David Lipson:
G’day and welcome to the program, I’m David Lipson. Whether you support or oppose same-sex marriage or if like many Australians you don’t really care, either way the scenes for the New Zealand Parliament last night were pretty uplifting. The chamber burst spontaneously into song, a Maori love song in fact, after the chamber voted yes to gay marriage.
(Clip: NZ Parliament)
David Lipson:
Yeah, amazing stuff. It’s sparked a renewed push in Australia for recognition of same-sex marriage, but there’s really no chance of anything changing any time soon, certainly not before the election. Both leaders of the major parties remain opposed.
(Clip: Julia Gillard)
David Lipson:
And the Opposition leader, Tony Abbott, had similar comments to make when he spoke to the media in Melbourne earlier today.
(Clip: Tony Abbott)
David Lipson:
Well joining me now to discuss this further is Liberal Senator Scott Ryan and Labor MP Graham Perrett, thanks for your time this afternoon gentlemen.
Scotty Ryan:
Hello David
Graham Perrett:
Hello David
David Lipson:
First to you Graham Perrett, Julia Gillard says her position hasn’t changed. I know you voted yes to gay marriage when it went to a vote a few months ago. Are you disappointed her position hasn’t changed?
Graham Perrett:
Well look I’m a passionate Australian, I hate for New Zealand to beat us at anything, including this recognition of marriage equality. I do raise this topic with the Prime Minister regularly as a topic. I’m personally very supportive of change, I think the next generation of people, the under 30s’ can’t understand what all the fuss is about, the world has moved on, values have moved on and in saying that the sky is not going to end and the world is not going to end. It won’t make any difference to my relationship with my wife, whether people of the same sex can marry each other. I know that, if it comes up in Parliament before the election, I know how I’ll be voting. I’ll be voting according to my conscience. Obviously, other people have different views, unfortunately Scott won’t be voting according to his views, as he is directed to vote by his leader and that’s a bit unfortunate.
David Lipson:
Well the Opposition does have more flexibility to vote against the official party position; you don’t get kicked out of the party as you do in the Labor party. Scott Ryan the official party position and Tony Abbott’s position was in opposition to same-sex marriage going into the last election. That’s why he said he didn’t want to open-up or encourage a conscience vote. Is that the position the Coalition will take into the next election in September?
Scott Ryan:
Well David as far as I understand there’s been no change. You, rightly, point out that every vote the Liberal party takes is a conscience vote, we don’t have to be granted one by the leader. It’s a special event for a member of the Labor party because otherwise, not following the party line does get you kicked out. In the Liberal party we gave a promise, as did Labor, that the definition of marriage would stay as it was and we believe keeping our word to the Australian people is very important.
David Lipson:
But the reality I suppose in the Coalition that if you vote against party lines, then you don’t see promotions as often as you might otherwise?
Scott Ryan:
Oh, I don’t know if that’s the case. If you are a member of the front bench then you have to support the party position and that’s only reasonable, but there are many people in the Liberal party who have occasionally had a different point of view on an issue and have expressed the great diversity that’s within the Liberal party that have still gone on to achieve great things.
Graham Perrett:
Their all leaving David, their all leaving. Sue Boyce crossed the floor against CPRS she’s gone, Judy Moreland she’s gone, Petro gone, all the liberals in the Liberal party all leaving. Now they just lock stock behind their leader’s view.
Scott Ryan:
Graham likes to throw that out, like the idea to exercise their conscience is extraordinary. It might be a special occasion for you Graham but if you remember back a few years ago, back in 2009 quite a few Liberals did differ from party lines at that point.
David Lipson:
Well over the past few days we have seen a huge collapse in the price of carbon in the European carbon market and what that does mean is, the fixed price on carbon in this country, otherwise known as the carbon tax is $23 a ton, in Europe it’s about $3 a ton. When we go to a floating system that could open up a big hole in the budget, is that a concern Graham Perrett?
