Topics: Opinion Polls, Carbon Pricing and Asylum Seekers
E&OE……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Kieran Gilbert
…with me here in the studio is Labor MP Andrew Leigh, good morning Andrew.
Andrew Leigh
Good morning Kieran.
Gilbert
And in our Melbourne studio Liberal frontbencher Senator Scott Ryan, Senator Ryan thanks for being there but I want to start with Andrew Leigh. This Nielsen Poll, I know you’re not a poll watcher and you won’t give us too much, but surely it’s good for moral that this is the tenth poll since Kevin Rudd has returned and they are all saying similar things?
Leigh
Well Kieran as you say, I have no time for opinion polls whether they are going up or down. I do, however, certainly see a spring in the step of my colleagues and a need in the electorate to get back to a policy-based campaign. I think people are tied of the nastiness and negativity and Kevin Rudd is talking about important policy issues, whether that be fine-tuning the carbon pricing scheme, whether that be solving the very difficult issue of asylum seekers, or whether it’s about ensuring that school kids get a fair deal. Those policy debates are ones I’d like to see the Opposition join in as well. I think Australian politics is always better when there’s constructive conversation and the Opposition shouldn’t hold off too long before releasing a health policy or an education policy because the Australian public are keen to have those sorts of conversations.
Gilbert
Senator Ryan, you and several other Liberals are saying Kevin Rudd is a fake, a phoney and it’s all flimflam as Tony Abbott said last week. That does not seem to be the view of the electorate if you look at his approval rating and across those attributes that have been polled like competence, economic management and vision for the nation’s future. He’s well and truly out-polling Tony Abbott on all those areas.
Scott Ryan
I noticed earlier that even John Stirton commented on what he called the honeymoon effect. The Opposition, none of us have ever thought winning the election would be easy, an Opposition has only ever won an election half-a-dozen times in 70 years in Australia. Six times since World War 2, so we know how difficult it is. The one thing you didn’t mention in those numbers earlier, Kieran, is the fact that no one believed his own Party supported him, only half the voters believed that his own Party believed him as leader and that points to people’s fear that again the faceless men will move on Kevin Rudd, despite Kevin Rudd making announcement after announcement and bumper sticker after bumper sticker slogans. Andrew mentioned earlier that he wanted a discussion on policy, well let’s have a discussion on policy. Let’s talk about the fact re-badging a Carbon Tax doesn’t make a bad policy any better. It still means Australian manufactures and households are paying a tax that our competitors, particularly overseas, aren’t paying.
Gilbert
Nice segue thank you for that. I was moving to that policy anyway. We are expecting an announcement this week about it. The Government has announced billions is saving to fund this, to move on it a year early from the fixed price. Andrew Leigh, how can people take this seriously when for months and months you and your colleagues on this program and elsewhere have been defending the merits of the carbon price as it is?
Leigh
Kieran as people know, the main thing is you have a market based scheme for dealing with climate change. Once you’ve got that you can fix the price to fix the omissions. In 2009 we put up a scheme that had a one year price period and recently we put up a scheme that has a three year price period and we are going to scale that back to a two year period. There’s no great science around this you either fix the price or fix…
Gilbert
…so it’s a tax then?
Leigh
…ah, its effect is to use the ingenuity of the market in order to bring done climate change. By moving to the floating price period earlier you see significant savings…
Gilbert
…is it still a tax? You’re the economist. Is it still a tax because what Tony Abbott says is, if it’s a fixed tax or a floating tax, it’s still a tax.
Leigh
Look, I would categorise it as a floating-pollution-charge rather than being a tax. I think of a tax whose price is fixed but with a floating-price-period is more akin to a price that polluters pay for putting dangerous c02 and other greenhouse gasses into the environment.
Gilbert
Senator Ryan, it’s going to cost less whatever it is – fixed, floating, or floating-pollution-price as Andrew just called it. It is going to have less impact on business and the economy than the fixed price, certainly in the short term isn’t it?
Ryan
Andrew just then played down his own government’s announcement earlier this week. He said there’s not that much difference between a fixed tax or a floating tax. The key thing is this; our manufacturers are still paying a tax their competitor nations don’t. What’s even more worrying here is that we have outsourced this impact on our electricity and energy prices to the Europeans. Does anyone think that Angela Merkel when she argues for a carbon tax in the European Union is going to care what households and manufacturers in Australian are going to have to pay? This is yet another failure by Labor because they are re-badging a bad policy. You can’t put a BMW badge on a beaten-up old Holden and think it’s a better car. This is a bad policy that hurts business, this is a stunt by Labor and it’s the second time we will have a leader of the Labor Party going to an election saying we won’t have a carbon tax under a Government they lead.
Gilbert
The Prime Minister is in Papua New Guinea today Andrew Leigh. He’s taken Tony Burke the Immigration Minister so obviously they are looking for some progress there. They might be seeking a deal where PNG take more of the so-called economic immigrants according to Bob Carr and others in the Government, as they dominate the asylum seeker arrivals in recent months.
Leigh
Well PNG is clearly a very important neighbour to us Kieran, the only country where people can travel to Australia easily in a tinnie, and that means we need to have strong relationships. The President Peter O’Neill has spoken in the past about concerns for law and order in major cities, about concerns for the demands and capacity of PNG hospitals and Prime Minister Rudd will be speaking about those issues. We want to work with PNG to find a regional solution to asylum seekers and asylum-seeker-flows. I think sensible commentators realise a regional solution will stop people drowning at sea. We will see a much more manageable solution to asylum seekers flows. Unilateral solutions just don’t cut it.
Gilbert
If Kevin Rudd can strike a deal here, Senator Ryan, which has PNG taking some of the migrants or economic refugees that we’ve seen in recent times. Do you concede that would be a significant and positive development to deter the arrivals we are seeing?
Ryan
Kieran, the problem that we have here is that Australia has policies that attract people to go through all these other countries to try and get to Australia. The most important thing to any regional solution is unilateral action by Australia to take the sugar off the table and make sure people smugglers can’t go to people and sell them a ride to Australia. Now we’ve had 2,000 people arrive just since Kevin Rudd became Prime Minister, we’ve had more than 1,000 people arrive since he went to Indonesia. All these stunts Kevin Rudd is doing are pre-election stunts. Meetings and photo opportunities don’t constitute a solution, now in this area more than any we don’t just argue about polices that will work , we can argue about polices that have worked. The truth is the Howard Government had policies that did work because Australia was not an attractive destination and that’s the first and most important step.
Gilbert
I want to ask about one point you mentioned, the unilateral component of Australia’s policy. You know that President Yudhoyono in that joint communique with Kevin Rudd warned against unilateral action. I suppose that’s one thing that has changed since his time in office?
Ryan
No not at all. When we talked about policies to turn back the boats when it was safe to do so, as defence staff who have spent time in Indonesia recently have said did succeed. We did it when it was appropriate and we did it in international waters. Those actions by an Australian Government protecting its borders are entirely fair and appropriate, but most importantly they worked to stop the boats and that’s what has to happen.
Gilbert
Senator Scott Ryan thanks for your time today from Melbourne and Andrew Leigh here in Canberra thanks for coming in.
(Ends)