WOOLEY: Kevin Rudd good morning to you Sir.
PM: Charles thanks for having me on the program.
WOOLEY: Can you as a supporter of the Maroons tell us how it is pronounced.
PM: MA-RONES
WOOLEY: How can it be Prime Minister?
PM: Because it is orthodox Queensland pronunciation and therefore it is true and you should know that, Charles.
WOOLEY: Yes, so ill forget what the Collins Australian dictionary tells me (inaudible) I have lost this argument several times.
PM: Was that, was that dictionary published down south?
WOOLEY: Yes undoubtedly.
PM: Therefore, what's your point?
WOOLEY: Prime Minister we all know how to pronounce Garnaut.
PM: “GAR-NOTE”
WOOLEY: Yes, “GAR-NOTE”, 600 pages, in which, as far as I now understand it, that despite all the prognostications from electricity generators about the ruin that it will cause to their industry and the down valuing of their assets. Mr Garnaut suggests that they shouldn't be given any compensation.
That's a suggestion are you likely to go along with it?
PM: Well let's see what Professor Garnaut has to say in the totality of his report. All I would say, Charles is that we have got a climate change challenge on our hands. Carbon pollution creates a problem, not just for Australia but for the planet.
It is an economic problem and environmental problem. As someone passionate about outback Australia, you would understand what's happening to the Murray Darling. So if we fail to act on climate change, we fail to act on the intensification of drought.
WOOLEY: I am not a sceptic on this. I think that we should always be informed by the best science. And the best science I read and the best scientists I talk to tell me this is happening.
PM: And that is the starting point for the Government's response as well. There is no dispute about the science, that it is happening. The practical question becomes one of, first of all, what are the economic costs of not acting as opposed to the economic costs of acting.
And then thirdly if we are going to act, therefore, what is the best course of action. Now our judgement in terms of the economic cost of action is that it is the right and responsible way to go. Otherwise the flow through costs for drought, water, river systems, irrigation, agriculture, food, tourism, through the loss of fresh water in the Kakadu, through the bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef, through what happens to the snow fields of Victoria, is huge.
And the employment consequences are huge. Emissions trading which is partly what Professor Garnaut will deal with is one part of the solution. Another part of the solution is what we do to boost the mandatory renewable energy target for Australia.
And thirdly what we do to boost energy efficiency. And this is very much our approach.
WOOLEY: How much to we need bipartisanship? Now it looked to me after the Howard Government was lost, largely, I think significantly on this issue they were sitting on their hands on climate change and all polling shows Australians care. But if Brendan Nelson is going to, well, not thrive but benefit by a few ratings points from sniping on your Government over rising petrol prices, then aren't we lost everywhere. Is it possible that fuel prices need to rise in order to encourage us to use other means of energy generation?
PM: Well you see this will involve Charles, tough decisions. But the Government is determined to make tough decisions for the long term future, the economic future as well as the future of our environment. And if you look at your kids and your grandkids and ask yourself this question: when they turn around and ask in 30, 40, 50 years time, why did the previous generation not act when the science was clear. I find it very difficult just to sit on my hands and say, ‘ah well, it was all just too hard'.
The problem I think with the Liberal Party campaign on this, this fear campaign that they have launched, is that first of all, it is a double standard because last year in July last year through the Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull they committed to first of all an emissions trading system.
Secondly including petrol. And thirdly that it should be the most comprehensive system anywhere in the world. That's what they said before the election.
WOOLEY: I think Malcolm Turnbull still believes that.
PM: Well, he has said something different since then. And Dr Nelson has certainly repudiated him. So there is a double standard involved in the Liberal Party's new position. Last year under Mr Howard they didn't really believe in it. Then suddenly they did believe in it on the eve of the election, put out a very long policy document to the effect that I just described before.
Six months after the election they are back to not believing in it because they think there is some political points to be scored on the way through. But the key thing is this, leave aside the Liberal Party's double standards underpinning their new fear campaign. Frankly, this is such a huge debate for all Australians, we have just got to get it right.
