5AA

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

Interview – 5AA David Penberthy & Will Goodings with Anthony Albanese

Friday 27 November 2015

SUBJECTS: Labor’s carbon tax plan, Jay Weatherill GST proposal,

JOURNALIST: We are joined every week by the Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, Chris Pyne, the Liberal member for Sturt, and in the red corner, from the Australian Labor Party, Anthony Albanese who is the shadow minister for infrastructure and also for transport. Chris and Albo, good morning to you both and thanks for joining us again.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: G’day, good to be with you.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Good morning Dave, good morning Will, and good morning Anthony!

JOURNALIST: We thought we would kick off by talking about the plan which Bill Shorten is going to announce today to reduce carbon emissions by 45 percent by the year 2030, which is almost double the Coalition’s target – Anthony, is Labor playing with fire going as hard as this on carbon emissions given the baggage it has from the carbon tax that was brought in by Julia Gillard?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: No. What we’re doing is saying we will consult with business, unions, and the sector including energy and industry about what the climate change authority has recommended is the appropriate target if we’re going to keep global warming to below 2 degrees which seems to be the tipping point if you like where climate change becomes dangerous, and so this is appropriate for us to put out there what the authority has said and say that we’re going to discuss over the next three months between now and March before we finalise our target. It’s appropriate also that we put out there what our thinking is, prior to the Paris summit, which will be a very important international gathering, and which I notice that Iain Hunter, a South Australian of course, has been a leader in terms of renewable energy and in terms of understanding that we need to grab our emissions down.

JOURNALIST: What’s the risk though? Well, the benefit is that you might claw back some support from the Greens, but isn’t there a danger there that you could alarm business and that you could alarm sort of mainstream suburban voters who felt like they were blindsided last time. Is that why you’re trying to be more upfront about it this time, as opposed to the carbon tax?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Well we want to have a mature discussion about these issues of climate change is impacting. Right now, you know, the impact we had in Sydney recently, the hottest November day on record, if you look at all of the trends in terms of you can’t point towards that particular event as because of climate change, but you can look at the trends over a period of time, and I think that people more and more understand that climate change is real and that we need to take action and that the sooner that you move in terms of the transition to a carbon-constrained economy, the cheaper it will be, and there’s also enormous competitive advantages that Australia potentially has through embacing innovation and the transition to a carbon-constrained economy in terms of our region as well.

JOURNALIST: Chris Pyne, your party is now led by a man who very nearly helped bring in an emissions trading scheme, is Labor right when it says Malcolm Turnbull is now sort of pretending to be something that he is not, and he’s going to be flying to Paris carrying Tony Abbott’s climate sceptic baggage with him?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well David we have to actually properly examine Labor’s proposal. They have a thought bubble. They’re desperate to try and get back into the political debate, but, to have a 45 percent target by 2030 - the Coalition has a 26-28 percent target which is about the same as most of the comparable countries around the world with Australia – but for them to get to a 45 percent target they can only do it by doubling the carbon tax they brought in before. Now doubling the carbon tax will smash household budgets and smash the economy. If we think we’ve got problems with jobs now in South Australia, a carbon tax which is twice the size -

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Except you’re just making it up Christopher

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: as the last one under Labor –

ANTHONY ALBANESE: You’re actually making stuff up

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Now hang on, I interrupted you only once. During a lovely long monologue, you had lovely long monologue-

ANTHONY ALBANESE: I’ll give the newsbreak for all of the listeners: you don’t get to determine Labor policy. You can talk about yours but you can’t say what ours is.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: You had a lovely long monologue Anthony. You went on and on and on and I didn’t interrupt you. But if you re-introduce your carbon tax which you suggest we do –

ANTHONY ALBANESE: But no one is suggesting that’s what we’ll do! No one is suggesting that we will do that.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: - at double the rate, the only way –

ANTHONY ALBANESE: We’ve said that we won’t do that.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No, you’ve said you will introduce a carbon tax.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: We’ve said we won’t! That’s just a lie.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Bill Shorten is on the record saying he will introduce a carbon tax, and the only –

ANTHONY ALBANESE: That’s a lie! That’s just a lie!

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: He’s on the record saying he will introduce a market-based mechanism which is a carbon tax.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Which is an emissions trading scheme that Malcolm Turnbull supports, that Malcolm Turnbull crossed the floor to vote for.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: [inaudible] twice the rate that it was before and if we think we can starve Australia when we’ve got jobs –

ANTHONY ALBANESE: You need to get some sleep Christopher, what time is it in Adelaide?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: You don’t want any facts to get out there –

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Because you’re just talking rubbish

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Because you want any facts to be put out there Anthony. Now the facts are that South Australia has the highest employment in the nation, and we have the highest electricity prices in the nation, and if Labor is elected, those electricity prices will go up, and that unemployment rate will go up, because a carbon tax at twice the rate it was before which is the only way to achieve such a ludicrous 45 percent target, that’s the only way to do it, will hurt jobs and hurt households in this State.

JOURNALIST:Can we perhaps turn our attention to a tax of a different kind. We had the South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill on just after 7 o’clock and he gave us some detail about his model for throwing his support behind an increase in the GST from 10 to 15 percent. It includes a fixed return to the states from income tax receipts federally, and also a significant amount of support for lower-income earners that he says will be unfairly affected by the regressive nature of the GST. Anthony Albanese, Jay Weatherill was strong with us this morning in making the point that if it’s a bad idea, that’s fine, come up with a better one then. The underlying premise being that there is a funding problem with the states when it comes to healthcare. Do you accept the underlying premise?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: There’s certainly pressures on state budgets with regard to health and education. Jay Weatherill has come up with one proposal for discussion, but federal Labor, we don’t –

JOURNALIST:Is it a good proposal?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Well, I don’t support increasing the GST. I think the premise of that is wrong because it is a tax that impacts the hardest on the poorest people, because no matter what your income you pay the same amount of tax, and therefore it is a regressive tax because of that. And I don’t support increasing it, I can’t see how you can provide compensation given just one change that’s occurred, which is that when we were in office, we tripled the tax-free threshold from $6,000 to $18,000. So for all of those people who don’t pay any income tax now, I can’t see how you can compensate those people for an increase in their GST.

JOURNALIST: Do you accept then his challenge to come up with a funding model then that will help the States fund healthcare in the absence of your support for an increase in the GST.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: