ALOISI: Mr Rudd good morning.
PM: Good morning, thanks for having me on your program.
ALOISI: Another disastrous poll result for the Government yesterday, your personal approval ratings are through the floor and the Government facing a possible annihilation at the next election. You've lost 1.1 million voters in three months, what's gone wrong?
PM: Well we have a huge challenge ahead of us, which is to explain very carefully what our record is, and it's a good record of achievement across the economy and across health and across education, what our plans are for the future, but you know you're right Sandy, and that is those polls produced yesterday would see Mr Abbott as Prime Minister, but let's be very clear about this, an election is about alternatives and it puts into very stark contrast what we stand for in terms of keeping the economy strong, delivering tax cuts to working families, getting rid of WorkChoices, boosting hospital funding by 50 per cent, big reforms in education, a new national curriculum, against Mr Abbott who says he'd bring back WorkChoices, slash health funding, and slash education funding.
By the way you mentioned polls, there's been a bunch of polls out recently, some have had us ahead, some behind, but what I know having been in this business for a long, long time, is that they do change over time.
ALOISI: They do change although lately there has been a bit of a trend, do you think you've lost the trust of the Australian electorate?
PM: It's a hard job in terms of explaining all that the Government is doing and the reasons for it, I fully accept that. As the Prime Minister of the country and the leader of my Party I take full responsibility for that as well. But the key thing is to explain, as I said before, these alternatives, and based on the Sydney Morning Herald poll yesterday, Mr Abbott would be Prime Minister, but the challenge that I face is to be absolutely clear about the differences between us.
I noticed just coming in here you were talking about superannuation. Well there's a very basic difference. We're proposing a big package of tax reform, one of the things which comes from that is increasing all working Australian's superannuation guarantee from 9 per cent to 12 per cent; Mr Abbott opposes that. But what does that mean for someone listening to the program this morning? If you're on $50,000 a year it means that you retire, if you're a young person starting out in the workplace now, with an additional $108,000. Other big super changes as well for older workers able to top-up with tax benefits and lower paid people able to get more from their super as well.
So I go back to my point, it's about alternatives, it's about what our record of achievement is in key things on the economy and keeping us out of recession, and Mr Abbott and what he stands for.
STANLEY: Well David Marr we spoke to earlier, you've no doubt heard David Marr's commentary on your personality-
PM: Well actually I haven't.
STANLEY: Haven't you, well it is deeply personal and he's talked about an anger that you have at your core and he's talked about it going back to your childhood, the boarding school you went to, the Catholic school, and that must, to be stripped open in that very public way must be difficult.
PM: You know John, when I stuck my hand up first of all to go into Australian public life and then secondly stuck my hand up to become leader of the Labor Party, you basically have to accept that fact, that's just the truth of it in contemporary Australian politics.
As for any analysis of me and all that sort of stuff, I think I'll leave that to the commentators, what your listeners are concerned about is what's my plan for the countries future, what's our record of achievement in keeping the economy strong and giving a fairer share to working families, I'll leave all that analysis to others.
STANLEY: And yet the issue that seems to have turned the polls quite dramatically against you is decisions you made on climate change and asylum seekers, and again we spoke with David Marr in the last half hour. His view is that you genuinely believe that there's a problem with climate change, it is urgent, and that you've been quite surprised by the backlash in putting the decision off into the future.
PM: Well let me just-
STANLEY: Were you surprised, are you surprised by that?
PM: Let's just go to the core of the climate change alternative. I believe that climate change is happening, going back to what I was being asked before by Sandy, what's Mr Abbott's position, he says that climate change is quote, his own words, absolute crap unquote.
STANLEY: Well he has changed that though hasn't he, hasn't he, he has now said he believes man contributes and action is needed.
PM: It depends which day of the week you happen to ask Mr Abbott that question. He's on one side of it and the other. Just before Christmas he said that the country need to pass an emissions trading scheme, that's before he decided it was a very useful thing for him to use to remove Mr Turnbull.
Let's go back to the core question though that you ask about climate change. It is clear to me, and always has been, for years and years and years that climate change is happening. Secondly, therefore, that's why I ratified Kyoto, the Liberals opposed ratifying Kyoto, that's why we brought in a renewable energy target from increasing it to 20 per cent, so that by 2020, the electricity needs of all of our households, the equivalent of that will be generated from renewable energy sources. We've also got the biggest investment program in renewable energy projects right across Australia, including what we believe will be the biggest solar plant anywhere in the world.
