve just shown us a graph which shows the dramatic erosion of that rebate, so, as I say, by 2020 the annual hit on the aluminium industry, mostly from the carbon tax, is $350 million a year.

 

Do you think that the turn back the boats policy does have a risk, though, of encouraging reckless behaviour and perhaps loss of life?

 

 

The turn back the boats option - which government must have and which a self-respecting country must have, that a country which is not going to be played for mugs by people smugglers must have - the turn back the boats option is what we need if we are going to discourage reckless behaviour by people smugglers and their clients. As long as there is no effective border protection policy, the boats will keep going and the tragedies will keep happening and this government has no effective border protection policy. The fundamental point I make here is that it is the Government’s job to secure our borders and a government that cannot secure our borders is a government which has failed the first test of any government and, frankly, if they can’t control our borders, they should simply give the job to someone who can.

 

Thank you.

 

[ends]