BELLING: Our weekly political debate this morning, Finance Minister Penny Wong and shadow immigration minister Scott Morrison. Thanks to both of you for joining us this morning.
WONG: Great to be here again.
BELLING: Lets start with the carbon tax. Now I have a bit of a cartoon, which Ill show to the camera there. Now, its a bit of an analogy of exactly whats going on with the carbon tax. It was in yesterdays Sydney Morning Herald, you can probably see it there. Basically alluding to the fact that no Australian understands exactly what the carbon price is about. Julia Gillard is set to set the record straight. Penny Wong, what is the carbon tax?
WONG: I think at its most simple, it is putting a price on pollution. And I think that people understand intuitively that as long as something is free, we dont tend to worry about it. If we have to pay for it, or if a business has to pay for it, they do worry about it and they do try and limit it.
And that, fundamentally, is what pricing carbon is about. And look I know its complicated; its a whole of economy reform. It has been talked about for a long time. Its actually been talked about since 2006 thats when John Howard first started looking at this. And you might recall he previously had a policy to put in place a price on carbon.
But were looking forward on Sunday to getting the detail out. And we will have the opportunity to speak to the Australian people over the coming weeks and months about whats in the package. We do know it is complex, but its a policy that will work, and its an important policy for the future of the country.
BELLING: Scott, your response?
MORRISON: This is a tax on the cost of living. This is a tax thats going to impact on every Australian. Its a tax that the Prime Minister said she wouldnt introduce before the last election, and I think thats one of the most significant points that Australians are angry about. Its a tax that literally goes on everything that moves, and the Government may seek to try and say differently to that, but Penny is right, shes right when she says that this is designed to send a price signal to people to change their behaviour. I mean, thats the point of a carbon tax, and as a result, it means it will cost people more. And if the Government says differently then there is no point to this tax whatsoever. So it is designed to make you pay more in order to change your behaviour. Thats its purpose, thats why costs will go up.
BELLING: Theres speculation, Penny, that this carbon announcement will be made on Sunday, and then details of the Malaysia solution will be slipped through. Is that correct?
WONG: All I know
BELLING: Is that going to happen though?
WONG: I do know that the Prime Minister will be making an announcement on Sunday about the carbon price. And if theres an announcement in the near future about the Malaysia deal thats not something Im in a position to indicate, thats something Chris Bowen will need to speak about.
But can I just respond to something Scotts just said? And you saw what were going to get a lot of in the coming weeks and months in these debates. This is going to be a very tough debate, and were going to get Scott, Tony Abbott, everyone else from the Opposition out there saying the sky will fall in, this is a dreadful thing. Fundamentally, what Id say to people is, have a look at the detail, have a look at what this means for you.
And understand climate change isnt going to go away. We can keep saying we shouldnt do this. We can kick this can down the track. But I reckon in 5 or 10 or 20 years time, if we look back, well say that was the right thing to do, because we actually took some responsibility for contributing less to climate change, for our children and our grandchildren. And thats what this is about.
BELLING: Scott, if I can mention to you, theres even details in todays Herald that actually a $23 carbon tax will only cost the average household less than $10 a week. Surely that is not too much to help save the climate and our planet.
MORRISON: Well I think that the second point that youve made is not established. I mean the Government is going around and saying, and the Greens are going around saying, this carbon tax is going to save the Great Barrier Reef. Now, we all know thats nonsense, thats not going to happen as a result of this carbon tax
WONG: Well why did you previously support it?
MORRISON: What were going to see is cost of living
WONG: Youve previously supported this.
MORRISON: The cost of living is going to go up, that is the purpose of the Governments carbon tax, to drive up the cost of living, to change peoples behaviour. I mean, thats why theyre going to do it, and if they think this is going to change the worlds temperatures. I think that Barnaby Joyce put it best, I mean, if taxes actually cooled the globe, then wed be living in an icebox.
And I dont think that the Government can go out there and automatically claim that the worlds temperature is going to change simply because Australia puts on a carbon tax which is going to hit small business, its going to hit families. And people need to understand the detail, and when they do, they dont like it now, and the more they know about it, the more theyre not going to like it.
