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  • Joint Press Conference with Tony Abbott and Andrew Robb - Coalition taskgroup on dams; border protection

    07/01/11

    Subjects: Coalition taskgroup on dams; border protection.

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

    TONY ABBOTT:

    Good morning and thanks for coming, I really appreciate you being here. I think it’s time for a bit of national leadership, a bit of vision when it comes to water policy and I think it’s time that as a nation we put new dams back on our agenda and I think that the Queensland flood disaster makes this very timely indeed because dams can be flood mitigation devices as well as water storages. They can be a potential source of zero emissions power as well as water storages. They can be a source of environmental flows in dry times as well as just water shortages.

    Dams, sure, are about water security for our farmers but that’s not all they are and I think we’ve forgotten everything that dams can be over the last two decades. I think it’s time to end the dam phobia which has afflicted policy makers for the last two decades. Now, I know that there are problems with many dam sites but I fail to see that there are no potential dam sites anywhere in Australia where the economic and social benefits outweigh any environmental cost.

    So, I am pleased to announced this morning that there will be a senior shadow ministerial taskgroup to be chaired by my friend and colleague, Andrew Robb, that will look at that part of dams can play in securing Australia’s water future and this will be a significant element in the visionary water policy that I want us to take to the next election, whenever that’s held.

    I will now ask Andrew to say a few words and I may just have a couple of things to say about other subjects and then I’ll take questions.

    ANDREW ROBB:

    Thanks, Tony. Well, I am very pleased to be given this responsibility along with a number of my other colleagues. I agree with Tony 110 per cent that for a number of reasons this is an area of practical water management, food security, environmental control and flood mitigation. All of those areas have been, this scope for dams to be a part of the mix of measures to address all of those important issues has now for two or three decades been totally ignored.

    The inquiry will take 12 months, as Tony said. It will involve myself and a number of senior colleagues, Barnaby Joyce and we will have Greg Hunt involved, we’ll have Simon Birmingham involved, so a significant team. We will carry out consultations where necessary, visitation around the country, a lot of conferring with those that involved, the CSIRO for instance, others who are looking at new technology.

    This will be a wide ranging review to see where dams fit into the mix. For instance, a lot of the recently developed computer aided technology to assist river management could be greatly assisted by the presence of more dams. For instance, if you’ve got a stand of red gums that need to be flooded every four years from an environmental point of view, computer aided river management along with dams etcetera can help you do that once every four years, not do it every year and see that water unnecessarily taken up for environmental purposes when it could be devoted to water production or whatever. So, there’s a whole integrated and sophisticated backdrop to the whole investigation of dams. So it’s a quite an exciting area.

    I think we already have seen from the Government that they are very much controlled now by the Greens. This is a Government that is very much in alliance with the Greens. In many respects Bob Brown is acting as Deputy Prime Minister. The whole agenda that we have seen from the Government in the Parliament since the election has been strictly the Greens’ agenda. I’ve got no doubt that Brendan O’Connor, as Government spokesman, yesterday came out and in a knee-jerk fashion rejected any look at dams because they are dictated to by the Greens, they’ve got themselves into a situation where they don’t really control the agenda. We’re going to see that, there’s 19 days of sitting now, simply 19 days between now and June 30 which is an absolute disgrace and we meet then in early July when the Greens take over control of the Senate so, what does that tell you? You know that they are totally driven by the Greens’ agenda.

    This issue, they are being negative from the outset without even looking at what we have got to propose, what will come out of it. It is a Government of negativity, it is a Government that’s strictly run by the unions and the Greens and we won’t let that stand in the way. We’re going to do this work, report in 12 months time, it’ll go to financing and all of the rest and I think it’s a very exciting opportunity.

    TONY ABBOTT:

    Thanks, Andrew. Look, just a couple of other things. I notice that the Government has responded to the High Court’s decision on affording procedural justice to asylum claimants. Look, there’s really only one way to address this and that is to stop the boats and nothing in today’s announcement by the Government will actually stop the boats. As long as the boats keep coming we will have these problems. So really, what we’ve got is effectively more hand wringing from a Government which has lost control of our borders.

    Just one other issue, if I may. The undoubted substantial costs of responding to the flood disaster in Queensland and now New South Wales call further into question the wisdom of spending $50 billion plus of taxpayers’ money on a National Broadband Network which can be perfectly well provided in most instances by competition between private sector businesses and I really think that the costs of responding to the flood disaster really emphasise the need to think again on the National Broadband Network.

    While we’re talking about the National Broadband Network, there are continuing questions that the Government and the management of the NBN need to answer about the problems that Alcatel-Leucent that were revealed by the American regulatory authorities. Senior officials of the National Broadband Network were in charge at Alacatel when illegal bribes were paid. More importantly, the US regulatory authorities identified a culture of lax management at Alacatel. Now, the same people who were responsible for the culture of lax management at Alcatel are now running the National Broadband Network and the last thing we want is lax management in charge of a $50 billion plus enterprise, particularly given this Government’s appalling record of mismanagement when it comes to the stewardship of public money in things like the school halls programme and the roof batts programme.

    Any questions?

