SAMANTHA ARMYTAGE:
Prime Minister, good morning to you.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning, Sam.
SAMANTHA ARMYTAGE:
Now, you will be introducing legislation first thing to repeal the carbon tax. You don’t have Opposition support, though, so how will you tackle that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, Bill Shorten does actually want to repeal the carbon tax. He was overruled apparently by his Shadow Cabinet because the Labor Party and the Greens are still in denial about the election result. If people want to see their household bills reduced by $550 on average, if they want to see power bills down by $200, gas bills down by $70, they’ll want to see the carbon tax gone and that’s why in the end I think that ‘Electricity Bill’ Shorten will roll over. He doesn’t want to be just a carbon copy of Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd. He wants to be someone who listens to the electorate rather than thumb his nose at them.
DAVID KOCH:
Yesterday he was saying or telling us on Sunrise that he understands your mandate but he wants to know what other options you bring? Will you replace it with an ETS? What sort of climate change initiatives will you have to replace it? Will you have any or just forget it and move on?
PRIME MINISTER:
Kochie, we’ll have the policy that we took to the election and that’s our Direct Action policy for more trees, for better soils and for smarter technology. That’s the smart way to get emissions down, not an emissions trading scheme which under the former government’s own figures was not actually going to achieve our five per cent emissions reduction target.
DAVID KOCH:
Ok, so you’ve set that target which is good. Another issue of contention is our debt ceiling. Joe Hockey’s been talking a lot about that. You’re looking at legislation to up it to $500 billion which isn’t a lot in the overall scheme of things. The Opposition won’t support that.
PRIME MINISTER:
Kochie, Labor has left us with a shocking legacy of debt and this legislation that Joe Hockey will introduce today is about dealing with Labor’s debt legacy. When he was Treasurer back at Budget time, Wayne Swan admitted that because of Labor’s spending spree debt was going to go through the existing limit in December. On the 12th of December, Australia will be in breach, unless we get this legislation passed and now it seems that Bill Shorten and his cohorts want to act like the Tea Party in Washington and bring on some kind of crisis for our country. Well, they should accept that they got things wrong, they mucked things up and they should allow this legislation to deal with Labor’s debt legacy to pass through the Parliament.
SAMANTHA ARMYTAGE:
Ok look we’ve heard a lot, Mr Abbott, about turning back the boats. The Opposition says you’re not stopping them, you’re hiding them. What do you say to that? And are you in talks with Indonesia about an asylum seeker swap?
PRIME MINISTER:
Sam, we certainly are in the process of stopping the boats. In the first two months of this government, illegal arrivals by boat were down 75 per cent on the last two months of the former government. In October, illegal arrivals by boat were down 90 per cent on the peak month for arrivals in July. So, things are improving all the time. What we’re not doing is offering a daily commentary on boats which is just a gift to people smugglers because our task is to stop the boats, not just to pander to people who are trying to promote conflict and tension between Australia and Indonesia.
DAVID KOCH:
Yep. Let’s get on to the future of the Parliament – first full day, if you like, mainly a ceremonial day yesterday. But the name-calling continues. Like, even in this interview you refer to Bill Shorten as, you know, ‘Electricity Bill’ Shorten. Tony Burke referred to Bronwyn Bishop as the wicked witch out of Harry Potter. Australians are a bit sort of sick and tired of this. Do you reckon it’s time for both sides to stop calling each other names and being a bit schoolboy-ish?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, Kochie, if Bill Shorten is to accept the election verdict and not oppose the carbon tax repeal bill, I’m happy to stop calling him ‘Electricity’ Bill but to, I suppose, dub someone ironically ‘Electricity Bill’ is hardly the worst form of abuse that any politician could engage in.
DAVID KOCH:
But it’s that whole name-calling which escalates, it did in the last Parliament. Do we really need it to continue into this one?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well as I said, what we are doing, what we are doing, Kochie, is we are purposefully and carefully implementing the policies that we took to the election and the difference between this Parliament and the last one, is that almost as soon as the Labor Party got re-elected they started breaking the policies and the promises that they took to the election.
DAVID KOCH:
Not really talking about names, there. Just quickly, will you leave superannuation alone? News stories saying 46 per cent of Australians don’t understand their super because the rules change all the time. Just leave it alone?
PRIME MINISTER:
Exactly. No unexpected adverse changes to superannuation.
DAVID KOCH:
Excellent.
SAMANTHA ARMYTAGE:
Mr Abbott, we’re out of time. We were going to ask you about Clive Palmer and whether you’ve had the chance to meet with him but I imagine you’re probably glad we’re out of time. We won’t ask you about that.
PRIME MINISTER:
We’ll deal with that at the next interview, hey?
DAVID KOCH:
Ok. And what the girls are doing, too.
SAMANTHA ARMYTAGE:
Your girls.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yeah, well, I’d like to know what they’re up to as well! They tend not to tell me!
SAMANTHA ARMYTAGE:
While you’re away in Canberra I bet they’re having parties at Kirribilli House! Thanks, Prime Minister.