GEOFF HUTCHISON: Prime Minister welcome to WA, why haven’t you been to see us in the last six months?
PRIME MINISTER: Oh lots of work to do, a very busy Parliament getting a lot of stuff through. As you know, in the last six months, we’ve got more contentious legislation through the Senate than we had done in the previous three years, and some of that has been vitally important for Western Australia, particularly the restoration of the rule of law to the construction sector which is so important here in this state.
GEOFF HUTCHISON: West Australians have felt a little left out Prime Minister. You come to us at certain times of the year, we don’t see you for long periods after that, but the last time –
PRIME MINISTER: I have a very long association with this state. You may not recall but I think we’ve discussed it in the past that I’ve established businesses here. In fact, in 1995 a company I started won the West Australian Software Exporter of the Year Award, so I’ve been participating in the enterprise and the energy and the export-led industries of West Australia for much of my life.
GEOFF HUTCHISON: How is that business going now? Do you still own it, or is it still…?
PRIME MINISTER: No, it’s all – it was a digital audio recording technology business. No, I don’t have any interest in it any longer. But look, let me talk about exports, because I’m going down to Henderson today with Colin Barnett and we’re announcing that we are going to invest, in addition to the $2.4 billion we’re putting into defence infrastructure in the state over the next decade, we’re going to be investing another $100 million in addition to support additional facilities at Henderson, to enable it to build more ships, to export more. That will enable them to create more jobs. As you know, very shortly, the construction of the Pacific Patrol Boats will be started by Austal. That’s the contract, for 21 on them, the contract that we’ve given Austal. By 2020 the construction of the Offshore Patrol Vessel, much larger vessels, will be undertaken at Henderson. So we see the Defence Industry Plan and Western Australia’s role in it as being absolutely vital to creating the jobs of the 21st century here and of course right around Australia. Indeed, it provides a diversity to the economy. It’s important – and I know this has been a key focus of Colin’s – to ensure that Western Australia has many strings to its bow in terms of its economy, industry and job creation.
GEOFF HUTCHISON: If we’re talking today, to some extent, about Federal Government largesse and investment in things that matter, Mark McGowan wants to redirect Federal Government funds earmarked for the Roe 8 project to help him build his METRONET public transport system. Will you allow him to do that?
PRIME MINISTER: Well it’s not his money. Let’s be quite clear about this - the Perth Freight Link project is one of the top priority projects assessed very carefully by Infrastructure Australia. It’s been fully costed. It’s been engineered. It’s ready to go, contracts have been let, okay? So you see, talking about jobs, if you want jobs, there is a project that’s ready to go. We’ve committed $1.2 billion. Now if Mr McGowan becomes Premier and he tears up that contract, first he’ll have to write a cheque out to pay for the people, you know, that have entered into the construction contracts that he’s cancelling. Then if he wants federal money for another project, well, he will have to make a case for it. The METRONET project has no business plan. It’s never been assessed by Infrastructure Australia. It will, in any proper process, take years before you could even assess it, let alone determine how much it was going to be granted. This is classic, reckless mismanagement, Labor populism. Colin Barnett has a project that has been regarded as a priority for a long time. It’s been carefully assessed. It’s ready to go. The contracts are signed and the money is there. McGowan’s wants to tear that up.
GEOFF HUTCHISON: You also know Prime Minister that there are plenty of people who argue that the project has not been a priority for a long time, that there are question marks of course about where the road finishes, the amount of money came from Tony Abbott when in 2013 I think?
PRIME MINISTER: No, hang on let me just be clear. It is an Infrastructure Australia priority project. If you go to Infrastructure Australia’s website, you’ll see.
GEOFF HUTCHISON: Yeah.
PRIME MINISTER: It has been assessed, it is a priority project. So what you just said there about it not being a priority, is not correct. It is.
GEOFF HUTCHISON: But similar things too, about business plans and the business case for the project. There’s been a real fight over years to try and get the detail. It’s always been very light on detail. So you talk about METRONET as being –
PRIME MINISTER: Hang on, I disagree with that. You know Geoff, you can’t compare the two. You’ve got, the Freight Link project has been designed. The project has been around for a long time. It’s been carefully assessed by Infrastructure Australia and it’s a priority project. Its vitally important to get all of those thousands of trucks off the suburban roads. It’s vitally important to improve the connectivity to your port. So that’s why it’s a priority.
Now all we’re saying is the money is there, the project is ready, the contracts are signed. The jobs are ready to start. Why not get on with it? Why does Mark McGowan want to tear up that project, pay hundreds of millions of dollars in damages, create no jobs?
GEOFF HUTCHISON: Well for the reason, the reason you understand too, they think it’s a bad project. They think the contract shouldn’t have been signed in the first place, so they are being left, from their point of view, they’re being left with a debt that they shouldn’t have to deal with. But look let me just go to what you’re saying about METRONET. I’ve had Mark McGowan and Ben Wyatt in this studio, and I’ve said: “Look what if this money is not forthcoming? You can’t make assumptions that this money will suddenly be forthcoming from the Federal Government because you don’t like Roe 8.” Now you have also, in the past, expressed your great interest in things like rail-based public transport infrastructure.
