Tony Abbott interview with John Laws - Julia Gillard’s carbon tax; live cattle export ban

07/07/11

TRANSCRIPT OF THE HON. TONY ABBOTT MHR,

INTERVIEW WITH JOHN LAWS,

RADIO 2SM AND SUPER RADIO NETWORK

Subjects: Julia Gillard’s carbon tax; live cattle export ban.

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

JOHN LAWS:

Tony Abbott is on the line. Tony, good morning.

TONY ABBOTT:

Good morning, John.

JOHN LAWS:

Is this Government ruled at the moment by committee? I mean, who is the real Prime Minister?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, that’s a very good question. When we had the Rudd Government, we had this gang of four – Rudd, Gillard, Swan and Tanner. Now it seems we have a gang of six – Gillard, Combet, Brown, Milne, the Greens senator, Windsor and Oakeshott – and they apparently are driving government policy. The full Cabinet hasn’t seen the carbon tax package, even though it’s going to be announced apparently on Sunday and when you’ve got bad process you get bad outcomes, John, and I think right at the moment every Labor member of parliament short of the Prime Minister and Minister Combet are out of the loop and they’re thinking “well, who is actually running this country? We are expected to sell this carbon tax, but the people who are deciding it and the people who know about it aren’t us” – they are two independents and two Greens and I think this is something which is causing profound unhappiness inside the Labor Party right now.

JOHN LAWS:

Tell me this. Do you think Bob Brown is dangerous?

TONY ABBOTT:

I think Bob Brown is a highly articulate and often quite presentable person but I think that what the Greens are doing is driving the agenda of the Government and what that is going to mean is higher costs of living for the government and a very serious threat to our jobs. Now, it was very interesting this morning, John. The papers have announced that the 1,000 big polluters have somehow become 500 big polluters…

JOHN LAWS:

Yeah, I know.

TONY ABBOTT:

…and the obvious question is, have 500 stopped polluting all of a sudden? Does their pollution no longer matter? Or are we only getting half the bad news? Is this only half the package, we’ll get the rest of it after the election?

JOHN LAWS:

Well, I think you’ve got a point and that’s the way I read it. What do you think we can expect on Sunday night when the detail is supposedly going to be outlined?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, my guess, John, is that there’ll be two responses. I think the first response that people will have to this is do we really trust this government with a new tax? I think that will be the overall response and I think the other response will be, well, these details raise more questions than they answer because people will say is this compensation going to come to me? If it comes to me, is it going to cover me? If the compensation is ok today, will it remain ok tomorrow and the day after that and next year and the year after that? What the Government has been saying is that 55 per cent of the receipts of this tax will come back in compensation and that means that they will take one dollar out of your left pocket and put 55 cents back into your right pocket.

JOHN LAWS:

And imagine the administration costs of doing that? What’s the point of it if you take it away with one hand and give it back with the other?

TONY ABBOTT:

Exactly right. Even if they were trying to give it all back to you, there would still be the deadweight costs, all the extra bureaucrats. See, one of the things that people haven’t quite twigged to is that carbon dioxide is invisible, it’s weightless and it’s odourless. How are we going to police these emissions…

JOHN LAWS:

I don’t know.

TONYABBOTT:

…I mean, how are we going to police these emissions? This carbon cop is going to be an extraordinarily intrusive instrumentality, running around trying to make sure that all these businesses aren’t actually emitting given that you can’t actually see, smell or touch what’s going on.

JOHN LAWS:

Well, I just don’t know how it can be measured.

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, it can be measured but it’s a very difficult process.

JOHN LAWS:

Is it a very expensive process?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, these are all the questions that the Government is going to have to answer. Now, in Europe where they’ve had kind of an emissions trading scheme for some years, there have been multi-billion dollar scams and that’s in Europe which has a tradition of law abiding and which has a tradition of sound and thorough administration. A lot of this emissions trading scheme – once that comes into operation – is going to depend on people buying carbon permits from overseas. A lot of it will come from the third world and I suspect there will be any amount of scamming going on and a lot of Australian companies will buy permits that, frankly, are essentially fraudulent.

