PM: I'm here in Brisbane today and I'm joined by Graham Perrett, our Federal Member for Morton and we're here at a petrol station where we've had the opportunity to have a few quick chats with people who are filling up their cars. And I just wanted to make the point to them that there is no impact from putting a price on carbon pollution on the price of petrol.
The Leader of the Opposition was peddling a false claim that petrol prices would go up 6.5 cents a litre as a result of Government's plans to put a price on carbon pollution. This claim just simply isn't true. There is no impact from the Government's plans to put a price on carbon pollution on the price that people will pay at the bowser. There's no direct carbon pricing impact on petrol itself, despite the claims that have been made of a 6.5 cents a litre impact from pricing carbon.
Now this is just one false claim that's been made by the Leader of the Opposition but it heads what is an increasingly long list. The Leader of the Opposition claimed that there'd be 6.5 cents a litre on petrol, that claim's wrong. He's claimed that the increases in cost of living would be astronomical, actually the increase is less than a cent in a dollar and of course there are tax cuts, family payment increases and pension increases to assist families. He's claimed that the coal industry would shut down, whereas the coal industry is going from strength to strength and will continue to do so. He claimed that steel would shut down and that there would be some towns that were wiped off the map, of course this claim is completely untrue and has been shown to be untrue by the people who make steel in this country. He claimed that zinc would be over as an industry in this country, and once again the company that deals with zinc in this country has shown this claim up to be completely untrue.
And the list continues, the Leader of the Opposition this week was out saying he didn't support a -5 percent target for reducing carbon pollution by 2020 and then he changed his mind and said no he does support that target again. So within 24 hours we had two different views from the Leader of the Opposition about whether or not he supported cutting carbon pollution.
And then we've seen claims in the last 24 hours where the Leader of the Opposition has been out saying that he doesn't support closing down any dirty coal-fired power stations, but less than 24 hours before he made those claims, his Shadow Minister for Finance was saying they did support cutting coal fired power stations, particularly they supported the closure of Hazelwood.
And this comes on top of another false claim made by the Leader of the Opposition where he claimed that he'd never supported a carbon price, never supported a carbon tax, never supported an emissions trading scheme. Where the truth is that as a member of the Howard Cabinet he did support an emissions trading scheme and in Opposition he support both a carbon tax and an emissions trading scheme when it suited him.
Now what this all adds up to I believe, is that the Leader of the Opposition needs to stop this Chicken Little routine. He needs to stop claiming the sky is going to fall in. He needs to stop making false claims to the Australian people.
Australians are entitled to the facts and to judge our plans to price carbon pollution based on those facts. So, I will continue as Prime Minister to be out talking to people about the facts of our plan. But they shouldn't believe any of these false claims, about 6.5 cents a litre on petrol, about the coal industry closing down, about the steel industry closing down, about zinc closing down, about the cost of living impacts being astronomical, all of these claims are false. And then the Leader of the Opposition has been saying anything that he thinks an audience wants to hear this week. It's time he stopped that Chicken Little routine.
I'm very happy to take questions.
JOURNALIST: Another claim Mr Abbott is making, that hospitals will be severely impacted in terms of power price charges from the carbon tax. How will you compensate hospitals as they face rising power costs?
PM: Well I'm very happy to take that question. Of course this false claim comes from the very same Mr Abbott who ripped a billion dollars out of hospitals when he was in a position to make a difference as the Minister for Health. He's a very long serving Minister for Health in this country and the only thing people remember his time as Health Minister for is ripping a billion dollars out of hospitals.
On the impacts of putting a price on carbon pollution, of course the Federal Government indexes payments to hospitals and to schools based on increases in cost of living, so we will be, through that indexation providing money to hospitals and to schools that flow from the effect of putting a price on carbon pollution into the Consumer Price Index and the indexes we used as a basis of increasing grants.
