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STEVE AUSTIN:
Good morning to you, Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER:
`Morning, Steve.
STEVE AUSTIN:
Your man Bill Glasson has been getting support of a number of high level Cabinet figures. People don’t usually like to align themselves with a loser. Does this indicate that your polling looks good for Saturday for Mr Glasson?
PRIME MINISTER:
What it indicates, Steve, is that Bill Glasson is an absolutely outstanding candidate. He’s a terrific human being, he’s lived in the area most of his life, he’s a community doctor, he’s done a lot of work with indigenous people out in western Queensland as well as a lot of work with AusAID in places like East Timor. I got to know him very well when I was the health minister and he was the president of the Australian Medical Association and we worked very well together – along with state health ministers, including Labor state health ministers – to solve the medical indemnity crisis which back in late 2003 was paralysing public hospitals right around Australia. [inaudible] and a great Australian and if you’re looking for an outstanding person to represent you in the Parliament you can’t go past Bill Glasson.
STEVE AUSTIN:
At a forum last night the independent candidate, Travis Windsor, said that when Mr Glasson was heading the AMA he damaged the health system and that you and he did not like each other. Let me just play this briefly.
TRAVIS WINDSOR:
Almost singlehandedly destroyed the health system when he controlled the all-powerful doctors’ union. Tony Abbott and him hated each other at the time, by the way.
STEVE AUSTIN:
Is it true? Did you have a tense relationship with Bill Glasson?
And I’d say that’s a major line dropout. We’ll see if we can get the Prime Minister back on the line.
[Break in audio]
Mobile phone problems as always.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, Steve, I think the problem was what that particular individual was saying which was just loopy.
STEVE AUSTIN:
Did you have a tense relationship with Bill Glasson when he had the AMA and you were health minister?
PRIME MINISTER:
Absolutely not and the gentleman in question has no basis for saying it. It’s a completely wacky statement and it’s utterly untrue.
STEVE AUSTIN:
Bill Glasson is on record as saying he’ll argue in caucus should he be elected for the Liberal Party to stop taking political donations from tobacco companies. I think Australian Electoral Commission shows that you still are. Why are you taking money still from tobacco companies when you know that they’re a damage to your health?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, we’re not.
STEVE AUSTIN:
You’re definitely not?
PRIME MINISTER:
We’re not taking any donations. Yes, there were some donations in the last reporting period, but I declared some months ago, prior to the election, that we wouldn’t be taking any further donations from tobacco companies.
STEVE AUSTIN:
Thanks for clarifying that for me. At the forum last night in the inner city suburb of West End, Terri Butler – the ALP’s candidate for Griffith – said that you were planning to bring in the GP, or lift, I’m sorry, the Medicare co-payment or the GP co-payment after the by-election through the Commission of Audit process. Let me just play you briefly what she said:
TERRI BUTLER:
When Tony Abbott tries to give the impression that the GP tax is not under active consideration by pushing back the Commission of Audit so that you don’t know what other cuts are expecting until after the by-election to hide the fact that the Commission of Audit – a real, non-hypothetical Commission of Audit – is actively considering the GP tax idea.
STEVE AUSTIN:
Can I get you to answer that, Prime Minister? Are you actively considering it?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, we’re not – nothing has been proposed and nothing is being considered. Now, this is just part of Labor’s scare campaign. They have nothing positive to say. It’s all a big scare. It is, frankly, embarrassing that the only thing Labor can say for itself in this by-election campaign is to peddle a whole lot of complete furphies about the Coalition and the Government and even Labor people are getting sick of this as was revealed by Paul Howes’ speech at the National Press Club yesterday.
STEVE AUSTIN:
My guest is Prime Minister Tony Abbott. Prime Minister, can you give any comfort to Queensland farmers this morning? We heard from Barnaby Joyce on Monday that he was apparently going to go to Cabinet and seek a lot of money to assist farmers. Joe Hockey pretty well scotched that idea, I think. Is there anything you can do for farmers who in some places like Cloncurry here in Queensland that have not had any decent rains for two years and many don’t think they can hold out till the first of July when drought relief funding and debt restructuring packages change.
PRIME MINISTER:
Steve, this is a very serious issue and Barnaby is right to be very concerned about it and it is good that he’s been touring some of the drought affected areas to talk to local farmers. Yes, there is a new package of drought assistance coming and what we’re looking at is bringing that forward because the problem is now and it does need to be dealt with now. So, we are not just sitting on our hands waiting till the first of July. We know there’s an issue and we are looking at bringing that new system of relief forward.