It needs to be a rational debate, a clear debate about what we can do in Australia and what we can do in partnership with the rest of the world.
WOOLEY: And just briefly as I understand it, rather than the actually madness of trying to reduce the price of petrol better to compensate people in other ways, who are suffering from the rising costs of fuel, the inevitable rising cost of fuel when we run a carbon tax across it.
PM: Well when you introduce emissions trading as Mr Howard himself said last year and Dr Nelson has said the same, and you act on climate change, that it follows that there will be an increase in energy prices and petrol prices - that follows. The question is, how do you then provide support to households on the way through to adjust. How do you provide support to businesses on the way through and help them adjust.
We intend to be very responsible, measured and consultative with the community sector and with industry on the way through. But we are absolutely determined to get the policy right for the long term. If we fail to do that, we fail the next generation and frankly given how intense the climate change effect is already being felt across Australia, we fail our own generation as well.
WOOLEY: Just finally, we are setting a very good international example here. The Howard line was of course, what's the point of doing that if the huge emitters like China and India, who might emit more in a week than we do in a couple of years if they don't go along with it.
PM: Well one of the key problems in the past is that the United States used to say that they would not act. And one of the comforts the United States as then the world's largest emitter took was that the Australian Government was apart from Kazakhstan, the only three Governments in the world to have initially signed Kyoto but then refused to ratify it.
What has happened since is that when we ratified Kyoto, is that the political debate has also changed elsewhere in the world and for reasons also alive in US domestic politics, both sides of American politics, the Republicans and Democrats have now committed themselves to significant new targets on carbon reduction and dealing with carbon pollution.
So what we got to do, we ratified Kyoto till we could be part of the global negotiation. The previous Australian government was not. We are going to work with all the major economies in the world including the United States.
And then when it comes to the new developing economies including China and India, to use those negotiations to get them to commit to courses of action in the future as well.
But you know something? The sure-fire way of getting them to do nothing is for the rest of us to sit on our hands and say, ‘you first mate'.
WOOLEY: Prime Minister just before you go I would also like to again thank you for the $10 million for the Tasmanian Devils. I have been shooting a 60 Minutes story which will be forthcoming in a few weeks and I can say the field workers, the scientists and medical specialists, the oncologists and other people from a whole lot of disciplines who have been able to come together are very appreciate of this.
PM: Of thanks for that -
WOOLEY: It didn't make huge headlines but it should have.
PM: I mean as a kid in primary school in Queensland, that place where we say Maroon, or was it “MA-RONE”?
WOOLEY: You say “MA-RONE”, I say “maroon”, let's call the whole thing off.
PM: We'll just proclaim a truce. But in primary school I used to always be taught about the Tassie Devil and when I heard in recent years that we have this huge problem, I think it is the right thing to do to get in there and help.
But I really appreciate being kept up to date with how the Tasmanian Devil conversation breeding specialist group is going at the University of Tasmania because we want them to succeed.
WOOLEY: Yes we do indeed because sadly, over this century, we in Australia have the highest species extinction rate of any place on earth.
PM: Which brings us in part back to climate change.
WOOLEY: Yes it does, it does.
PM: One of the other consequences of climate change apart from the economic and environmental consequences we discussed before was, a further reduction in biodiversity. And at the level of public health, the scientific reports indicate a move southwards in terms of the spread of tropical diseases as well.
WOOLEY: Yes it is big at the micro and the macro level isn't it. I mean you think, you mentioned retreating snow levels in the snowys', and we think about the future of the little Corroborree frog. And we should all be patriotic about our (inaudible) shouldn't we.
PM: Well in this part of the world we are blessed with enormous natural biodiversity relative to what is the case in many other countries. And therefore I believe that imposes upon us a, you know, a duty to nature as well as our duty to our fellow human beings to get the adjustment to a lower carbon economy right.
It will take tough decisions but I think, you know, I think the Australian people want us to have a responsible debate about this and I don't think they just want the usual fear driven politics.
WOOLEY: I think the polling shows that you are heading in the right direction. Prime Minister thank you very much for your time this morning.
PM: Thank you Charles.