WONG: Can I just respond to that? First, John Howard used to support this and he supported it because it was sensible policy. The Coalition used to support this, they used to support it when they were led by people who actually cared about sensible policy, now they just want to say no and run scare campaigns.
In terms of what the assistance will be. Weve said nine out of ten households in Australia will get assistance - nine out of ten, thats some 7 million Australian households. What weve also said is that lower income households, around 3 million of them, will get more than the average cost impact. Because were a Labor Government and we want to make sure this is implemented fairly. Now we can continue to say simply this is a bad thing, we dont want to do this. Or we can say, climate change is real, we need to put our fair share towards dealing with it, because we do care what happens in the future.
BELLING: Can I just quickly move on, unfortunately
MORRISON: Let me just respond to that point. Both parties have policies to deal with climate change.
WONG: Yours cost more.
MORRISON: This isnt about climate change
WONG: Yes it is
MORRISON: Its about the Governments carbon tax. And what weve seen with the carbon tax, even this week they couldnt tell us because theyre going to take it off petrol, how much theyre going to put in other areas. They couldnt even tell us whether it applies to petrol going in a bus and whats it going to cost on public transport fares. And other costs of transport logistics that take the food to the grocery shops where you buy it.
WONG: Scott
MORRISON: Now these are all questions the Government are going to have to explain and we look forward to having that discussion.
WONG: Barnaby Joyce has described your policy as a meaningless gesture, a meaningless gesture which - let me finish.
MORRISON: (Inaudible) Well -
WONG: I let you finish, barely, but I did eventually. (laughter) Barnaby Joyce has described your policy as a meaningless gesture, it cost $30 billion. Youre either going to have to get that either out of the budget or via more taxes.
MORRISON: Its not going to cost $30 billion Penny, you know that.
WONG: Thats what the advice is.
BELLING: We are going to have to move on because I think its going to be clear as mud on Sunday.
WONG: Absolutely.
MORRISON: I think thats true.
BELLING: In regards to the other big political issue, the situation with animal cruelty, alleged animal cruelty, re-establishing the trade with Indonesia. Penny weve seen a number of Labor backbenchers come out and criticise the Governments stance. Is it too early to move on or re-establish trade and what guarantees have you got that animal cruelty wont continue?
WONG: I think anybody who watched that Four Corners program was appalled. And I think what it did do, as Australians we said we dont want, whatever our views on the live export trade, and there are many different views in the community. But people said look we dont want that kind of cruelty to simply to occur, we want something done about it.
We know this is an important industry but we do think you have to deal with the standards issue. And what Joseph Ludwig has announced is agreement to international standards being applied, independent auditing of abattoirs where these animals go, traceability, so we know where animals go and all of this to be enforced through regulations via the export permit system. None of those things were in place before.
Now I know, not just some Labor MPs but many people in the community have different views about this, and what Id say to them is these are the things the Government has done. Thats a very significant advance on where we were.
BELLING: Quickly, weve got a minute left, Scott go.
MORRISON: This is another example of where the Government completely overreacted. They didnt act, I think, soberly on this issue. There are issues to address but they didnt have to suspend the trade immediately. The trade could have continued.
They may have recommenced and lifted the ban, but restoring that trade will be very difficult. Cattle farmers across Northern Australia have been devastated by this because this Government acted in a knee jerk reaction just like weve seen on so many issues, and thats why we say theyre the most incompetent government since Scullin cant be trusted with the biggest change through the carbon tax.
And thats what its going to mean. This Government is going to introduce the carbon tax and implement it. And what theyve done on pink batts and school halls and asylum seekers.
WONG: Why dont you debate the policy? This is just a political line.
MORRISON: This is what were going to see. They wont be trusted. This is what people are looking at.
WONG: This is typical Tony Abbott you just do negativity, negativity no, no, no, no. Argue the policy. Ill come back here any day and argue the policy here with you.
BELLING: Youre both very eager for a break, the parliamentary break. We wont see you for a couple of weeks. Im so sorry, weve run out of time once again.
WONG: Good to speak with you.
BELLING: Have a lovely weekend, look forward to the big announcement next Saturday and well see you next time in a couple of weeks.
WONG: Next time.
MORRISON: Thanks so much.
ENDS