Subject:
National Plan for Water Security; Qantas; Australia-Japan relations
E&OE...
PRIME MINISTER:
Ladies and gentlemen, I wanted to say how very much I welcome the comments made by the New South Wales Premier Mr Iemma today to the effect that he thought the plan I proposed in relation to water security was a very good plan and that irrespective of the attitude taken by the other states, he would agree to the Government's plan. Now this is very good news. He's the Premier of the largest state in Australia and if the same cooperative attitude is taken by the other Premiers, Thursday's meeting can be a great day for water security in Australia. Let me remind you that this is the biggest single infrastructure investment in water ever proposed by any level of government in Australia. It will deal not only with the problem of waste and seepage and evaporation, but it will also deal, importantly, with the issue of over-allocation. By providing $3 billion of money for structural adjustment and other activity concerning over-allocation the Federal Government will be taking an enormous financial burden off the states because all of the over-allocation has occurred on the watch of various state governments. Now obviously Mr Iemma has recognised many of these things and I do very warmly welcome his statement today and it augers well if it is followed by other states for an extremely productive meeting on Thursday.
JOURNALIST:
Have you had any intimations from other Premiers, particularly Mr Rann and Mr Beattie that they're prepared to accept your plan and secondly; is there going to be a full roll up on Thursday?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well all the indications are that all the Murray-Darling states are all coming. I have invited Mr Carpenter, Mr Lennon and Miss Martin and I am not sure as to which, if any or if all of them, are coming. But they're welcome, it's an open house. I don't want any anybody to feel as though; that's a Premier that is, as though he or she is not welcome.
JOURNALIST:
What about any intimations from Mr Rann or Mr Beattie that they're prepared to do what Mr Iemma has?
PRIME MINISTER:
I've not heard anything that's similar to what Mr Iemma has said although Mr Bracks in the past has said that he was quite impressed with the plan. Mr Rann has accepted that the current arrangements don't work. He has proposed a somewhat different model, which really is not workable and I remain hopeful that the other Premiers will take the same approach. But it is very significant what Mr Iemma said today. The way I read it it seemed pretty unconditional and it's very welcome and he is to be thanked.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, if South Australia maintains its opposition to this plan, are you prepared to override that concern through, presumably your legal advice is very sound on the Commonwealth's power...?
PRIME MINISTER:
I am not going to hypothesise about what I might do in an eventuality that I am working to avoid.
JOURNALIST:
You say Mr Rann's proposal is really unworkable. Is any variation on it workable? Is there any scope for independent experts to be involved?
PRIME MINISTER:
I have no problem with individual experts being involved and they will be under my plan. We have experts on the National Water Commission. All I am arguing is that in the end, if you appropriate $10 billion of Commonwealth money, the Commonwealth has got to have a say as to how it's spent. I don't favour an approach which says that $10 billion of Commonwealth money is handed over to an unelected body and dispersed according to the priorities of that unelected body. Now that's no disrespect to the experts, but it seems to me to go right against the grain as far as representative democracy is concerned. That's my objection to it and it's an objection which is fundamental, and it's an objection of principle. I have no objection at all to the notion that on any commission to run the Murray-Darling Basin, and being answerable to the Commonwealth, I have no objection to the idea that you should seek to have experts on that body. Of course I will. I would want to have the best possible people to sit on that body, but in the end it is Commonwealth taxpayer's money and the taxpayers expect us to decide how it is spent and they want to make us accountable if they think it is spent badly.
JOURNALIST:
The $10 billion, in relation to the assistance. You're having a press conference here in the twilight of bushfire smoke, do you accept that the current drought is part of the longer term climate change and that your $10 billion is part of an address to that $10 billion?
PRIME MINISTER:
My $10 billion is to deal with water security issues. Now there's an interesting debate to be had about how close the link is between the two. There are some people who dispute it altogether, there are some people who totally embrace it. But if you're asking for my categorisation of my $10 billion, that $10 billion is designed to provide a long term solution to a problem that the Murray-Darling basin has had before current concerns about climate change arose. We have had droughts in this country for decades. The question of how linked they are to climate change is something that will be debated, but what the Australian people want is a practical response to a practical threat and the practical threat now is the impoverishment and the drying up and the dying of the Murray-Darling Basin. And I have a plan that will stop that occurring and it's urgent and in the national interest that that plan be embraced. I thank Mr Iemma for the contribution that he's made and I hope the other Premiers take the same approach.
JOURNALIST:
...Alan Carpenter he's received the report today, as you'd be aware, recommending a $25 a tonne tax on carbon, is that the sort of approach to a carbon trading regime that you would envisage?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I think we have to examine carbon pricing. The imposition of a tax is a very crude, inefficient, and potentially damaging way of dealing with it because it pays no proper regard to market forces. We have a task group made up of government and industry people that have begun to look at this issue and it's important that we don't have knee-jerk reactions. It's important that we develop an approach to carbon pricing that is acceptable to and sympathetic to the interests of Australian industry because Australian industry employs millions of people. I am not going to embrace an approach to climate change that damages our great resource industries, and there's a danger if you start talking in an arbitrary fashion about carbon taxes that you will do that. There is a very significant difference between a crude carbon taxing system and developing in a measured, co-operative way, a carbon pricing system.
