ABC 891

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

Interview – Matthew Abraham, David Bevan and Mark Butler
Wednesday 15 July 2015

SUBJECTS: Week in politics

MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Mark Butler Labor MP for Port Adelaide, Opposition Climate Spokesman, welcome to the programme Mark Butler.

MARK BUTLER: I’m beside myself.

MATTHEW ABRAHAM: No, you’d be beside Chris Pyne.

MARK BUTLER: Wobbling on the dashboard.

MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Well you wouldn’t need to have noddies at your press conferences, you could just have Chris Pyne behind you just nodding. Now Christopher Pyne, Liberal MP for Sturt, good morning.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Good morning Matthew

MATTHEW ABRAHAM: You can borrow mine Christopher.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I always thought you were born under a lucky star so it doesn’t surprise me that somebody thought you look like me.

MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Oh thank you, in all modesty. Mark Butler, is the carbon tax clawing itself out of the grave?

MARK BUTLER: No it’s not. I assume you’re referring to … some rather exaggerated pieces in the News Limited tabloids this morning. I know it is unlike News Limited tabloids to exaggerate but um…

MATTHEW ABRAHAM: They do have hold of a carbon tax policy document, you say it’s a draft, which proposes a twin carbon tax, which would apply to two separate schemes, one on the electricity industry and one on everyone else.

MARK BUTLER: Well I’ll say a couple of things about the the document, or the articles, they have access to one of a series of options papers that get prepared in the ordinary course of an opposition developing its policies. Um, they haven’t even gone to Shadow Cabinet yet, there’s a series of other options on the table, ah the only clear thing that people should be confident about is that Bill Shorten and Tanya Plibersek and I have said a couple of things about our climate policy. Firstly we’ve said quite emphatically that there would be no carbon tax, at the end of the period we had in Government, Kevin Rudd, Myself, and Chris Bowen announced our policy to terminate the carbon tax and move to a very different scheme, an emissions trading scheme which is the sort of scheme you see in North America, the UK, Germany, France, and increasingly in our own region and that emphatically is the Labor Party policy, as is our discussions we are…

MATTHEW ABRAHAM: So why have you got a draft policy paper, which even opens the… lifts the lid on the grave, on the coffin?

MARK BUTLER: Well it simply doesn’t. That might be the editorialising of the story in the Daily Telegraph and picked up by some of the other tabloids this morning, but it simply doesn’t. An emissions trading scheme is an entirely different beast to a carbon tax, we’ve been very clear about this. It’s the model you see in New Zealand, in South Korea, in China, in Japan, and as I said in most of those nations to which we’ve usually compared ourselves in the Northern Hemisphere. Almost all economists and most business people say it’s the most effective, efficient way to deal with carbon pollution, particularly compared to the Abbott Government’s plan which is to hand over billions of dollars to big polluters to do things they were doing anyway.

DAVID BEVAN: Mark Butler you are the Labor Party’s Environment Spokesman, did you order this policy work?

MARK BUTLER: Well frankly I don’t even know what particular paper the articles are based on. In the ordinary course of events, Christopher would know…

MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Well I’ll help you so you can give an informed answer. The document marked “Shadow Cabinet in Confidence, Climate Change Decision Points” is produced by Opposition Climate Change Spokesman and new ALP President Mark Butler’s office and outlines Labor’s plans for an emissions trading scheme, which it claims would be revived in the first term of a Labor Government.

DAVID BEVAN: Okay, so it was your work.

MARK BUTLER: Well I don’t know quite how the Daily Telegraph has suggested it was my work. There was work done in the ordinary course of things, as Christopher would know, by any opposition to come up with different options and different discussion points to prepare a policy for a coming election, and that’s what we’re doing, we’re doing it in a very orderly way…

DAVID BEVAN: Let’s get specific then. Did you order or give your blessing to your office commissioning work which would have included vehicle emissions standards, which would raise the cost of a new car by about $1500?

MARK BUTLER: Well I’m not going to go into detail of every single options paper or discussion paper that my office or Bill Shorten’s office…

DAVID BEVAN: Well just go into that detail. Did you order or give your blessing to an options paper which included raising the cost of a new car by $1500? Just that one little bit of detail, we’ll be happy with that.

MARK BUTLER: Well look, I’m not going to go into all of the details. I will say that…

DAVID BEVAN: No no, I don’t want all the details I just want that detail.

MARK BUTLER: I will say that all parties are looking at the possibility of vehicle emissions standards. Greg Hunt has talked about exactly the same thing in the parliament in recent weeks because at the moment, we have a position where global car companies are selling dirtier versions of the same car in Australia than they sell in North America and Europe. Now this has been the subject of Government reports…

DAVID BEVAN: So the answer’s yes…

MARK BUTLER: And Greg Hunt has talked about it in Parliament. So the fact that it would be in any paper, any options paper by the Liberal Party or the Labor Party shouldn’t be of any surprise to anyone but it also shouldn’t be overstated by anyone. This is a series of papers that are guiding thinking and the details of our policy will be developed in an orderly way with stakeholders and released to the Australian people well before the next election.

MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Chris Pyne, Liberal MP for Sturt, Education Minister, the… Mark Butler’s saying this is not much different to the sort of work and the sort of noises we are hearing out of the Liberal Party.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well Mark Butler is in a state of complete confusion this morning and I must admit I feel quite sorry for him because if his his office is producing policy papers proposing to bring back the emissions trading scheme, which your listeners know is exactly the same as introducing a carbon tax no matter what Mark Butler says, and he doesn’t know about it then what on earth is going on in the Labor Party? There is two issues here. There is the issue of Labor wanting to push up the prices of energy again, push up the prices of electricity, and let’s not forget that when we took the carbon tax off, when the Liberals were elected, we had the biggest single drop in electricity prices in one quarter in the history of record keeping. So what Labor wants to do is push electricity prices back up again, that’s in spite of the fact that Australia has reached and exceeded its emissions reductions targets, one of the very few OECD countries that has done so. So not only are we achieving emissions reductions, but Labor wants to bring back the carbon tax, push up electricity prices…

MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Well Mark Butler says they are doing no such thing.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: The second issue here Matthew, which is really quite important is that Mark is the Education Shadow and he has no idea that’s been produced by his office.

MATTHEW ABRAHAM: I think you mean the Climate Change Shadow.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Sorry the Climate Change Shadow, and he is obviously so distracted being President of the Labor Party that he has no idea what is going on in his own office.

MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Now Mark Butler that’s not fair is it? Because you did know that these papers were being developed.

MARK BUTLER: Well of course papers are being developed, I don’t know which one particularly has found its way to the Daily Telegraph. A series of options papers get developed always by oppositions. I’m sure they did Christopher…

MATTHEW ABRAHAM: You read newspapers, you go to the toilet every day. Mark Butler we know that there are certain bodily functions that people do and there are certain things that politicians do. We’re talking about… You’re the Climate Change Spokesman and the Environment Spokesman, we’re talking about specifically your office developing models for an emissions trading scheme, we’re not talking about… when you answer these questions don’t…

MARK BUTLER: Would anyone be surprised that my office and I are developing a whole series of options and discussions for the Labor Party…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: You knew nothing about it.

MARK BUTLER: No what I’ve said is there are a series of options and papers that get produced, quite which one Simon Benson has hold of I don’t know because he hasn’t shown it to me, but of course a series of options get prepared for an orderly discussion both with colleagues and also with stakeholders…

MATTHEW ABRAHAM: So you are…

MARK BUTLER: An election policy doesn’t appear out of thin air.

MATTHEW ABRAHAM: So you are canvassing the possibility of an emissions trading scheme and…

MARK BUTLER: No, we’ve said… No we’re not canvassing the possibility of an emissions trading scheme, we’ve said clearly that we will take an emissions trading scheme to the next election, this policy area or he doesn’t understand it. An emissions trading scheme and a carbon tax are entirely different prospects…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: And why do you want to push up electricity prices when we are already….

MARK BUTLER: Entirely different prospects.

MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Well can we ask you this Mark Butler, does the scheme that’s being considered have a dual feature? That is, the carbon trading scheme would apply in one way to the electricity industry, and in another way for the rest of the nation.

MARK BUTLER: Look, I’m not going to get into those sorts of details because there is not a particular scheme being considered.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: It’s in the newspapers…

MARK BUTLER: There are a series of options that will be prepared before a discussion at Shadow Cabinet. There has not even been a discussion started at Shadow Cabinet around any series of options let alone one particular model.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: So papers distributed by the Labor Party for the National Conference, the Shadow Cabinet hasn’t even seen yet.

MARK BUTLER: It’s not a paper for the National Conference and I don’t think even the Daily Telegraph has suggested that.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Yes they have.

MARK BUTLER: Well they might’ve but it’s…

MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Mark Butler they have. They said this is being kept under wraps.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: This is the faceless men running the Labor Party again.

MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Christopher Pyne on another topic, are you happy with the ABC’s Q&A programme taking a video from a young boys about 10 years old? He may well live in your electorate –

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: He does, he lives in Highbury

MATTHEW ABRAHAM: He does, he lives in Highbury and his question appeared on the Q&A programme saying how concerned he was about Tony Abbott.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well I think he was the spokesman for the family from what I can gather, having read the stories. The question was put together for him by his mother and father and he read it out and I guess that makes better television.

MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Are you happy with the ABC taking a 10 year old’s question?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Look the ABC can take whatever question they wanted and at the end of the day they have to bear the responsibilities for how the public views that. Now what we saw with the Zaky Mallah scandal was that the ABC made a value judgement which they paid a significant price for in the eyes of the pubic and they now are having the whole the whole programme reviewed by by Ray Martin.

MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Are you concerned that there is a family in your electorate which is allowing their child to watch Q&A?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No I don’t think, I think Q&A has a General G rating so I’m not too fussed, too fussed about that and I think that the –

DAVID BEVAN: You aren’t trying to protect the child’s welfare? You’re not trying to protect the children in Sturt from Q&A? Haven’t the children suffered enough?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: They might die of boredom from watching Q&A but I am not sure they are going to see programmes that would otherwise be MA 15+. I certainly hope not and I think that question about Q&A is a very bad-

MATTHEW ABRAHAM: It’s just that Ministers are scared to go on there. Tony Abbott has really rung the bell down on that.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: It is not that they’re scared it’s just that we have asked - the ABC and the Government have come to an agreement that the Q&A should be put in the news division. That was the discussion that the ABC had with the Communications Minister and the Chairman of the ABC suggested had merit and we agreed it has merit and we want them to do that as part of the rearrangement of the show following the Zaky Mallah incident. But I think the general point to make about Q&A is that it is a very bad thing when the show itself becomes the story and I think that ahh

MATTHEW ABRAHAM: In TV terms it’s great, isn’t it? I mean, you know you have to go any programmes from the block to the voice, they all rely on themselves becoming the story.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well I’ve been on Q&A 22 times and I am very happy to go on Q&A again.

MATTHEW ABRAHAM: When you are allowed to?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Once they move Q&A into the news division rather than the entertainment division.

MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Mark Butler before you leave us, now that

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: He is desperate to get off the show. He’s got to go and find out what is going on in his office.

DAVID BEVAN: Mark Butler, now that your leader has given his evidence to the royal commission can can we ask you as a former union boss and newly elected ALP President does the union have a conflict of interest if it accepts money from a company it’s negotiating with on behalf of its employees?

MARK BUTLER: Well, I think I think Bill has very forthrightly, very frankly answered I think it was 900 questions at the royal commission hearing…

DAVID BEVAN: Yes yes I know that. We haven’t got a lot of time so if you could focus on the question. I’m just asking you not not what Bill Shorten had to say, I want to know what you think. Does a union have a conflict of interest if it accepts money from a company they are negotiating with on behalf of employees?

MARK BUTLER: No, look David, you’re not going to get me to try adjudicate upon evidence that Bill Shorten…

DAVID BEVAN: No we’re not asking you to. We are asking you as a former union boss.

MARK BUTLER: You’re asking exactly that. About a royal commission that is underway. Bill has given very forthright and frank evidence answering over 900 questions…

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Just answer the question.

MARK BUTLER: Dyson Heydon has said, look they’re doing a very good job by themselves Christopher I don’t think they need your help…

MATTHEW ABRAHAM: I think that was a bobble head speaking, I don’t know. But Mark Butler…

MARK BUTLER: Dyson Heydon has said…

MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Mark Butler last time David asked you this question you dodged it by saying “well I don’t want to pre-empt what what Bill Shorten has said” Now Bill Shorten has answered 900 questions, some of them unsatisfactorily according to the commissioner…

MARK BUTLER: Now you’re trying to get me to pre-empt what Dyson Heydon might say about it. Bill has…

MATTHEW ABRAHAM: No, No…

MARK BUTLER: You are. You’re asking me to adjudicate on matters that are being considered by the Royal Commission, I’m simply not going to do it David.

DAVID BEVAN: You used to run a union in this state. There would be many hundreds of people listening right now who used to be in the union when you were running it, and you are now the President of a party, the Labor Party, so I think it’s relevant to ask your views.

MARK BUTLER: It is it is unfair. The government has decided to spend tens of millions of dollars to set up this process, it is unfair to ask people to adjudicate upon these questions that are still before the royal commission. Bill has…

MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Did your union ever take money from a company that you were negotiating with on behalf of employees? Did you ever do that?

MARK BUTLER: No. But Bill has given very forthright and frank evidence about this. I think he has been extremely clear about, what I think, has been a very strong career as a leader of the unions and now the leader of the Labor Party in the 25 years I’ve known him.

DAVID BEVAN: I think we’ve established that Mark Butler, from you anyway, and we appreciate your time on the programmes. We need to talk to a worker who is losing his job in Adelaide. Um Mark Butler Labor MP for Port Adelaide and Climate Change Spokesman, and before that, as well as that, Christopher Pyne Liberal MP for Sturt and Education Minister. Thank you to Mark Butler and Christopher Pyne.

[ends]