    QUESTION:

    Just a couple of questions firstly on the floods. Obviously, you’re making this dam announcement now following this disaster. Firstly, do you think in any way the Government’s response is inadequate and secondly, what are the key factors do you think you’ll be guided by in the location of these dams and thirdly you anticipate that the dams can be used for a range of purposes. Are they going to be some of the things, such as power generation, water storage, are they going to be some of the things that’ll determine the placement of these dams?

    TONY ABBOTT:

    Sure, well look, two points in response. First of all, it’s too early to say how effective the Government’s response has been, I think that we will only know in the months ahead how effective the response has been. The Opposition’s job is to be eternally vigilant to ensure that it’s good as it reasonably can be and I’m pleased to say that Opposition questioning about the conditions under which people can access Centrelink benefits seems to have produced an improvement. The Government had tightened up eligibility for Centrelink payments and after Opposition questioning the eligibility rules that applied back in March have been restored. So, our vigilance has already benefited people.

    The second point to make is that all of these issues that you raise about exactly what roles could these dams have, exactly where the best sites for dams might be, that’s exactly the sort of thing that would be considered by the shadow ministerial taskgroup.

    QUESTION:

    Can I just clarify one point, it seems a though the taskforce has decided not whether there should be dams or not but where those dams should go. It’s not a question of whether we should adopt the policy of dams or not, it’s how we use them.

    TONY ABBOTT:

    Well, I am saying today that we need to overcome the dam phobia which has afflicted policy makers for the best part of two decades. I’m not ruling dams in but I certainly don’t think that should be ruled out and I think they have effectively been ruled out for the best part of the last two decades.

    QUESTION:

    So effectively you’re saying that we need to be actively more considerate of dams?

    TONY ABBOTT:

    I am indeed. New dams should be a part of the future, not just the past when it comes to water policy.

    QUESTION:

    So it is possible that the taskforce could come back and say there really is no actual place for them?

    TONY ABBOTT:

    Well, I doubt very much that there is not a single site left anywhere in Australia where the economic and social benefits are outweighed by the environmental concerns. I mean, the assumption seems to have been that the only good sites have gone and I don’t think that’s a fair assumption in a continent the size of Australia.

    QUESTION:

    Could it be a possibility that the dam phobia, as you’ve put it, is perhaps well founded [inaudible]?

    TONY ABBOTT:

    I’m not saying that there aren’t potential problems with many possible sites but I just think that in a country as large as Australia with as many potential sites as we have, there have got to be some of them that could still usefully and beneficially be considered for new dams.

    QUESTION:

    We’re talking about a lot of dams, you’ve mentioned dams. How many dams are you thinking of roughly and how long term is this project? How long do you think it would actually take to actually get things up and running and built?

    TONY ABBOTT:

    Well again, that’s something that the shadow ministerial taskgroup will be considering. I think that the assumption that has been made too often in the past is that there are no suitable sites left. I think we have to challenge that assumption. I think what the Queensland floods have shown is that Australia’s problem is not so much lack of water but lack of water management and I think it’s important that new dams be strongly considered as a part of an effective water management policy for the future.

    QUESTION:

    Do you have dam phobia about the Traveston dam in South East Queensland?

    TONY ABBOTT:

    Just because I am in favour of dams, the right dams in the right places as a principal, doesn’t mean that every single dam proposal is a good one and the problem with the Traveston dam proposal was that not even the Snowy Mountains Authority thought it was a good idea.

    QUESTION:

    Anthony Albanese earlier described your comments on dams this morning as a thought bubble. Do you think you’ve proved him wrong here?

    TONY ABBOTT:

    Well, I think it’s clear when you’ve got more than twice the volume of Sydney Harbour flowing past Rockhampton every day at the peak of these floods that we need some fresh thinking about water storage and water management and that is precisely what this shadow ministerial taskgroup will do.

    QUESTION:

    Is it possible, would it be possible to build a dam [inaudible]? Could you have mitigated the Queensland floods with dams?

    TONY ABBOTT:

    This is the sort of question that the shadow ministerial taskgroup will be looking at. But, I should remind people that after the disastrous 1974 floods in Brisbane, the Wivenhoe dam was constructed partly as a storage, partly as a flood mitigation measure and there have been no serious floods in Brisbane and in the Brisbane Valley since then. So, there is a definite place for dams to mitigate the severity of extreme flood events.

    QUESTION:

    Just over to the response today to the High Court decision. Do you see this as a softening of our immigration laws and do you think more boat people will try to come to Australia as a result?

    TONY ABBOTT:

    Look, I think this is a Government which is simply floundering. Basically this is just yet another bureaucratic reshuffle in response to a problem that has only one solution and that is to stop the boats. Now, you can stop the boats. The Howard Government stopped the boats. There is no reason why the current Government couldn’t stop the boats if it was prepared to put the right policies in place. What we’ve seen from this Government, though, is a consistent failure to put the right policies in place. That’s why we’ve just had our 10, 000th illegal boat person. The only way around this issue is to stop the boats and that’s why what the Government needs to do is put in place the kinds of policies that worked in the past and which are the policies that the Coalition has been advocating at least since late 2009.

    [ends]
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