Saturday, 19 July 2014

Bill Shorten and Penny Wong, Subjects: Budget and Climate Change



SENATOR THE HON PENNY WONG

Labor Senator for South Australia

THE HON BILL SHORTEN MP

Leader of the Opposition

TRANSCRIPT


17 July 2014

JOINT PRESS CONFERENCE


E&OE - PROOF ONLY

BILL SHORTEN, LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION: Good afternoon everybody. I’d like to make some comments about the Budget and about climate change and then get the Leader of Labor in the Senate to update on where government legislation is at and how Labor is treating it.
With the Budget, this will be the last week that Parliament will be sitting for five weeks. I sincerely hope that Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey use the next five weeks to talk to real Australians about their unfair Budget. I hope that Tony Abbott has got the courage to talk to pensioners and explain why they should be paying for cuts in the pension. To explain to doctors about the GP tax. To talk to teachers about cuts in schools. To talk to nurses about cuts in hospitals. To have the honesty to sit down with a single mum earning $50,000 a year and explain to them, explain to the mum why she should lose up to $6,000 in family payments and other matters because of this unfair Budget.
Tony Abbott just does not get how much his Budget is hurting ordinary Australians. They’re not talking to real people. Because if they were, they wouldn’t be persevering with this unfair Budget. And to make matters worse, you’ve got Joe Hockey threatening to bypass the Parliament, to make more cuts by regulations. This is a Budget in disarray.
Before I hand over to Penny though, I would like to make some comments about climate change. The Abbott Government has been hurting Australians with its unfair Budget, and it will hurt future generations of Australians with its backward-looking approach on climate change. Today, Tony Abbott has made Australia the first country in the world to reverse action on climate change.
History will judge Tony Abbott very harshly for refusing to believe in genuine action on climate change. Tony Abbott is sleep-walking Australia to an environmental and economic disaster. Tony Abbott has demonstrated time and time again that he is an environmental vandal with no view of the future. He will try and do and say anything to avoid the science of climate change. He still believes, as he famously said, it is ‘absolute crap.’
Australians now know who Tony Abbott is. He’s lied when he says he’s fair dinkum about climate change, just as he has lied about his unfair Budget and his pre-election promises. And it is truly extraordinary, reports emerging today that the ACCC has told business that they will only take action to force lower prices in the energy sector. Again, another lie from Tony Abbott.
He was the person who said that under a carbon price, a leg of lamb would cost $100. He has lied about climate change ever since he ambushed Malcolm Turnbull in 2009, and today he has taken Australia backwards. I believe in this next five weeks that Tony Abbott needs to get out and talk to the real people and understand that real Australians do not cop his lies.
I might hand over to my colleague Penny Wong.
SENATOR PENNY WONG, LEADER OF THE GOVERNMENT IN THE SENATE: So I will just make some comments about the Senate which is voting again. We’ve had a busy morning. We’ve had a lot of chaos in the Senate this last fortnight, and it’s chaos that has arisen because of the way the Government is handling the Chamber.
I’d like to emphasise that we have seen time and again the Government changing its mind about what legislation is a priority. We’ve had a number of motions rearranging business, chopping and changing, putting things on, taking them off. Now, we are cooperating with the Government on the bills that they regard as important, and the Senate will sit tonight until 11 o’clock, and we’ll sit again tomorrow if required to deal with the legislation that’s still on the agenda.
A number of important pieces of legislation are on the agenda. Obviously the mining tax bills, which include the low-income superannuation contribution and the Schoolkids Bonus and the Income Support Bonus. Now, Labor will continue to stand up for low and middle-income Australians against what is absolutely a harsh attack on their incomes.
We also are currently debating the asset recycling bill. That is, Mr Abbott’s privatisation agenda and as my colleague Anthony Albanese has said, we will be moving amendments and we look to the crossbench to support them to ensure transparency and accountability and to ensure those funds are not used for Coalition pork-barrelling.
And of course we also have the Qantas Sale Act. And we’re pleased that finally the Government has agreed to Labor’s amendments on that and that will be dealt with today.
SHORTEN: Happy to take questions.
JOURNALIST: Are there any circumstances in which the Labor Party would support Tony Abbott’s Direct Action policy?
SHORTEN: We believe that to take effective long-term action on climate change, an emissions trading scheme is the best way to go. In 2009, Labor made a mistake in 2010 when we settled for second best. In hindsight, we should’ve taken the emissions trading scheme to an election. We settled for second best with a fixed carbon price. Labor fundamentally believes that climate change is real, that Australia has a role to play in tandem with the rest of the world to address this most important environmental issue. So we will be backing in an emissions trading scheme.
