Transcript - ABC 891 - Morning Show - 2 Dec 2009

SUBJECTS:Liberal Leader; ETS legislation; GST and possibility of an "ETS election"

(greetings omitted)

Matthew ABRAHAM: Are you the most nervous MP in Australia? You're in one of the most marginal seats and your party's just been through an awful bloodletting.

Christopher PYNE: No, I'm not in the slightest bit nervous. I have been through six elections, the next one, which I assume will be on March the sixth, will be my seventh election. I know my electorate very well as they know me very well and I think I have a very good relationship with them and that doesn't make me nervous, it just means another challenge for the new year but...I've met them before and I'll meet them again!

ABRAHAM: Are you forced now to do all sorts of policy gymnastics where previously you were supporting Malcolm Turnbull's position and now you have to support a new Leader and a different position?

PYNE: No, I am not going to do any policy gymnastics. I believe passionately that we need to take action on climate change, that humankind has added to climate change and that there are a whole suite of policies we can pursue in order to reduce the carbon footprint of humans on the planet.

ABRAHAM: Haven't you been arguing that the Opposition should be supporting the Government's ETS Bill with amendments? In the Senate this week?

PYNE: The ETS is one tool...

ABRAHAM: ...but haven't you been arguing that?

PYNE: I have said that we need to take action on...

ABRAHAM: ...but haven't you been arguing, Chris Pyne, it's...everyone thinks there needs to be something done about Climate Change. But haven't you been arguing as Malcolm Turnbull has, shoulder to shoulder with your former Leader, that the Opposition needs to do something and needs to support the ETS legislation in the Senate this week?

PYNE: Well as every day has passed in the 40-hour plus debate in the Senate, we are finding more and more flaws in this legislation.

ABRAHAM: That's not the problem...

PYNE: ...no I'm answering the question. When we did this arrangement with the Government, the fine print of that arrangement with the Government was not all it was cracked up to be. It's absolutely clear now that agriculture is excluded from the ETS. The Daily Telegraph this week revealed that there would be an increase in power bills by $400 per household per year because of the ETS. Penny Wong, who I respect, has admitted twice in the Senate this week that the modelling is done on the wrong population estimates. She's also admitted this will be the first Bill we'll deal with when we come back in February, if we come back in February, will be amendments to the CPRS legislation. So we went through this with the Government on FuelWatch, GroceryWatch where they rushed through legislation and it turned out to be a lemon. Now I support action on Climate Change. Barack Obama doesn't feel the need to go to Copenhagen with a piece of legislation. We have agreed with the Government's 5% target, which I think is not nearly ambitious enough. It surprises me that when they have the option to go as much as 10%.

ABRAHAM: Chris Pyne, you concede that the Rudd Government had a mandate at the last election for its Emissions Trading Policy?

PYNE: The Government has a mandate to take action on Climate Change. The Government's Emissions Trading Scheme legislation was not part of their election policy in November 2007. Let's not start rewriting history! They have a mandate for action on Climate Change. They don't have a mandate to push a Bill through before Copenhagen, before the United States had a Bill through their Parliament...

ABRAHAM: ...but they promised an Emissions Trading Scheme as did you.

PYNE: Yeah, we did. And we had an Emissions Trading Scheme as part of our policy as I just said...

ABRAHAM: ...as they did, did they not?

PYNE: Yes they did but the actual detail of the Emissions Trading Scheme are now starting to become clearer.

ABRAHAM: But as with the GST, obviously when you get to the pointy end you start to negotiate the detail...John Howard had a mandate for the GST and that was (unclear) by the Labor Party and the Labor Party has a mandate for the ETS.

PYNE: No, that's not true. We got elected in 1996. We then said we'd like a GST. We went to election in 1998 before we introduced the GST and made it a referendum on the GST. Labor opposed the GST between '96 and '98 and continued to oppose it afterwards. Even after the election in 1998 after the public vote that got John Howard back in, Labor still opposed it's not true that Labor ever, ever acknowledged the mandate that John Howard won in 1998 on the GST election. That is a fundamental fact.

ABRAHAM: Do you think you can win under Tony Abbott?

PYNE: I think the next election is going to be tough. I think that it will be a real contest and people will have a clear choice. The choice will be Mr Rudd, who is not an authentic character and Mr Abbott who is a very authentic character.

ABRAHAM: But has Tony Abbott's position on the ETS made it more difficult to win the election?

PYNE: Tony Abbott has made it very clear that he supports a generous Climate Change action policy. We really need to really use our minds to think more broadly than just the one option that's been offered by Mr Rudd to be rushed through the Parliament before Copenhagen and it hasn't even been explained to the public. Renewable energy, a tremendous way to remove our carbon footprint. We have 770 million hectares in this country. We have so many opportunities to reduce our carbon footprint through bio-charge...growing forests...why do we have to choose one blunt instrument which is a new tax, a $120billion tax, why is that the only tool the Government can think of to use?

(ends)