JOHN LAWS:

Is it disrespectful to the office of the Prime Minister or any Prime Minister for television stations to refuse to air an address to the nation?

TONY ABBOTT:

I think it depends on the subject matter and I suppose if this was a national emergency and the Prime Minister sought time to address the nation, it would be, I think, unusual of a television station to refuse but this isn’t a national emergency…

JOHN LAWS:

It certainly is not.

TONY ABBOTT:

…it’s essentially a party political broadcast that she wants to make…

JOHN LAWS:

That’s exactly what it is, exactly what it is.

TONY ABBOTT:

…and I think stations are entitled to say, well, if you want to advertise, buy the time.

JOHN LAWS:

It’s easy for you and a lot of other people, including me, to criticise the tax and promise that it could be stopped if you get into government but unless there is a double dissolution, the Greens hold the balance of power and Bob Brown has promised that he will never back down on the carbon tax. So, is all this just a bit of bluster?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, I think this is a bad tax based on a lie and as far as I’m concerned, my main job in politics, until it’s realised, is to stop this bad tax based on a lie. Now, if they get it through the parliament and I don’t believe anyone should take that for granted, but if they do get it through the parliament and we win the next election, we will have the clearest possible mandate to repeal the tax and I find it very hard to believe that a Labor Party that has been unceremoniously turfed out of office after just two terms would remain committed to the tax that had cost it the election.

JOHN LAWS:

Yes. A few things are in a mess, the least of which is not the live cattle trade in all the chaos – that resumes today. How would you have handled the live cattle trade which became a problem? It shouldn’t have been a problem.

TONY ABBOTT:

No, it shouldn’t have been, John. Look, it became a problem because the Government panicked in response to a TV programme.

JOHN LAWS:

Exactly.

TONY ABBOTT:

Now, the Government should’ve known which abattoirs were a problem and it should’ve dealt with them long before this TV programme went to air but given that it hadn’t, it should’ve identified which abattoirs were a problem, suspended shipments to those abattoirs and left the rest of the trade to continue as normal. Instead it put on this blanket ban which has caused chaos in northern Australia and any amount of financial pain and heartache. The challenge now is going to be not just to renew the export licences, it’s going to be to actually get the cattle into Indonesia and I hope that all of the contracts that were on foot can be resumed. I hope all of the sales the would’ve been made can now be made and all of the cattle that were being prepared for export can now in fact be exported but it’s far from clear that having created this awful mess that the Government can now properly fix it up.

JOHN LAWS:

Ok, now Tony, you know how fond I am of guarantees. Will you give me a guarantee that you will repeal the carbon tax if you get into government?

TONY ABBOTT:

Yes, I will.

JOHN LAWS:

Ok. Well, we can’t ask for a great deal more than that. So you will repeal the carbon tax and that is a guarantee?

TONY ABBOTT:

I will repeal the carbon tax.

JOHN LAWS:

And that’s a guarantee?

TONY ABBOTT:

That is the greatest guarantee I can give.

JOHN LAWS:

Ok. Alright. What would you do with Andrew Wilkie, out of interest? Or can’t you tell me?

TONY ABBOTT:

No, look, you know, I mean, I’ve had constructive and cordial dealings with Andrew. I think he’s a decent bloke.

JOHN LAWS:

I do too.

TONY ABBOTT:

I don’t agree with him on everything. A couple of issues I’ve had sharpish words with him over, but look I think he’s a decent bloke and I think by his own lights he is trying to do his best for our country and his constituents and I look forward to continuing to have a constructive relationship with him.

JOHN LAWS:

A very conciliatory reply. Thank you for it, Tony.

TONY ABBOTT:

Ok, John.

JOHN LAWS:

It’s very nice to talk to you, as always, and I hope we get to talk again soon. I’m sure we will.

TONY ABBOTT:

I look forward to it.

JOHN LAWS:

Thank you very much.