Topics: China-led bank negotiations, Ebola, climate change.

 

E&OE…

DAVID LIPSON

You’re watching AM Agenda, I’m David Lipson. Kieran [Gilbert] will be back at the top of the hour, but now let’s go to our political panel for today’s news and commentary on it. Of course, Jim Chalmers in Brisbane and Senator Scott Ryan in Melbourne. Thank you both very much for your time.

SCOTT RYAN

Good morning.

LIPSON

Staying with the Hong Kong theme, perhaps we’ll start with the China bank, and well the Prime Minister has said that he won’t support the China bank in its current form, although negotiations do remain very much open. Perhaps first to you, Scott Ryan, what is it that the Government needs for this China bank to get the approval from Australia?

RYAN

Well, as the Prime Minister has made clear, discussions are ongoing and no final decision has been taken. The Government is keen to facilitate another multi-lateral institution along the lines of organisations like the World Bank that can facilitate economic development and multi-lateral cooperation in Asia. And those discussions are ongoing and the Prime Minister will continue to undertake those.

LIPSON

Jim Chalmers, The Australian Financial Review editorial suggests that we should join the China bank and work from inside the tent to push for transparency issues and to liberalise the finance sector as well. What do you make of that idea?

JIM CHALMERS

Oh look, I do think we should be engaging with China to make sure that the environmental and labour standards and all sorts of other issues are properly considered. We do need more infrastructure investment throughout the region from multiple sources, whether that be the existing Development Bank from China or from other sources. But there’s a very simple reason why there’s not a final position from the Government yet and that is because they’re hopelessly split on the issue. We know from background briefings out of the National Security Committee of Cabinet that Joe Hockey and Julie Bishop have very different ideas about this particular initiative. We think that the country would be better served if they came to a view and immediately clarified their position.

LIPSON

Okay, I want to look at Ebola and Australia has pledged $20 million for a private contractor to run a 100-bed Ebola treatment clinic in Sierra Leone. It will take up to about 50 Australian volunteers at a time. Scott Ryan, why pay a contractor to do this? Why doesn’t the Government send in its own medical teams?

RYAN

Well, contractors are the ones who have the experts, and no one has questioned Aspen’s ability to actually get on the ground and run this quickly. The reason that the Government has used Aspen, and we’ve made the announcement now, is that only now have we been able to get a guarantee that any healthcare workers from Australia will get treatment when they need it, and in this case they’ve got support from the United Kingdom. This was one of the key issues – we can’t put Australians in harm’s way without guarantees that there will be treatment for them because sadly, healthcare workers have been victims of this outbreak of Ebola in Africa and as we’ve seen in the news of other countries of the world, and we need to ensure that Australians will get that treatment. That wasn’t available before the Government struck the recent deal.

LIPSON

A European Union statement, though, has said that medical evacuations had been in place for all international aid workers in west Africa since the 20th of October.

RYAN

Well, the reports that I have read about that statement and the way it applied to Australia was the Foreign Council of the EU outlined that they could fund and coordinate such evacuations. The Australian Government didn’t have a guarantee that Australians would actually get treatment and where that treatment would occur. Now we have that guarantee from the United Kingdom that Australians will be treated as if they were citizens of the UK. And it’s very important that we ensure Australians who do go into harm’s way have that guarantee of treatment, and putting a priority on that is entirely right for the Australian Government to have done.

LIPSON

Jim Chalmers, is this most recent arrangement – this commitment that Australia has made – satisfactory to Labor?

CHALMERS

Oh look, we welcome additional support for the important objective of tackling Ebola at its source in west Africa. The problem with yesterday’s announcement is it does not, of itself, facilitate Australian involvement. The Prime Minister himself couldn’t guarantee that there would be many, or even any, Australian volunteers involved in this initiative that he announced yesterday. We’ve got from the UN to Médecins Sans Frontières, to a whole range of groups – Oxfam, the leadership of the United States and the United Kingdom – crying out for Australia to get more involved. We’ve got people who are ready, willing and able in Australia – very talented Australians – who want to do us proud by contributing their talents to this important global task, and [in] the announcement that was made yesterday, there is no clarity on the amount of Australians that might be involved in this new initiative. We do need that clarified because we want Australians to do what they’re good at, which is pitching in on the global stage to tackle this problem in west Africa before it spreads into our own region.

RYAN

Well, a couple of things Jim said there need to be corrected…

LIPSON

[Interrupts] Okay, I want to look at climate change just quickly. I do want to just move on to a final topic, Scott Ryan, I’m sorry. The Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists have issued a report that’s concerned about short-term politicism – policy decisions – that are impacting on the environment. It suggests the Federal Government should eliminate fossil fuel subsidies and provide tax breaks to land owners instead, who protect threatened species and ecosystems. Any merit in that suggestion – that report – from these scientists, Scott Ryan?

RYAN

Well, firstly, the diesel fuel rebate that’s used for mining and agricultural activities is not a fossil fuel subsidy – that’s the rhetoric of the Greens and the left wing of the Labor Party. So let’s get that right. But I think we’ve also, more generally, got to get past this idea that somehow levying new taxes is a way to improving our environment. That’s Labor’s policy, where they treated the carbon tax as a revenue raising measure. The Government’s policy is, as we did under the Howard Government, to support programmes that actually lead to direct environmental improvements, and that’s what the legislation passed last week will do, that’s what programmes of the Howard Government did. You can’t tax your way to environmental sustainability, you can’t tax your way to environmental improvements, and that’s not a path the Government is going to go down.

LIPSON

Jim Chalmers, should these subsidies for mining companies – fossil fuel companies – be wound back and pumped into other areas?

CHALMERS

That’s not Labor’s policy, either, but I do think this really quality team at the Wentworth Group, they have given us food for thought on some broader issues. They’re right to say that environmental sustainability and economic prosperity are inseparable. They’re right in saying that we should be taking the long-term view. One of the real tragedies of the Liberal Government – the Abbott Government – walking back on emissions trading, for example, is that we are one of the only countries going backwards on climate change, if not the only country going backwards, while other countries go forwards. That’s because they’re in on the secret. We need to be taking long-term decisions to protect the environment because by doing that we protect the economy as well.

LIPSON

Gentlemen, we’re out of time. Thanks very much for joining us today.

(Ends)