Sky News PM Agenda with David Speers
Friday, 05 February 2010
Subjects: Climate change, Barnaby Joyce, Barack Obama’s visit, Indonesia-Australia relations, Fiji.
E&OE…
DAVID SPEERS I am joined by the Shadow Foreign Minister and Deputy Opposition Leader Julie Bishop from Perth. Julie Bishop thanks for joining us.
Before we get to Barack Obama’s visit and some of your other portfolio issues I do want to ask about the main focus of the week, climate change. We’ve seen a debate over who has the best plan, the most affordable plan, the most effective plan. But back to basics, how seriously do you take the threat of climate change?
JULIE BISHOP Like most Australians I believe that we should protect our environment. This is the only planet we’ve got. As Rupert Murdoch famously said, “we should give the planet the benefit of the doubt”. And that’s why I believe by taking direct action, by focusing on increasing solar energy, renewable energies, by improving our soils, by cleaning up our power stations, doing the kind of things that make a real and tangible difference to our environment that is a better way than introducing a great big tax that is just a money churn and has no discernable outcomes. We need to focus on doing things that actually improve the environment.
DAVID SPEERS But the key point of difference between the two plans on offer is the Coalition plan does not actually force polluters to change their behaviour. So do you expect voters to believe that the Coalition is serious about this problem if it’s not forcing the polluters to do anything?
JULIE BISHOP Well that’s not right. What we’re providing is incentives to ensure that people are able to clean up power stations, for example, and invest in real efforts that will change our environment for the better. And it is a situation that President Obama is ….
DAVID SPEERS Yes it is an incentive but not a requirement. So there is nothing forcing the polluters, is what I am saying, to do anything.
JULIE BISHOP Yes but Kevin Rudd’s scheme only focuses on a 1,000 companies. I mean it doesn’t change behaviours across the board, it is just focusing on a 1,000 companies who can continue emitting greenhouse gas emissions and can buy permits from countries overseas.
But the reality is, post Copenhagen, there will not be a global agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions globally. That is the reality that President Obama is facing, that is why it seems that he won’t be proceeding with an emissions trading scheme in the United States but instead he’ll be proceeding with a Bill, as I understand it, that provides incentives for green jobs creation. So the Obama scheme seems very similar to Tony Abbott’s scheme – incentives instead of punishment and actually taking steps to improve our environment without whacking a great big tax on everybody.
DAVID SPEERS Okay but to clarify your comments there, are you saying you don’t expect after Copenhagen for there to be any global agreement in the future?
JULIE BISHOP It would appear that the countries who are the largest emitters, the largest economies, are further apart than they were before Copenhagen. The United States is now backing away from an emissions trading scheme, a cap-and-trade scheme. China has made it quite clear that it will not be having an emissions trading scheme any time soon, likewise India, Brazil. There is unlikely to be a global agreement any time soon, that’s why there would have been so much folly in Kevin Rudd forcing Australia into an emissions trading scheme, a great big tax on business, on industry, on families, on the Australian community, sending jobs offshore yet making no difference to global greenhouse gas emissions. If we’d been locked into that position prior to Copenhagen we’d have looked very foolish indeed post Copenhagen.
DAVID SPEERS Well we also saw a lot of focus this week on how the Coalition would pay for their plan. I don’t want to get into that but I do want to ask you as a member of the Coalition leadership team, do you get nervous when Barnaby Joyce opens his mouth? Do you agree with Tony Abbott that he is on a learning curve?
JULIE BISHOP Look, Barnaby’s a smart guy, he knows what he’s doing. He made a slip of the tongue and Labor try to use it as a distraction to take away from the fact that the Prime Minister couldn’t answer one question in Question Time all week about how much his great big tax is going to force up prices in Australia and make people worse off…
DAVID SPEERS A slip of the tongue venturing that there could be cuts to the public service or foreign aid that had to be mopped up by the leader. That’s more than a slip of the tongue.
JULIE BISHOP He didn’t say that. Barnaby …
DAVID SPEERS Well he did canvass cuts to foreign aid.
JULIE BISHOP Barnaby did not say that we would be changing Coalition policy, but he quite rightly pointed out that when a government racks up a massive debt and deficit every line in the Budget….
DAVID SPEERS He said it was an area that should be looked at though. He did say it is an area that should be looked at.
JULIE BISHOP David, when a government runs up a massive debt, that is likely to be $120 billion in the next few years, every line in the Budget must be looked at. But he didn’t announce any changes in foreign policy and it’s just….
DAVID SPEERS Including foreign aid?
JULIE BISHOP Well foreign aid should always be looked at because the Australian people need to be reassured that they are getting value for money. Foreign aid should be effective and it should be appropriately targeted, and as the foreign aid budget increases you want to make sure that it’s not being sucked up by the bloated bureaucracy of the United Nations, that it’s actually getting to where it’s most needed.
So Barnaby didn’t say anything controversial. The fact is that Labor seized on it to create a distraction from the fact that it cannot explain to one Australian family how much worse off they will be under the great big tax. And I’ve got to say how can you take seriously a government that blew $17 million on a failed broadband network tender and then turns around and announces a $43 billion National Broadband Network without a business plan, without modelling, without saying where the money is coming from?
DAVID SPEERS Just getting back to foreign aid though. If I hear you right, you are saying that the Coalition will consider whether to rein in spending on foreign aid?
JULIE BISHOP I did not say that.
DAVID SPEERS Well just clear it up for us…
JULIE BISHOP Barnaby Joyce said that when a government runs up massive debt you must go through the Budget line by line. That is what I would expect the Government to do. It is stating the obvious.
DAVID SPEERS Alright, so it is off the table or not?