So, no one should believe this false claim either. It just seems to me this list continues to grow - false claim after false claim. Now Mr Abbott seems to have forgotten that we index payments to hospitals, maybe there's a reason he's forgotten that, when he was Health Minister he actually cut that indexation as a way of getting a billion dollars out of the public hospital system.
JOURNALIST: These new newspaper ads from the trade and industry alliances, are they making your carbon tax selling harder?
PM: Once again I think Australians are entitled to the facts and the facts are on our side. There's been a lot of fear and a lot of scare mongering, a lot of false representations; I simply want Australians to have the facts.
I've seen those advertisements today and to take just one example of the things that are said in those advertisements, there's a claim in them that employment growth will slow because we put a price on carbon pollution. This simply isn't true. Jobs in Australia will increase by 1.6 million by 2020 with our plans to put a price on carbon pollution.
JOURNALIST: The very fact though that you've actually - you know that these business groups are teaming up together, they're booking out newspaper ads, it's got to hurt your campaign?
PM: Well I think we've got to be very clear, there are many businesses in this country that are embracing the possibilities that come from a clean energy future and have welcomed the Government's plans to put a price on carbon. There are many businesses in this country that have been anxious about investing, they simply didn't know what the rules of the game were going to be and now they know what the rules of the game are going to be because we're announced our carbon pricing plan.
And then of course there are businesses like the businesses in the steel industry and zinc that have said they are able to work with the Government's carbon pricing plan. Yes, we've seen some business organisations put advertisements in today's newspapers and as I say, just dealing with one of the claims in those advertisements, simply not true.
JOURNALIST: You've said petrol won't be included now or down the track, does that mean in particular when an ETS comes in, the Government will have to subsidise petrol?
PM: No it doesn't, it means that petrol won't be directly included in putting a price on carbon.
JOURNALIST: Does that make driving a car relatively cheaper than going (inaudible) public transport (inaudible)?
PM: Well, I think just common sense would tell us people make their public transport decisions for a whole variety of reasons like cost and convenience and getting them to where they need to go, so people will continue to make all of those decisions.
For any flow through impacts into public transport fares, of course, that's been taken into account in the assistance that we've provided to households, and let's just go through that assistance for Queensland.
Just looking at the tax cuts alone, so there are family payment increases, and pension increases, but just looking at the tax cuts alone, there are 1.9 million tax payers in Queensland, 1.6 million of them will see a tax cut and 1.3 million will get a tax cut of $300.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible)/
PM: Sorry I didn't hear that.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible)
PM: You're going to have to say that again.
JOURNALIST: Morris Iemma has said that he criticised the carbon tax, a senior Labor figure, does that disappoint you?
PM: Look, I just think Morris Iemma has called this one wrong.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, what are the hard questions News Limited has to answer?
PM: Well, look, can I say on that, as I remarked yesterday, people are seeing a very big scandal overseas, and seeing all of the reporting of that, and consequently I think it's just once again common sense, that having seen the kind of reports we've seen from the United Kingdom, that people would be asking themselves ‘could that happen here? What does this mean for us in Australia?' Very simple questions like that.
I'd also note that the CEO of News Limited in this country, John Hartigan, has actually been asking some of those questions himself. He made the point, very forcefully, that he's got no reason to believe that there's conduct of the sort that we've seen with News of the World, in this country. But, he has ordered a review, and he's asked that review to, obviously, pursue issues and questions that he thinks should be answered.
So, the CEO of News Limited asking some questions himself, it's not surprising Australians are asking themselves the question too; what does this mean for Australia? I do note that the superannuation industry is also out today asking itself some questions about what this means for corporate governance.
JOURNALIST: Going back to the issue of public transport, putting aside the compensation, they have that money to spend it on things so, petrol is exempt, public transport has a carbon tax, doesn't that make it relatively-
PM: -Well, I think we've got to get a sense of size and scale here. I mean, the less than a cent in a dollar cost of living impact, any impact that flows through to public transport fares will, obviously, be very, very, very modest and to suggest that that is going to change the cost equation between driving and catching public transport just simply isn't right.