PRIME MINISTER: Yes, I do. We do need Geoff, more mass transit, more rail in our cities. There’s no question about that. And I have to say I think some of the urban rail in Western Australia has been very successful. The line down to Mandurah which I’ve often caught for example, I think is a great example of the way they’ve integrated the freeway and the –
GEOFF HUTCHISON: So for political purposes, are you saying the METRONET, the whole thing gets pushed way off into the distance as a little message which says: “Don’t trust Labor on METRONET because it won’t be built.”
PRIME MINISTER: No I’m not saying that. Geoff that’s what you’re saying. That’s what maybe you’d like me to say. This what I’m saying. We have a project that is ready to go, the Freight Link. Right? It’s a priority project. It’s a road project, that’s true, but it’s an important priority project that’s ready to go.
Mr McGowan wants to do another rail project, METRONET. He has got no business case. He hasn’t got a plan. He hasn’t had it assessed. Now even if it is the best idea in the world, even if it’s a fantastic idea, it will take years before it gets through all of those hoops and government can responsibly allocate the funds and get work started. So what I would say to those people who favour METRONET, I would say: “Get on with Freight Link”. Build that. Do your work on METRONET, that’ll take you a few years and then when it’s ready, seek to secure the funding for it. But you know, basically what he’s got with METRONET is just a press release. This is where you and others in the media should hold him to account. Because you’ve got on the one hand a developed, ready to go contracted project in Freight Link. On the other hand, you’ve got a press release. Now it may eventually evolve into something very good. I’m not saying it won’t but it’s not something that you can just switch to, like jumping –
GEOFF HUTCHISON: Sure. Do you also acknowledge though Prime Minister, that when you talk about how advanced everything has been with the Freight Link, how many battles there have been along the way with what happens with the next stage. You say it’s all planned and it’s all ready to go. Well, if you were living in this state you would know that over the last few years we’ve had endless discussions about: “Well we’ll have a tunnel. No we won’t, we won’t do a tunnel, we might do this. We might do that.”
I mean of course politically you would say that the Freight Link is there, ready to go and METRONET is just an idea on a piece of paper. But there are certain similarities to both these arguments.
PRIME MINISTER: I don’t think so. The issue with Perth Freight Link as I understand it is the last three kilometers. The answer to that is that this road, this upgrade has been done in stages. I mean that’s why it’s called Roe 8 obviously, because it’s, you know, all but the last stage. So –
GEOFF HUTCHISON: Do you know about the stage to actually get that, those trucks to the port?
PRIME MINISTER: This is the final few kilometers, yes. Well that clearly –
GEOFF HUTCHISON: But that matters most, some would say.
PRIME MINISTER: Well it’s as with any bit of linear infrastructure, I mean it all matters. But as with all of these projects it’s built in stages. Now this is the piece that is ready to be built now. It will take thousands of trucks off suburban roads. It will save lives. It will reduce congestion and the proposition that there is going to be further stage that would need to be built … that’s fair, people can make that point but that is something to be done in the future, you know, when the State Government is ready to do that. But that doesn’t detract from the value of the work that is able to be started now.
So that’s my point. Again, it’s not for me to give advice to politicians in Western Australia but if I was a Western Australian voter, and I liked the idea of more mass transit in the city, I would be saying: “Well look, let’s get on and build the Freight Link. Let’s do that.” Do your homework on METRONET, work it all up and then, you know, when it’s all been properly examined and you’ve got your business case, then work out how you get the funding. And there’s many ways you can fund mass transit projects. We’re very focused on doing, for example, a City Deal with Perth you know, having an innovative approach to financing.
The problem with METRONET, as I said, it’s not much beyond a press release at the moment. That’s the problem with it.
GEOFF HUTCHISON: Malcolm Turnbull the Prime Minister of Australia is my guest this morning. Last time you were here Mr Turnbull you pledged to set a percentage floor below which no states GST receipts would fall. It earned you applause at the State Liberal conference. Can you tell us what you’ve done to make that pledge real?
PRIME MINISTER: Yes, what I said then is that clearly you want to set the floor at a time when no state will be a loser. So we need to get, we need to wait – and I said this at the time - you need to wait a few years until the Western Australian share under the current formula climbs back up to what you might call a more normal level. Its forecast, or it was forecast at the time I should say, by 2019/2020 to get around 70 per cent as I recall. Now what I’ve said, what you would do then, is with agreement with the other states, is set a floor so that nobody loses at the time you set it. Because clearly I can’t as Prime Minister, support one state against the opposition of all the others. We’ve got to bring them together.