JOURNALIST: In the meantime, is there any way you’d support Direct Action?
SHORTEN: I believe that most serious experts, in fact all serious experts, view Tony Abbott’s Direct Action as nothing far removed from a boondoggle, an inefficient mechanism where you pay wads of taxpayer money to big polluters for little likely result. So why should Australia settle for Tony Abbott’s climate sceptics’ policy of Direct Action?
JOURNALIST: On your ETS, obviously you haven’t got the detail yet, but do you envisage something along the lines trading in cheaper, you know, international permits from developing countries until if or when, you know, as has been proposed in recent weeks by Ross Garnaut and the AI Group and people like that?
SHORTEN: Phil it’s early days for us to be announcing our election policies, but on Monday I outlined the principles that Labor will apply in terms of developing an emissions trading scheme. We know that water levels are rising. We know that 13 of the last 14 years have been the hottest on record. We know that greenhouse, heat-trapping greenhouse gases are going to cause and are causing a problem for our environment, so we know that we need to be part of international best practice.
JOURNALIST: Will you campaign on it or is it too electorally damaging, the whole issue?
SHORTEN: I believe Australian’s are up for sensible arguments. See Tony Abbott’s got a very narrow world view. I think we’ve seen that in the 10 months since he’s become Prime Minister. We’ve seen a sort of, not even an ideology coming out of them in many cases, they’re just, they just react to with a very narrow view of the world. Climate change is real. Many other jurisdictions are working towards having a price on carbon and yet we’ve got Tony Abbott – the whole world is going in one direction and Tony Abbott is so out of step he’s taking us backwards, so we are prepared to stand by our principles loud and clear. We will not be Tony Abbott weathervane politics. We are the only major party in Australian politics who’s had a consistent view about the importance of an ETS.
JOURNALIST: But what do you do differently to make sure it’s not voted down again in the future? How do you sell it better?
SHORTEN: Well, I think that Australians are aware of climate change more than ever. I believe that Labor does need to communicate in a straight fashion with the Australian people. We have to say what we mean and mean what we say. An emissions trading scheme is the policy which Labor will take to the next election.
JOURNALIST: Now that the Climate Change Authority will come out with recommendations presumably it stays now, so it will come out with recommendations over the next few years on what our emissions cuts should be. Now, your ETS, will it be in line with the Climate Change Authority’s recommendations?
SHORTEN: Well, we will work our policies in detail and announce them close to the election. We are pleased that Labor has had the win, to preserve some of the hard work which has happened to create the architecture for an ETS, and so we are pleased that the Climate Change Authority will be staying, and we’ll be watching very carefully to make sure that Tony Abbott’s Liberal Party don’t try and damage that by the back door. But what I’ll say about our policy is that we will reveal it in good time before the next election. Again, I just remind you, and through you, all Australians, Labor very clearly recognises that what we want is this Parliament to be a place of inspiration. We want to make sure that all Australians have a Parliament which is dealing with the issues of the future and an ETS dealing with climate change is the right way forward, and no serious person disputes that.
JOURNALIST: Doesn’t Mr Abbott have a mandate for his Direct Action approach to climate change?
SHORTEN: Direct Action is a Clayton’s climate policy designed for the audience of internet trolls and shock jock radio announcers and climate sceptics. It’s a mandate from the flat earth society to give a lot of money to big polluters.
JOURNALIST: Is a Clayton’s policy, though, better than no policy at all?
SHORTEN: Well, Labor has learnt the hard way that if you compromise on what you think is the fundamentally best practice, people mark you down. So I recognise that a lot of hard work has gone in under previous Labor administrations. The baton has been passed to me and the team I lead in the Parliament to win the argument about climate change. Australians want to understand the policies but they know that we’ve got to take action on climate change, as are many other nations in the world.
JOURNALIST: Mr Shorten, just on the $550, now that’s based on the Treasury modelling that was done for the Clean Energy Future package that, you know, the last Government did and we heard for two years Labor using that modelling to refute hundred-dollar lamb allegations from the other side. So why is it not acceptable for the Government to use those figures to, you know, to calculate the expected saving? And if those figures are right, if the saving is not $550, doesn’t that just show that margins were squeezed in the economy as people absorbed the carbon price?