JOURNALIST: Isn't the point of changing costs, isn't that the point of a carbon tax?
PM: But you've got to get a sense of costs and scale, I mean you're putting to me a proposition that somehow the cost equation between catching a bus, or driving a car, will change that's simply not right.
JOURNALIST: Where is the global action on climate change that you're banking on, when even the UN Security Council can't agree on whether climate change is a threat?
PM: Oh, let's go through it. 89 countries covering 80 per cent of emissions, 90 per cent of the global economy have pledged action. In our own region we are seeing China going to move to carbon pricing and emissions trading schemes in a number of its provinces. If we actually look at the business as usual case, we are aiming for a -5 per cent cut in 2020, against the year 2000 levels. But, for Australia that actually means we're aiming for a 23 per cent cut against business as usual.
China is aiming for a 22 per cent cut against business as usual. India is taxing coal. There are emissions trading schemes in American states, and President Obama's got a very ambitious target. There's an emissions trading scheme in Europe. Of course, Prime Minister Cameron in the UK has announced very ambitious goals for change.
So, the world is changing, and what that means is we are at risk of being left behind and not getting the clean energy jobs of the future. I'm determined those jobs come here.
JOURNALIST: Are you troubled by the UN Security Council's stance, or lack of stance, I guess, on climate change?
PM: I think the important thing here is to look at what countries are doing. We asked the Productivity Commission as part of all of this, to have a look around the world and see what was happening. They reported on 1000 different policies to tackle climate change, that's the degree of action that they found looking at a number of countries; 1000 different policies.
And, having looked at those 1000 different policies, what they said is the most efficient way of cutting carbon pollution is to put a price on carbon; that's the cheapest way of doing it. Well, standing here today, it appears that the Leader of the Opposition, despite back flipping earlier this week, has now back flipped again into his original position and is saying that the Opposition agrees with the Government, we should cut carbon pollution by -5 per cent in 2020.
So, we've got to ask ourselves two questions if we're going to achieve that: When do we start? And how do we do it? Well, I'm for starting early and doing it in the cheapest way possible. The Leader of the Opposition's for starting late and doing it in the most expensive way possible; which is why his plan is going to cost households $720 a year each.
JOURNALIST: Do you agree Australia needs stronger privacy laws?
PM: You would have seen today that the relevant Minster, Brendan O'Conner has said that we do need a conversation, and work done, on privacy protection. This stems from some work done a while back by the Australian Law Reform Commission on privacy. They came out with a comprehensive report, around 300 and something recommendations. We've acted on a number of them, this was another of their recommendations, and so we are seeking views on that. Of course, we want privacy, people care about privacy and so they should; they also care about freedom of the press, and so they should. So, we'll obviously be seeking views on how these two things can best work together.
JOURNALIST: Why did you not decide to face up to the coal seam gas protesters this morning in your speech?
PM: Well, land use planning issues are State Government issues, so I understand that there are communities that are concerned about coal seam gas. In terms of immediate planning decisions in local communities, they're decisions made at the State Government level. Some very big projects do come to the Federal Government, but overwhelmingly these planning decisions are taken at State Government level.
JOURNALIST: Can we -not have senate inquiries-
PM: Thank you-
JOURNALIST: -not have senate inquiries-
PM: Sorry We'll make this the last one, I didn't hear you.
JOURNALIST: The Senate Inquiry into CSG, they said that there's no Federal laws, like Federal environment laws protect plants and animals, but it doesn't protect the underground water, and that's the thing that farmers are concerned about. Are you looking to, I guess that's a loophole, do you think it is?
PM: Look, I understand people are concerned about these issues but directly on planning for where coal seam gas extraction is done, that is overwhelmingly, a matter that is dealt with by State Governments. Thanks very much.