On the emissions trading question, the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, here is the fact. Three times the Liberal Party blocked it in the Australian Parliament, I can't force it through, therefore realistically what I've said, it has to be delayed until a new Parliament.
ALOISI: But if you believe so passionately in it, why did you not go to a double dissolution?
PM: Whenever the election is held, and whatever form the election takes, let me be very clear with you that climate change and emissions trading will be absolutely central to that because the core of it is this, we accept the science, Mr Abbott rejects it, we have concrete measures to deal with it from renewable energy, energy efficiency and a commitment to bring in an emissions trading scheme, Mr Abbott rejects emissions trading, and has a series of other measures which everyone out there simply doesn't add up.
But what I'm just saying to do in response to your question before, the core reality you face is that we, as the President of the Maldives, the guy who comes from that country in the Indian Ocean which is most vulnerable to climate change, the bloke who conducted a Cabinet meeting underwater in scuba gear a couple of years ago because he was trying to make a point to the world community what was happening, I had him in Canberra a few days ago. He and I worked together passionately for three days together with 20 other leaders in Copenhagen to try and get a global agreement, ran into a brick wall there, got an outcome about five or six out of ten, in the Australian Parliament ran into a brick wall there because three times the Liberals voted it down.
So you go ahead in these other areas, solar, renewables, energy efficiency, and necessarily that means a delay, a delay, in bringing in an emissions trading scheme.
ALOISI: Another reasons given for the dip in the polls for you and the Government has been that you have not been able to sell the mining tax to the Australian electorate properly, if I look at the papers today, I'm holding up a full page ad put in there by the mining industry, have they done a better job of convincing us that the mining tax is not a good thing, as opposed to the Government letting us believe it should come into implementation.
PM: Well, let's go back to core principles here, again. What do we want through tax reform? We want to make sure we keep the economy strong in the future by bringing down the company tax rates of all the companies in Australia, and funding that from the revenue which we'd impose on our most profitable miners.
Secondly, bringing down the tax rate and giving extra tax breaks to small businesses, 2.4 million of them across Australia, because they are the engine room of the Australian economy.
And third, to boost our level of national savings by nearly $100 billion by increasing superannuation for all those working people listening to your program this morning by increasing the superannuation guarantee level from 9 percent to 12 percent.
That's what we are doing.
Now, the Opposition, obviously, to this, is ferocious. You've got a whole bunch of people out there with the Liberal and National Party acting in cahoots with various elements of the mining industry, but in terms of a bit of a fact check, what do we see last night? We saw Mr Clive Palmer saying that he had, effectively, exaggerated his claims about the impact of the resources super profits tax on him. There's also an interesting statement from one of the other mining companies which was out there the other day proclaiming job losses, indicating that they had exaggerated as well.
I think the Australian people, over time, will be sober judges of this, about whether this proposal of ours for tax reform strengthens our economy for the long term - we believe it does; whether it delivers a fairer share for all Australian families through better super and tax cuts for small business - we believe it does, against the scare the campaign which even the mining companies themselves in the last 24 hours have admitted, in effect, that they have exaggerated their claims.
STANLEY: Where are you drawing the line on compromise, because you say the 40 percent, that's non-negotiable. Is that right?
PM: Sorry, just sipping a cup of tea.
STANLEY: That's alright. The 40 percent - non-negotiable?
PM: What we've said from day one is that we believe we have the rate right and we've said we'd also sit down and consult and negotiate with all those individual mining companies on detail, on implementation, and transition.
STANLEY: But that uplift rate of 6 percent, that's where everyone focuses on as the potential compromise.
PM: And what the Treasurer has said, also, is generous transition arrangements. Beyond that, we don't actually go to detail of discussions with individual mining companies in the public media, and the reason is each of the companies' circumstances are different.
Go to the core principle, again - if you are a smaller company starting out or you're generating a return as a mining company of less than, say, 10 percent, you're going to end up paying, Treasury advises, less tax through our proposal. It's only when you start to get above a 10 percent return rate, on average, that you start to pay a bit more. If you're earning super profits of 40 or 50 or 60 percent, you're going to be paying a fair bit more. That's what we are doing because our analysis is this strengthens the mining industry overall by encouraging the smaller players and those who are suffering losses in the earlier years of their project. It's good for the mining industry, grows the mining industry by 5.5 percent over time, grows the economy by nearly an additional percentage point, strong for the reform of the economy long term in keeping it strong, but giving a fairer share on the way through.
ALOISI: With the mining industry fighting you tooth and nail, and it seems they've won over the Australian electorate, you're going to WA today. Will you be sitting down with them, mining industry executives?