JULIE BISHOP We have said, and the leader said, Tony Abbott reiterated that there has been no change to Coalition policy on foreign aid. No change.
DAVID SPEERS Okay let’s move on. Barack Obama’s visit to Australia next month. Is this a signal that the relationship is in good hands, that it’s in good shape under Kevin Rudd and Barack Obama?
JULIE BISHOP Whenever an American President visits Australia it is a significant event. It was when President Bush visited, when President Clinton visited. So it is important for us to maintain a very strong relationship with the United States. His visit will be most welcome. The United States is of course the world’s only superpower but it is also our major military and strategic ally, it is one of our major trading partners, we have common values, we are in Afghanistan together so there will be a lot of issues to discuss. So it will be an important visit.
DAVID SPEERS What do you think on those issues should be the priorities? As far as Kevin Rudd is concerned, as far as Australia is concerned, what should be top of the list in those talks?
JULIE BISHOP Well clearly Kevin Rudd could learn from President Obama the realities of the post Copenhagen world which he seems unable to accept. It appears that President Obama will not be proceeding with a cap-and-trade scheme, he will be splitting the Bill, and he will be proceeding with an incentives based scheme for job creation which sounds very similar to what the Coalition announced during the week.
It’s also interesting that President Obama, in his State of the Union address, announced that the United States will be expanding its nuclear power capabilities, that they will be embarking on a new generation of clean power stations that are fuelled by nuclear energy. And I think it would be good for Kevin Rudd to learn from President Obama how they intend to use clean, safe nuclear generation and power to reduce the United States’ greenhouse gas emissions, and that would be an issue of great interest I would expect.
I would also expect them to discuss Afghanistan and the military and civilian strategies that are being undertaken in Afghanistan.
DAVID SPEERS Of course Tony Abbott will be given an opportunity, he is expected to meet with Barack Obama. Is it a lingering embarrassment for the Coalition that John Howard, former Prime Minister, of course famously predicted that a victory for Barack Obama would be a win for Al Qaeda?
JULIE BISHOP No it’s not. It was a comment that I’m sure that John Howard would not say if he had his time again. It is not a comment that I share and the relationship between the United States and Australia is far bigger than individuals. It is enduring, it is fundamental and it will endure beyond particular individuals or indeed individual comments.
DAVID SPEERS Another high profile visitor expected in the next month or two, Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. There have been strains in the relationship recently over the border protection issue. The Ocean Viking standoff was settled but the standoff continues in the Port of Merak with 240 Tamil asylum seekers refusing to leave their vessel there for almost four months now. Julie Bishop does Australia bear responsibility in your view for this standoff, any responsibility, and what should Australia be doing to try and break this impasse?
JULIE BISHOP Well it comes down to what the Prime Minister agreed with President Yudhoyono when he contacted him. When Kevin Rudd contacted President Yudhoyono, and he’s spoken about this publicly, he contacted President Yudhoyono and asked him to ensure that Indonesia would intercept that boat that was heading to Australia. President Yudhoyono agreed to do so, but on what terms?
Now it is open to assume that President Yudhoyono was assured that Australia would take a role in processing and resettling the people aboard the ship that is now in Merak. And when Kevin Rudd went ahead and offered a special deal to the other boat, of people onboard the Oceanic Viking, I understand there was an expectation within Indonesia that Kevin Rudd would make good on Indonesia’s understanding that it would play a role in processing and resettling the people on the boat in Merak.
So we need the Prime Minister to come clean and tell us what arrangement did he make with Indonesia, what did he offer Indonesia in order for them to intercept that boat and take it to Merak? Now the Prime Minister has spoken about part of the conversation with President Yudhoyono but he needs to explain what he offered in return for Indonesia intercepting the boat.
DAVID SPEERS Well if nothing was offered, because that special deal for the Oceanic Viking only came around because of a standoff that had to be broken. If there was no such offer to those now stuck in the Port of Merak, what can Australia really do? Isn’t this out of our hands?
JULIE BISHOP Well I think that the Prime Minister should be asked directly about this. What did he offer President Yudhoyono in order for President Yudhoyono to agree that Indonesia would intercept a boat heading for Australia? Now we’ve only heard half of the story and I think the Prime Minister should be called to account on this issue.
DAVID SPEERS A final issue if I can Julie Bishop. Fiji. The Australian Foreign Minister and the New Zealand Foreign Minister met with Fiji’s interim Foreign Minister during the week. Are you happy that there has been this level of engagement or do you think the Bainimarama regime, the military regime, in Fiji should continue to be isolated? Do you think it is time to thaw this icy relationship and lift some of the sanctions as well?
JULIE BISHOP Well I am pleased that the New Zealand Foreign Minister was in Canberra, I met with him, and he seemed to think that having a meeting with Fiji’s Foreign Minister was a step in the right direction.
Now I haven’t had a briefing about what occurred at the meeting but the fact that Fiji had agreed for their Foreign Minister to come to Australia for talks was a good sign.
However, we need more than just a visit from the Fijian Foreign Minister. We need to see real progress in returning Fiji to democracy. Fiji is currently suspended from the Pacific Islands Forum, suspended from the Commonwealth because it has abandoned any pretence towards a democracy. And Bainimarama must set out a time table for holding elections so that the people of Fiji can have their say in who they want to govern them. And the abandonment of the constitution, the independence of the judiciary, the freedom of the press, all of these fundamental democratic values must be restored in Fiji. So we need more than just a visit from the Foreign Minister, but it is a start.
DAVID SPEERS Alright, Shadow Foreign Minister and the Deputy Opposition Leader Julie Bishop, thank you very much for joining us today.
JULIE BISHOP My pleasure David.