Now I have raised this with the states, I’ve written to the states. We’ve discussed it in COAG and you know, I think while everyone argues for their own turf obviously and their own share, you’d have to be pretty unreasonable not to recognise that the Western Australian share is very low. I mean 30 per cent which is what Western Australia has got now, is very low. We have created - my Government, the Coalition Government – has created in effect, a 37 per cent share because we have added out of federal funds an additional $500 million in each of the last two years. So we’ve certainly done that, now if you look on the other side – because elections are about choices – Mr McGowan complains about GST. He has a federal leader who slams me every time I talk about putting a floor in. He slams me every time I talk about the inequity that Western Australia is getting because he is more interested in votes in Eastern Australia than he is over here.
GEOFF HUTCHISON: A couple of people have asked, a couple of listeners have asked some questions that I’d like to put to you.
PRIME MINISTER: Sure.
GEOFF HUTCHISON: The question is: “Things that you say today, that you never used to say before,” primarily they relate to climate change or the future of renewables. The Saturday Paper reported that you’ve got an array of solar panels at your place.
PRIME MINISTER: Yes, that’s true and I have a battery as well.
GEOFF HUTCHISON: Capable of generating 14.5 kilowatts of electricity, three times as much electricity as consumed by the average home?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, it’s a large array yep.
GEOFF HUTCHISON: It’s a big one.
PRIME MINISTER: It is a large array, yes. Let me be very clear about this, I believe that climate change is a threat that we have to deal with. I believe that we have to reduce our emissions. I believe that we need to ensure that we use all technologies to generate energy. We need to ensure our energy is affordable, it’s reliable and we meet our emissions targets. What we have to do is take the ideology out of the energy debate. We’ve got to be objective about it and I have always been objective about it.
GEOFF HUTCHISON: You did have your front benchers the other day passing around a piece of coal in Parliament, so again -
PRIME MINISTER: I wouldn’t substitute the sometimes, theatrics of Question Time –
GEOFF HUTCHISON: But why endorse clean coal the way in which you are endorsing clean coal, when it looks as if you are disparaging the renewable sector? When personally, we know that you embrace the idea of it.
PRIME MINISTER: No Geoff, I never disparaged the renewables sector. You see this is where, with great respect, journalists sometimes hear what they want to hear rather than what people are saying. Now when I spoke at the Press Club, I made the point of the significance, the importance of renewables. I made the point about how the cost of renewables is actually coming down, the cost per watt for solar panels is a fraction of what it was ten years ago. However, the issue with variable renewables, by which I mean principally solar and wind, is that they’re not, they don’t generate electricity all the time. Obviously when it’s a cloudy day, or it’s raining or it’s night, you get nothing from solar. When the wind isn’t blowing you don’t get anything from wind power. So that’s why you need to have a plan. You need to have storage.
Now I’m the first – so far as I’m aware – political leader in Australia to talk about the importance of storage. The importance for example, of pumped hydro, the importance of batteries. We’ve got to get more storage into our grid to support variable renewables. We’ve also got to ensure that gas is more available and affordable. That’s less of an issue here, a big issue on the East Coast where there have been all these bans on gas exploration, which I’m sure you’re aware of. Because gas as a backup is a good peaking fuel, backup fuel. But it’s very expensive and three times the cost it is in the US for example.
As far as carbon capture and storage is concerned, that has been a goal of both Labor and Liberal Governments for many years, and if you can –whether you’re burning coal or gas – and you can capture the CO2 and sequester it, whether it’s in the ground or in some other form, that of course is being done, I mean the Gorgon project is doing it by the way, so that’s a big part of Gorgon here in Western Australia. If you do that of course, then you’ve got a low emission technology.
So my answer on the technology question is to tick all of the above. It’s not a question of belief, saying: “Do you believe in renewables?” It’s like saying do you believe in tables? I mean renewables are there, they’re doing well. They’ve got certain characteristics and you’ve got to design your grid to take account of that.
GEOFF HUTCHISON: Last question. You may have heard Donald Trump last night, have a listen to this.
[Voice recording plays]
PRESIDENT TRUMP:
Here’s the bottom line. We’ve got to keep our country safe. You look at what’s happening in Germany. You look at what’s happening last night in Sweden. Sweden! Who would believe this, Sweden! They took in large numbers, they’re having problems like they never thought possible.
[Voice recording ceases]
GEOFF HUTCHISON: Malcolm Turnbull, Dave asks the question, it’s in three parts: ‘Do you think Mr Trump is a) mad as a stabbed rat; b) a genius or c) simply bloody dangerous?’
PRIME MINISTER: [Laughs] Well thanks Dave. I make a practice of not commenting on American politics and I’ll leave that to you and your esteemed commentators to do that. I’ll just focus on leading Australia.
GEOFF HUTCHISON: And the Department of Foreign Affairs, have they heard anything happening in Sweden last night that we need to know about?
PRIME MINISTER: Well look I’ve seen the reports but really, you know, from my point of view – and I know it’s a fascinating time in American politics – but from my point of view as Australia’s Prime Minister, my job is to defend our national interest, to make the case where we need to make a case to the US. We do so privately and frankly and publically I am circumspect about commenting on politics in other countries.
GEOFF HUTCHISON: Prime Minister thank you for your time this morning.
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks so much.