HOST: As promised we have the Prime Minister of Australia Julia Gillard on the show this morning, unfortunately we were scheduled to have her some 10 minutes ago.
HOST: It's the rudest thing I've ever seen.
HOST: Prime Minister we're just a bit disappointed, we are all busy here at Triple M.
PM: I know you're very, very busy and I know the responsibilities, for example, on Mick Molloy's shoulders are just beyond belief, I'm really sorry I kept you waiting.
HOST: You've got your job to do Julia and I've got mine, ok?
PM: That's true Mick.
HOST: Julia just while we're on the topic there we'll play a bit of what we thought was just out of control on Friday from Alan Jones up in Sydney.
HOST: It's 7:21, The Prime Minister Julia Gillard is in the studio in Canberra. Prime Minister, good morning.
PM: Good morning, Alan.
HOST: Prime Minister, look, can I just make a minor point? I've got my job to do, you've got your job to do. Your people rang here yesterday. It was agreed this interview would take place at 7:10. We accommodated that and cancelled someone who was to be here who'd made very significant personal arrangements as well. 7:10 is 7:10, isn't it?
PM: Well, I'm sorry about that, Alan, but I've been delayed on another interview.
HOST: Yes, but I mean, this is what your staff, we have made many requests
HOST: And on it went.
HOST: And it just gets worse.
HOST: What were you thinking when that was going on?
PM: Oh look, I was thinking this is Alan Jones, and I was thinking despite incoming I'm going to get out there and argue for carbon pricing, so it was almost the interview I was expecting to have, possibly a little bit more exaggerated than my expectations but Alan's got his view of the world and that's fine, but I do think when you're on the radio and you're being interviewed you should be able to get your point across, and people can leave their editorialising and what they want to say about politics separately to that. Unfortunately Alan decided to run the whole lot in together.
HOST: Alright, well Julia let's get down to the tin-tacs that we want to speak about, and that is the carbon tax. Now last week, the announcement sort of misfired, and there was a big criticism of Kevin Rudd that he couldn't sell his stories and that was part of the reason why everything went upside-down back 12 months ago. Can you tell us today was is, what are you trying to achieve here and how will it affect Australians by getting this carbon tax across, how much money's going to come out of our pockets?
PM: Right. What I'm trying to achieve is less carbon pollution, to do that we've got to price carbon, that sends a price signal to our industries, to our businesses that they can make more profit if they find a way to cut the amount of pollution they generate. So at the moment they can pollute with carbon pollution for free, if you send them a price signal they they'll stop and they'll think about it and they'll say ‘how can we do this better, how can we do it differently, how can we reduce carbon pollution?'
Because we are going to price carbon, that does mean that it will flow through to things that people do buy, we will assist households, particularly low income households and middle income households - you know, you'd expect the assistance package to be generous and fair from a Labor Government - so you will get assistance but it does mean when you go to the shops you'll see that some things have got more expensive because they've got more carbon pollution associated with their making and you'll be able to choose to buy things that have less pollution associated with their making. So as a consumer too, you can make a difference.
HOST: Prime Minister I don't trust anyone to do with the energy business to not use this as an opportunity to jack the price up, we see electricity prices going up, we see petrol prices going up. One of the things that I think the electorate can't understand is in a resource rich Australia where we've got uranium, we've got coal, we've got all these natural resources, we've got hydro, why is it that our energy costs are going through the roof?
PM: Well the cold hard truth Eddie is whatever we do, electricity prices are going to go up. With electricity prices at the moment, we are seeing big rises, there's been a lot of under-investment in electricity generation and distribution, that underinvestment is coming home to roost and that does mean that people are facing rising prices. And a big problem with getting the investment into electricity that we need is uncertainty about carbon pricing, because they don't know what's going to happen next, they don't want to put the billions and billions of dollars in that it costs to generate and distribute more electricity. So carbon pricing will give them the certainty that they need to invest.
So you're really looking at two scenarios for the future: electricity prices are going to rise under any scenario, with pricing carbon we'll be making a difference for the environment and we will be providing households with assistance whereas if we just let things run, prices will go up and people won't get any assistance and we won't reduce the amount of carbon we're generating.
HOST: We had Tony Abbott on this morning Prime Minister and he said that this is just showing the Labor Government is now effectively the Greens, they're headed down that path, his solution was to simply just grow more trees, is this a real defining moment I suppose for you and your Prime Ministership?
PM: It's a very important moment and I'm determined to get this done. I want us to have a clean energy economy for the future, the world is moving and we can't afford to get left behind and I know the Leader of the Opposition's going to do the usual scare campaign routine, but the reality is we can't fix carbon pollution by measures like planting more trees, we have to price carbon and that's why I'm going to get on with the job of doing it.
I expect Tony Abbott will be out there trying to frighten people, and I'm just going to meet that fear campaign with reason, and Australians are confident people, they're smart people, people who'll think about, people who'll work it through, and I think people will also look to our past and say ‘gee we've done some tough things before', we've reduced tariffs and everybody said ‘oh there'll be no more jobs in Australia, no more manufacturing in Australia', and here I am, I'm in South Australia today going out to launch the new Holden Cruze. So we've done tough economic reforms in the past and we've won through, we'll get this one right and we'll be a more prosperous economy because we've got it right.
HOST: In regards to a fear campaign, the Opposition are already claiming petrol's going to go up 6 cents a litre, can you confirm that that's the case, can you confirm that petrol will actually be a part of your carbon tax?
PM: We haven't announced the price yet, so no one can tell you what price effects are going to be, so anybody who is wandering around with a figure like that is just making it up. We will announce the price, we'll announce the assistance to households which people should expect to see as generous assistance, and we haven't announced yet what sectors of the economy this will apply to. So the decision about petrol hasn't been made yet.
HOST: Thanks Prime Minister and a beautiful photo of you locking lips with Barry Hall in the Herald Sun this morning.
HOST: Can I just ask is your left leg rising from the knee, like a movie kiss, we can't quite see in that photo?
PM: Well because he's so, no this is really embarrassing, because he's so much taller than I am I've kinda gotta get a boost on one leg or I can get up as high as I need to.
HOST: She's actually on Wayne Swan's shoulders there.
HOST: Thanks Prime Minister we'll have to get Tony Liberatore to make a comeback for you.
PM: Thank you.
HOST: Prime Minister of Australia Julia Gillard there on the carbon tax on Triple M's Hot Breakfast.