PM: Well, I, since day one - in fact, I think we launched our tax reform plan in early May. I think within a day or two I flew to Perth, into the lion's den, and sat down at dinner, actually, with the WA heads, anyway of BHP, of Rio, with Twiggy-
ALOISI: -Are you going to do it again?
PM: -Fortescue Metals, and who else was there? Others, anyway, from the mining industry, and we've sat down, or I've sat down, with a number of them since then, and in the West I'm sure there'll be further opportunity to hop into it, but you know something? The business of leadership on keeping our economy strong for the long term, it's a hard business. A lot of people out there who are earning super profits in the mining industry don't want to pay more tax. I think the Australian community believe they can, but the more important thing is to make sure we're taking the strength in our economy now, having kept this economy out of recession, building on that through our budget discipline of bringing the budget back to surplus in three years' time, three years ahead of time, by reforming it for the long term to keep it strong into the long-term future.
STANLEY: Back to, politically, you've got to come up with a compromise with the miners. Every political analysis says you need a compromise with the miners. Is it possible that before the election you'll be able to come up with a regime which will be acceptable to them and that this will be called off, that you can neutralise this campaign?
PM: Well, John, as I said the other day, I think I was asked this in Canberra, we'll take as long as is necessary to work through the detail with each of these companies and I don't think it's right to actually put a timeframe around it. There are lots of complexities in this. Each mining company's circumstances are different. I just gave you the overall example-
STANLEY: -Yeah, I know.
PM: -If you're earning less than 10 percent return you're better off, and some of those folk are quite pleasantly surprised by the detail when they get on top of it, and others, when they see that if they are super profitable, they are a bit more concerned, but on the timeframe question, to go straight to your point, we'll take as long as is necessary, because getting the detail right is imperative.
STANLEY: OK, but do you think you can get a compromise?
PM: We'll, we believe, as I said, we've got our-
STANLEY: -So you can't utter the word compromise? You can't even say compromise?
PM: Well, what I've said consistently is that we've got our framework right and we're going to consult and negotiate with industry. I don't think you can be clearer than that. We said we'd do that on the questions of detail of implementation and transition arrangements, and when you talk about those things you're talking about dealing with each of those circumstances which industry come up with, given their individual company circumstances when they talk to our folk in the Australian Treasury, but the key thing is to make sure we are reforming the economy for the long term.
You can't sit still. You've got to get on with the business of reform. We intend to do that.
STANLEY: I'm sorry, but in your head, aren't you seeing this headline: 'Rudd talks compromise'? You can't even entertain the thought that you'll compromise with them?
PM: You know something, John, when I talk about consult, negotiate, detail, implementation, transition, that's the serious stuff of working your way through any challenge, but our core principles here are right and we've said that from the beginning and this will be a tough debate, but I think your listeners need to take, also, a bit of a grain of salt of some of the fear campaigns being run out there, because what I believe in is keeping the economy strong and getting a fairer return, also, for all those families listening to the program this morning. It's a tough business.
ALOISI: Prime Minister, it is a tough business, so can you be 100 percent convinced that you'll lead your Party to the next election?
PM: Oh, absolutely. You know, if you look back on your predecessors in this position, and one of the advantages of spending a bit of time sitting in the Lodge in Canberra is that most of your predecessors have been through challenges. In fact, I think all of them have, of one type or another. Anyone who thinks that this is some sort of smooth ride is just deluding yourself, particularly if you're in the business about making changes. You know, we got, remember this, we got bagged mercilessly for bringing in a stimulus strategy in 2008/09, in the midst of a debt and deficit scare campaign. What's the result? We kept the economy out of recession and as a result we've got the lowest debt and lowest deficit of any major advanced economy in the world, so we copped a lot of flak then. We've copped a lot of flak since then on a whole range of other things, and this Government hasn't been perfect. We've made mistakes. I've said that many times.
The key thing is to focus on the challenge of keeping the economy strong for the future, and for families, making a difference in their hospitals and in their schools. That story I saw, I think on the front page of the Herald this morning about people waiting for cancer treatment. This is basic for people, getting that right. That's why I spent so much of the last month or so announcing our investment, about a quarter of a billion dollars throughout New South Wales, for enhanced cancer diagnosis and treatment services right across the state. That's what people are also talking about at their kitchen tables this morning.
ALOISI: Alright, Prime Minister, enjoy your trip to Western Australia. Maybe you'll come back with a new bag of tricks for us to talk about.
PM: It'll be exciting.