STEVE AUSTIN:
Forward to what date? Can you tell me?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, as soon as possible because the problem is now.
STEVE AUSTIN:
Yes, so you mean in the next week, in the next couple of weeks, next month?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, that’s what I’m getting advice on because the new system will essentially involve giving drought-stricken farmers much greater access to income support and that’s what we’re looking at. Now, we’re looking at the logistics, the legal framework surrounding it. The new system was agreed by the Commonwealth and all of the states early last year, as I recollect. It was supposed to start on 1st of July. Well, let’s bring it forward.
STEVE AUSTIN:
My guest is Prime Minister, Tony Abbott. I think farmers will be glad to hear that. Let me ask you about the ALP. You mentioned Paul Howes, the AWU leader who appeared at the National Press Club luncheon yesterday. He, to sort of encapsulate his words, he seems to want an end to the sort of that fight or the bloodshed over workplace entitlements. Do you have an olive branch that you can, you know, reach out to him and say “look, we will talk to you about perhaps a new wages accord”, something that the Hawke/ Keating government was quite famous for? Does Tony Abbott see himself as someone who would like to do something similar as Prime Minister?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I’m certainly on a unity ticket with Paul Howes and against Bill Shorten when it comes to stamping out corruption in the workplace and we’ve seen very credible allegations from former union officials about organised crime, about protection rackets and so on in the construction industry. We’ve seen very serious and credible claims about slush funds in a whole host of unions; the Health Services Union and going back a bit, Paul Howes’ own union. So, I’m on an absolute unity ticket with Paul Howes on this and…
STEVE AUSTIN:
But I asked you about workplace entitlements, which is what he wants to end the fighting and the battle over workplace entitlements. Can you give him anything?
PRIME MINISTER:
And the point I’ve consistently made, Steve, is that I want our workers to be the best paid in the world, but if we’re going to be the best paid in the world we’ve got to be amongst the most productive in the world and again, this was another point that Paul Howes was making: we’ve got to boost productivity. Now, again, Paul Howes and Bill Shorten are absolutely at daggers drawn here, because as someone said over the weekend, Bill Shorten is running a protection racket for a protection racket.
STEVE AUSTIN:
I’ll move on. My guest is Australia’s Prime Minister. Before I let you go to your next event, Queensland’s largest power generator here, Stanwell, has mothballed its biggest gas-fired power station and will return to a coal facility built in the ‘80s. It’s warning the electricity market is too expensive because of policies like the carbon tax and solar rooftop subsidies. Does the closure of a huge operation like that prompt you to rethink Australia’s renewable energy targets? Do you think that those targets are distorting the market and pricing out some companies?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, what we’ve got to do is get rid of the carbon tax pronto and again, if my opponent was more interested in helping people and less interested in playing politics, the Labor Party would get out of the way and let the carbon tax be repealed.
STEVE AUSTIN:
Would you rethink the renewable energy targets, though?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, we’ve got a renewable energy target review coming up soon and what it will be looking at, amongst other things, is the impact of the RET on peoples’ power prices. Now, plainly there is an impact and we want to moderate and reduce that impact and that’s what the review will be looking at, but Australia, Steve, has an abundance of coal, we have an abundance of gas. We should be the affordable energy capital of the world, but instead, as this particular company has pointed out, we are becoming amongst the most expensive energy countries in the world and that’s wrong and it’s going to do everyone – our companies, our workers, our consumers, every household – is going to be worse off if we don’t get power prices down and that means get rid of the carbon tax and get rid of it now.
STEVE AUSTIN:
I’d have to say to that at the Griffith Candidates Forum last night in West End, there was significant concern about the continued use of coal and some said if we invest to much in it we’ll find ourselves way behind the rest of the world, lumped with an energy source that no one wants to buy and we’ll be stuck with it.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I’m not sure that you can say that no one wants to buy coal because Australia’s coal exports have absolutely soared. The world consumption of coal has gone through the roof over the last couple of decades and in large measure that’s because of the enormous increase in prosperity in places like China and India, which is fuelled by coal and coal-produced electricity. So, there’s got to be a place for coal, but we want it to be as efficiently burned as possible and we want it to not have its price inflated by things like the carbon tax.
STEVE AUSTIN:
Prime Minister, I’ll let you get back to your day in Brisbane. Thanks very much.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you so much, Steve.
[ends]