Graham Perrett:
Well look we have, Treasury has made certain long term projections, obviously any market fluctuations are considered in those long term projections and when it comes to budgets, we will make calculations and projections based on the data at the time. Obviously we were always going to move to a market priced mechanism. We are committed to using markets to achieve the best outcome, not this ‘hit and miss’ of Governments picking winners. Obviously, Scott and I are committed to exactly the same emissions targets. It’s sad to say the Labor party believes in market mechanism, Scott has this different mechanism. Obviously the budget is coming up in May and Treasury will make projections and calculations and that’s when we will make projections on how to best achieve a reduction in emissions. Thankfully we’ve already have had a reduction of nearly 10% in carbon emissions. We did price carbon last year on the first of July, business hasn’t stopped, the world hasn’t stopped and the market mechanism hasn’t stopped, and I’m very proud of that.
David Lipson:
Senator Ryan this market in Europe shows that instead of the price on carbon going up and up and up. Instead of a great big new tax, it looks like the price of carbon in the future could be the opposite, going down and down already and the actual impost on business could be relatively small.
Scott Ryan:
Graham’s policy has ensured Australia has the worst of both worlds. For the next couple of years we have a high fixed price on carbon. After that we are exposing our budget to billions of dollars of deficient and debt on top of what they have already compiled because their estimates were wrong. We’ve got businesses like Incitec Pivot building $800 million plants in the United States rather than in Australia because, particularly the cost of business and in particular the cost of energy is cheaper in America. These are things the carbon tax is making worse, these are big business decisions made at the margin and Graham’s policy has ensured Australian businesses pay a higher cost; yet Australian tax payers are wearing higher debts. What happened in Europe showed the floors in a carbon market which is that, that a vote in the European Parliament effectively decided whether hundreds of millions of units of carbon prices would exist and that vote by politicians effectively collapsed the price. That’s what happens when you have theses made up markets that don’t actually respond to real supply and demand there a product of bureaucrats and regulations, not a product of people genuinely interacting.
David Lipson:
So Scott Ryan, are you saying we should move to an ETS now? Would that alleviate some of the pain?
Scott Ryan:
No, we actually believe here that the carbon market here is a flooded approach. We believe the carbon tax is a flooded approach. The direct action approach by the Coalition is treating carbon emission in the same way as we buy medicines. We use the buying power of the Government, buying on behalf of all Australians to get the lowest possible prices and you do it through a reverse auction or a tender. Now, apparently the way we buy our medicines in this country is not good enough to ensure we achieve our carbon emissions target. It’s more efficient, it’s cheaper, it doesn’t impose higher costs on Australian business and it doesn’t expose the budget to this bottomless black hole as the European system collapses.
David Lipson:
Should we go to a floating market now Graham Perrett, would that make things easier for business?
Graham Perrett:
The Government position back in 2009 when it went to the Parliament, you remember that, Scott did talk about all those free votes in the Liberal party back in 2009 and that is right, they were all before the second of December before Tony Abbott got control of the Liberal party. People in the House of Reps, Malcolm Turnbull supported the CPRS scheme. Labor was always in favour of the CPRS scheme, Tony Abbott saw a political opportunity and grabbed control of the Liberal party and squashed, along with the Greens who voted with the Nats in the Senate on this, our CPRS. Obviously the mechanisms that we have now in terms of pricing carbon is a compromised position because of the way the people of Australian delivered the House of Representatives at the 2010 election. However, we will in two years and two months have a market mechanism, that’s the legislation we have in place and that will result in the best possible price, unlike Scott’s plan to have bureaucrats pick the winners. I’m really looking forward to seeing how he can justify that, when in the very same breath he’s talking about the various other problems that come with bureaucracies. He says he hates bureaucracies in Europe but says Australian bureaucracies will definitely chose the best market mechanisms. Bizarre approach from the Liberal party.
David Lipson:
Okay Graham Perrett and Scott Ryan we are going to have to leave it there. Thanks very much for your thoughts this afternoon.