JOURNALIST:
Are you prepared now to countenance a national emissions trading scheme in the absence of further global agreement notably from countries like China, India and the US?
PRIME MINISTER:
It is overwhelmingly in our interests that we do not move in this area without a knowledge of and a reasonable anticipation of activity on a global level, otherwise we could put ourselves at a disadvantage and you will have some of these issues canvassed in the industry discussion paper that's coming out on Wednesday.
JOURNALIST:
Your opponent Kevin Rudd today turned it around on jobs, he said unless there was action on climate change, more jobs would be lost. What's your reaction to that point of view?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, if you apply that literally we must have been doing quite a lot on climate change because jobs have been rising steadily ever since I've been Prime Minister. We've created two million new jobs, so I would say to Mr Rudd that if there is...that if my policies are costing jobs, where's the evidence? My policies have produced jobs. I think Mr Rudd is striving for a daily mantra without much regard to the consequences of what he says. He didn't do too well with that farmer today.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, Peter Debnam today argued that federal issues were dominating the public's attention so much that it was affecting his chances in the state poll, which is only seven weeks away, could you agree with that?
PRIME MINISTER:
I've always found, Malcolm, that the public can sort out state from federal issues. I've always found that when it comes to the crunch they vote according to their assessment of state issues if it's a state election and federal if it's a federal election. But you can't stop national issues being discussed, it's a democracy and it's a free flowing one. I read the papers in New South Wales, I read your paper every morning, I read Mr Coorey's paper every morning, and they're the two sort of, what you might say Sydney-centric newspapers around the place and both of them seem to talk a lot about state issues. I don't there's any shortage of state issues in the Sydney newspapers or on Sydney radio.
JOURNALIST:
As one of the other Sydney.....
PRIME MINISTER:
No but I didn't say you were Sydney-centric.
JOURNALIST:
Yeh, yeh, exactly.
PRIME MINISTER:
You may be published in Sydney but you're not Sydney-centric, you're a national newspaper.
JOURNALIST:
Egocentric.
JOURNALIST:
We'd also like to ask the question Mr Howard.....
PRIME MINISTER:
I didn't hear that incidentally.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, you've mentioned that carbon tax is less efficient than the carbon trading system, hasn't the findings of market surveys been that, in fact, a carbon tax is more efficient than a carbon trading system and are you now leaning towards a carbon trading system?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think it depends a bit on what economy you've got. I think a carbon tax would be particularly hurtful for an economy like Australia's. It might be different elsewhere, but I always look at it from the Australian national point of view.
JOURNALIST:
Coming to the issue of Qantas, which is now before the Foreign Investment Review Board.....
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm not sure it is actually.
JOURNALIST:
The Treasurer said this afternoon...
PRIME MINISTER:
Who said that?
JOURNALIST:
The Treasurer.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well if he says it, it would be right because he runs it.
JOURNALIST:
Anyway, what is your attitude to those who say that there should be conditions relating to job preservation, job preservation imposed on Qantas?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well my attitude, Michelle, is that the law should apply and the law in the foreign investment area will be, I'm sure, properly applied by the Treasurer and the sort of conditions, if conditions are appropriate, and bear in mind that the foreign investment law only operates if there is the potential occurrence of an increase in foreign ownership levels and what I've read in the paper doesn't suggest to me that foreign ownership levels are going to go up; but I believe the current law should be applied. I also think it's very important, without prejudging anything that's done or said in relation to this matter, that we don't fall into the trap of believing or being tempted to believe that governments should decide the identity of the ownership of companies in Australia, nor should we fall in to the trap, or be encouraged to fall into the trap, of believing that we should decide whether or not somebody can properly realise the value of the shares that they own in a company. It may seem attractive in a particular case but as a general rule it's far better to have a situation where markets and owners of shares determine what happens to the companies rather than government. My experience has been that governments in this country are notoriously bad judges of commercial realities. I am reminded of the disastrous interventions by Labor Governments they were, in South Australia, Western Australia and Victoria in the marketplace and I certainly don't intend to lead a government that does that in this country.
JOURNALIST:
Does a change in ownership open up the open skies debate again though, do you think they should be potentially subject to greater competition?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the open skies debate is never closed. Never. I have never said, and nobody in the Government has ever said, we would never in the future countenance some change in relation to giving rights out of Australia to other companies, it's just that we haven't to date judged that to be appropriate. But I have never said, and none of my ministers for aviation have ever said that that is completely and utterly closed for all time into the future.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, we understand you're considering a security pact with Japan. What does this mean for Australia-Japan relations, but also what would you say to anyone perhaps in the veterans community who might have concerns about such a pact involving Japanese soldiers training in Australia?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't think people would have a concern about that. I mean we all remember World War II and I certainly am very conscious of sensitivities of long ago about that and I am very respectful towards them. But Japan has become a wonderful friend and ally of Australia's and when we said that we would send some troops to southern Iraq to provide security for the Japanese engineers, my recall is that that was very warmly received in Australia and Australians rather liked the idea of Australians and Japanese forces working together. And it's a very valuable relationship and it has a lot of characteristics and whilst it's by no means certain that that's going to happen, I mean it's just speculation, the training bit, as a matter of principle, I don't think Australians would mightily object to it, I really don't.
Thank you.
[ends]