ABC 774, Melbourne with Jon Faine

Friday, 23 July 2010

Subjects: Climate change; Labor’s preference deal with the Greens; Kevin Rudd; National Security Committee; 2010 election

E&OE…

JON FAINE    Julie Bishop is the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party, she’s from Western Australia but assisting campaign colleagues here in Victoria, and joins me here in the studio this morning. Julie Bishop, good morning.

JULIE BISHOP    Good morning Jon.

JON FAINE    Climate change is going to be back on the agenda, Julia Gillard is going to make announcements about a citizen’s assembly to guide Government policy about climate change. Good idea or bad?

JULIE BISHOP    Look I think there is a fundamental dishonesty about Labor’s climate change policy. Julia Gillard said that to delay action on climate change and not introduce an emissions trading scheme was to deny climate change. Yet now she is putting off any decision, any policy on climate change. She says she believes in a carbon price. She’s done a preference deal with the Greens who believe in a carbon tax. And I think this distraction of a committee of 150 people is designed as a smoke screen to avoid having to admit that she will be introducing the emissions trading scheme, a carbon tax, a tax on everything. She just hasn’t got the courage to tell the Australian people before the election.

JON FAINE    Your leader Tony Abbott famously said that he thought that climate change was shit. So where does your party stand if you are going to criticise the Opposition where does it leave you? Criticise the Government.

JULIE BISHOP    We have a climate change policy. We released it in January. It is a policy that does reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It does take action to preserve and maintain our environment and it has been out there for six months. Labor hasn’t…

JON FAINE    It doesn’t have the support of business, it doesn’t have the support of the environmentalist who say these are the hazards that we are trying to deal with.

JULIE BISHOP    That’s not right Jon because it does reduce greenhouse gas emissions to the same extent that Labor’s old policy, the Kevin Rudd policy, did. It just didn’t impose a carbon tax, a tax on everything, it didn’t drive up electricity costs. And that is the concern about a tax on carbon, it will drive up electricity costs.

Now Julia Gillard says she is going to have a climate change policy determined by a committee of 150 people…

JON FAINE    A citizen’s assembly. Penny Wong had this to say on AM this morning.

PENNY WONG    Well the citizen’s assembly we said we would be selected to be broadly representative of the Australian people. It is a way in which we ensure that we give a voice to ordinary Australians in this process and we also, I believe, will make clear through this process that the politicians who are standing in the way of action will really be shown to be out of step with where the majority of the Australian community does want us to go and that is work on climate change.

JON FAINE    “The politicians standing in the way are out of step”, is that a reference to you and the Liberal Party?

JULIE BISHOP    There is a citizen’s assembly representative of the Australian people. It is also 150 people. It is called the House of Representatives. So if the Government was committed to climate change why doesn’t it announce a policy, stand by its convictions and introduce a carbon tax? …

JON FAINE    So we make this election a referendum on climate policy?

JULIE BISHOP    Well we have a policy on climate change and it is a direct action policy. It sets out a range of initiatives including cleaning up the coal fired power stations, carbon sequestration, renewable energies. Our policy has been out there for six months. Labor’s policy is just a smoke screen. Another committee, another committee! It’s still the old Kevin Rudd – all talk, no action.

JON FAINE    It’s designed clearly though, if you read between the lines, to say to climate sceptics that you are still able to have a voice, we are not dismissing you, we are not leaving you out in the cold and we will move cautiously to bring everybody along this process rather than shut the door on it.

JULIE BISHOP    But Jon the preference deal with the Greens throws a deep shadow over this whole policy. The Greens and Labor were prepared to do a preference swap before Labor had even released its climate change policy.

Now I believe that the Greens are committed to a carbon tax. I believe that Labor is committed to a carbon tax but  Julia Gillard just doesn’t have the courage to tell the Australian people before the election. She should be up front…

JON FAINE    Bob Brown denied there was any policy deal, or any policy negotiation whatsoever in the preference deal that has been stuck between the Greens and the Labor Party.

JULIE BISHOP    Oh come on Jon. They did a preference deal on day two of the campaign and the Greens didn’t ask Labor what its climate change policy was? The Greens didn’t ask Labor about the mining tax issue? I mean Bob Brown is on record as saying that he thinks the additional mining tax should have been 50 percent. He is on the record opposing major mining developments in this country. I believe that the preference deal is about a carbon tax and about an additional mining tax and it is not good enough for Julia Gillard to evade answering questions on what deal was done to secure Green preferences.

JON FAINE    Alright we need to move but also last night on the debut of ABC 24 Hour News on TV – a nice plug for ABC …

JULIE BISHOP    It’s a pretty explosive story.

JON FAINE    Well Chris Uhlmann revealed that when Kevin Rudd was Prime Minister there were times when [inaudible] sent along his chief of staff, Alister Jordon. Julia Gillard would have chaired those meetings in Kevin Rudd’s absence. What is wrong with the Prime Minister sending along his chief of staff to deputise for him?

JULIE BISHOP    If this report is true it demonstrates a contempt on the part of Prime Minister Rudd for not only due process but for national security. The National Security Committee of Cabinet is the most significant committee. It deals with the defence of our country, national security issues, the war in Afghanistan, border protection.

JON FAINE    So that is another reason why you say it might have been right to get rid of Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister.

JULIE BISHOP    Julia Gillard has a lot of questions to answer. She was the Deputy Prime Minister, she obviously stood by while Kevin Rudd didn’t attend these important meetings and sent as his deputy a junior, well he is a young person anyway, a staffer to take his place…

JON FAINE    Well she didn’t stand by in the end, she rolled him. Amongst many other things…

JULIE BISHOP    After two and half years did she think it was appropriate that the Prime Minister absent himself from the national security meetings and send along a staffer?

JON FAINE    Well she clearly didn’t. You can’t have it both ways. That is one of the reasons why they decided he had to go?

JULIE BISHOP    No Jon. She has guaranteed him a senior frontbench position. Does she still say that he is fit for a senior frontbench position, particularly Foreign Affairs, when it has been revealed that he had such contempt for national security meetings?

JON FAINE    So are you saying that he shouldn’t serve in any future capacity the Australian Government?

JULIE BISHOP    I think that this report casts serious doubt on Kevin Rudd’s fitness for a senior portfolio position and Julia Gillard should answer whether she still believes that Kevin Rudd should be guaranteed a senior position, and he is obviously asking for Foreign Affairs, and does she believe he is fit to hold that role when he absented himself from national security meetings or was deputised by a staffer. I just don’t think that is good enough.

JON FAINE    I’ve got to fly and move on. One last thing though, it has been a disastrous first week by most it is [inaudible] reading of the Liberal Party campaign this week. Julie Bishop - upstaged by Peter Costello when he tried to make a business speech in Melbourne the other day, undermined by Joe Hockey’s reference to Paris Hilton during the announcement on the economy, contradicted on debt by the Reserve Bank and then not particularly Prime Ministerial on the Red Faces [inaudible]

JULIE BISHOP    I think we are getting our message out. Our message is that we will stop the wasteful spending, we will stop the taxes, we will pay down Labor’s debt and we’ll stop the boats, stop the people smugglers.

JON FAINE    Thank you for your time this morning. Good to see you in Melbourne. Julie Bishop, Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party.