SHORTEN: Well, there is a fair bit in that question Sid, let me go to a couple of the basic assumptions. Tony Abbott lied his way into office. He said that he wouldn’t cut schools and hospitals; well we know he is doing that. He said there would be no change to pensions; he’s clearly announced his plans to do that. He said there would be no new or increased taxes, he’s clearly lied about that. And he scared a lot of people about the massive impact of the carbon price in terms of – remember Whyalla wasn’t going to exist? Remember the $100 leg of lamb? Remember how he said that there would be a tough cop on the beat? And we’ve even seen him and Clive Palmer in this sort of patchwork theatre, this Punch and Judy show which passes for this government in Australia, and what they’ve said is, you know, they’ll make sure - it was $10 a week to the average shopping bill, that was going to go on. Is that going to come off? Do Australians really believe that they’re going to see back all the money which Tony Abbott alleged the carbon price cost them?
Tony Abbott’s caught in a trap of his own making. He said the carbon price was so deadly and so bad that Australians should be, according to him now, with its repeal, be seeing a river of cash coming back into the cost of living. We know the real problem for cost of living in Australia, Sid, is Tony Abbott’s unfair Budget. The petrol price, you know, Tony Abbott says one thing in Australia, he says another thing overseas. Let’s not forget that when he’s with President Obama, he calls his petrol tax a carbon tax, here he’s trying to pretend there’s no increase in petrol and it’s not a carbon tax.
JOURNALIST: Mr Shorten, when you developed your last carbon policy there was consultation but the business community claimed it wasn’t serious, that they weren’t listened to. Will you engage more meaningfully with groups like the BCA, AI Group and so forth when you develop –
SHORTEN: Well I don’t accept that previous consultation wasn’t meaningful, but we will engage in meaningful consultation. I will tell you something else Phil, we won’t use this current Government’s template for business consultation. Businesses consultation of the Future of Financial Advice laws is, Clive Palmer steams down and confronts Mathias Cormann and Greg Hunt and, you know, Senator Abetz, and he says to them, “This is what I want.” 15 minutes later the guys sort of have a collective panic attack, they run around then they come back and say, “Clive, whatever you want.” I bet you not a single business was rung when they made those changes to the Future of Financial Advice. This is a government who as soon as Clive Palmer, SS Palmer, you know, the steamship Palmer comes into sight, they run up the white flag. They don’t consult business. We’ll do a lot better than the Liberals at consulting business.
JOURNALIST: John Howard argued for an ETS and lost his job. Kevin Rudd argued for an ETS and lost his job. Malcolm Turnbull argued for an ETS, he lost his job. Julia Gillard argued for an ETS, she lost her job. Kevin Rudd came back, argued for an ETS and lost his job. What makes you think that you can argue for an ETS and win an election?
SHORTEN: Well, without necessarily deconstructing the reasons why each person lost an election – I don’t think John Howard just lost it because of this issue to be fair. But what I do know, and your point really is that, are the Australian people are up for real and genuine action on climate change? Yes, they are. Australians aren’t silly. It’s a matter of making sure that what we do is anchored in international best practice. What we need to do is be fair dinkum on climate change, be consistent. Australians get that climate change is real. They get that sea levels are rising, they get there are more extreme weather events than ever before. They get that if we put more greenhouse gases into the environment that will trap more heat which will have consequences for our weather, and the way this planet is organised. So I do believe that an ETS, argued through, learning the lessons of the past, communicating with Australians, with business, people are up for that.
JOURNALIST: Just back on your policy development, have you given up any notion of every trying to engage with the Greens again on this?
SHORTEN: Labor will form its policies. We will win our arguments by the basis of having the best ideas and by talking directly with the Australian people. One more question.
JOURNALIST: Are the Greens more flexible on an ETS?
SHORTEN: Well, I think history shows that Labor didn’t see the far right of Abbott mugging Turnbull, and we assumed that Turnbull was there. I think history also shows that we assumed that the Greens would recognise the value of an ETS and they didn’t, they had some sort of more, you know, Green definition of the future. And the real lesson here is Parliament should be a place of the best ideas, it should be a place where we measure up, where we deal with the politics of climate change but not in a partisan fashion. That’s my aim for the next election, that we have an ETS which does deal with climate change. Thank you very much.
ENDS

Carbon price or no carbon price, power bills to keep rising after LNP’s broken promise

Media Release

17 July 2014 


Shadow Treasurer Curtis Pitt said the LNP’s politically-motivated campaign against the carbon price would be revealed as a sham, with Queenslanders power bills set to continue their rise.
“Campbell Newman promised to lower power bills before the last election, knowing that a carbon price was about to implemented,” Mr Pitt said.
“Even with the removal of the carbon tax, average power bills are rising by nearly $450 a year under the Newman LNP Government. Households have been hammered by his broken promise."
“In the last Budget, he even decided to cut the rebates that pensioners receive to help them cope with his price increases, before being forced to backflip. What kind of Premier decides to ramp up power bills on pensioners and then strip away that support?"
“Every LNP MP has blamed the carbon price for their power bill increases, so the question now is: will Queenslanders’ next power bill be cheaper than it was before the last election?"
“The chickens have come home to roost for Campbell Newman and Mark McArdle. If every Queensland household’s power bill isn’t cheaper than it was prior to the 2012 election, there will be irrefutable evidence that they lied to Queenslanders.”

Friday, 18 July 2014

Newman’s Grinch government axes Christmas holidays for public housing tenants

Media Release


THURSDAY, 17 JULY, 2014
Public housing tenants looking to visit family at Christmas risk losing their tenancy under a new policy introduced by the Newman Government.
Shadow Housing Minister Jo-Ann Miller said the new rule limiting absences from social housing to a cumulative four-weeks each year was a mean-hearted policy that left little room for common sense and attacked families.
Mrs Miller said Housing Minister Tim Mander should immediately reverse the policy to allow for people to visit family in times of need or family celebration rather than allow the Government to be the Grinch that ruins Christmas.
“Landlords in the private rental market can’t kick a tenant out if they help a child with a new baby for a few weeks or visit family at Easter or Christmas or need to spend time away caring for a sick relative,” Mrs Miller said.
“Previously, the Department of Housing was required to act just like any other landlord, but the Newman Government used its massive majority to change the law so it could be a mean and vindictive landlord."
“And how will they know if people are away for more than the allotted time?"
“If a person qualifies for social housing, is paying their rent and maintaining the property, they should be able to take some time with loved-ones to help them and spend time with them."
“No wonder Queenslanders are losing trust in this Government when they implement mean policies like this with no warning.”
Mrs Miller said her office had been contacted by several people who had received advice from the Department of Housing that their tenancy would be at risk if they cared for loved ones or took short breaks.

“This is a mean policy from a mean Government,” she said.

Climate Change statement from Bill Shorten

Media Release


Date:  17 July 2014
Today Prime Minister Tony Abbott has made Australia the first country to reverse action on climate change.
The Abbott Government is determined to hurt Australians now with its unfair Budget and is determined to hurt future generations by refusing to tackle climate change.
History will judge Tony Abbott harshly for refusing to believe that action is needed on climate change.
Tony Abbott will do anything to try and ignore the science of climate change. It’s clear that he still thinks it is – in his own words – “absolute crap”.
Australia could have gone to the Paris Conference next year with an integrated, effective Emissions Trading Scheme, but Tony Abbott has embarrassed Australians and instead we attend that Conference as the only country to reverse its climate action.
Tony Abbott is taking Australia backwards while the rest of the world is moving forward.
All of Australia’s major trading partners are taking serious action on climate change, including in our own region.
Labor fought for an emissions trading scheme, which sets a legal cap on carbon pollution and lets business work out the most efficient way to operate within that cap.
It’s the same policy in place in some of our oldest trading partners like the UK, Germany and France and importantly, it’s countries in our region such as China and South Korea either have an ETS in place or are moving towards one.
With the clean energy package now on Tony Abbott’s growing scrap pile of good policies, renewable energy is now in his sights.
Tony Abbott is attempting to abolish the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and Clean Energy Finance Corporation and undermine investment in renewable energy by spreading myths about the impact of renewable energy on the cost of electricity.

Unlike the Abbott Government, Labor believes climate change is real and we must take action.

Tuesday, 15 July 2014

Labor believes the science and will continue to fight for real action on climate change

Media Release

Today I spoke in the Australian Parliament on the need for real action on climate change – watch it here.
There is no doubt that our earth is warming and our seas rising – or that humankind is the cause. 
And if we do not act, the consequences will be severe.
Governments of the world, both progressive and conservative, are making their choice clear.
Today, 39 national and 23 sub-national jurisdictions have implemented or are on track to implement carbon pricing instruments, including emissions trading schemes.
But the Abbott Government’s staggering display of blustering arrogance and craven incompetence in the Senate has made one thing abundantly clear.
Only one political party in Australia has a serious, substantial and credible climate change policy – the Australian Labor Party.
Labor believes the science and will continue to fight for real action on climate change – for an emissions trading scheme. 
It is the policy we took to the last election, and it is what our amendments moved again in the Parliament today will deliver.
Inaction will be a disaster for the Australian economy and our environment.
It will be a disaster that guarantees Tony Abbott will be remembered forever for his environmental vandalism.

Bill Shorten
Leader of the Opposition

Monday, 14 July 2014

Mark Butler, TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW WITH ABC NEWS RADIO



MARIUS BENSON: Mark Butler, do you accept the carbon tax will be repealed this week?
SHADOW MINISTER FOR ENVIRONMENT, CLIMATE CHANGE AND WATER MARK BUTLER: Well, it’s the clear the Government will try to get rid of it again this week, but if they do Australia will again lose any chance of a meaningful policy on climate change if the Government refuses to back Labor’s policy of terminating the carbon tax but replacing it with something meaningful, namely an Emissions Trading Scheme.
BENSON: What do you think of the proposals that Clive Palmer put up when he was standing next to Al Gore a couple of weeks ago about an Emissions Trading Scheme being retained in some mild form with a nil price. Do you think that and other measures retaining an architecture for dealing with emissions or this that just the smoldering ruins of a past policy?
BUTLER: Well we’ll have a look at the amendments when Clive Palmer releases them and obviously we’re interested to look at them. And what it does show is that, with Clive Palmer now supporting an Emissions Trading Scheme in principle as the right response, that Tony Abbott really is the only player in this debate who rejects an ETS as the right response for Australia.
BENSON: But is he in touch with the Australian public there? The Australian has a Newspoll this morning showing 53 per cent in favour of abolishing the carbon tax, only 35 per cent for the Senate working to retain it.
BUTLER: Well Labor went to the election with a policy of terminating the carbon tax, we’ve restated that time and time again, Bill Shorten restated it again yesterday, but we’re not going to throw the baby out with the bath water -
BENSON: But the Abbott policy does, in your term throw out the baby and the bathwater, in terms of no pricing mechanism on carbon.
BUTLER: Well, no pricing mechanism, no cap, no discipline on the amount of carbon pollution Australia produces and that is the critical problem with Tony Abbott’s response to this area – there’s no discipline whatsoever on carbon pollution for Australia. That’s why we won’t support it.
BENSON: Can’t the Prime Minister point to public support for his position and not yours?
BUTLER: Well he can point to public support for abolishing the carbon tax but that’s Labor’s position as well. The question is, the debate over the last several months is, what replaces the carbon tax and we won’t support throwing the baby out with the bathwater. There must be a meaningful response to climate change and that is an Emissions Trading Scheme.
BENSON: Can I ask you to take a moment to look at recent history. Is this an issue that Labor and the Greens have mishandled for years? You could have had a deal with Malcom Turnbull when he was Opposition Leader ready to support carbon pricing, 2010 Julia Gillard led the drive to force Kevin Rudd to abandon the carbon scheme that he said was the moral challenge of a generation and then you got rid of Kevin Rudd. Have you got it wrong at every crucial moment, you, Labor?
BUTLER: Well there are plenty of commentators who’ll take the time to sit down to look over history. We’re focused on today and tomorrow and that is arguing the case for the right policy for Australia. We’re absolutely convinced that’s terminating the carbon tax and putting in place an Emissions Trading Scheme, the sort of scheme we’re seeing developed all over the world including in our own region in places like China and South Korea, our third largest export partner. That’s our focus.
BENSON: But the result today realistically is that there will be nothing there in the terms you want?
BUTLER: Well Tony Abbott seems hell bent on making sure that instead of Australia being in a position to work constructively with the United States and China, he wants Australia to be one out, to be the only nation in the world to have entirely dismantled its climate change policy.
BENSON: Do you hold out any hopes of the crossbench doing something to prevent the changes that you don’t want to see go ahead? Do you have any plans for talks with Palmer United and others?
BUTLER: We’ve been talking to them and making our case very clearly. We’re the one party in this debate that has been absolutely steadfast during the election campaign and since in arguing for an Emissions Trading Scheme. Everyone knows Labor’s position, we’ll be arguing it again this week, and we’d love their support. They know our case and they’ll make up their own mind.
BENSON: Do you think everyone does know Labor’s position? Because the Government often points to you and says, ‘Labor doesn’t know where it is, it flip flops all over the place.’
BUTLER: Well, given the behaviour of the Government last week, that’s pretty rich frankly, given their complete incapacity to manage their own affairs in the Parliament. Our position has been crystal clear and steadfast, during the election campaign and since. We support the termination of the carbon tax but it must be replaced with a meaningful policy in this really critical area.
BENSON: Mark Butler, thank you very much.
BUTLER: Thank you Marius.

Palaszczuk demands Premier acts on leak

Media Release


Opposition Leader Annastacia Palaszczuk has demanded an immediate investigation into how Dr Anthony Lynham’s confidential personnel records became public knowledge.

“There are very serious questions about which Government employee accessed Dr Lynham’s confidential personnel records and leaked them to the media,” Ms Palaszczuk said.

“Campbell Newman has admitted there is a leak but has refused to properly investigate the circumstances."

“How can he possibly know for certain that no member of his Government or office was involved without a formal investigation?"

“If he had even a shred of credible leadership, an investigation would already be underway.”