HOST: Julia Gillard, good morning to you.
PM: Good morning Lisa,
HOST: Now, Prime Minister a lot of people are pointing out this morning that if the tax is designed to get people using green energy why are you over compensating so many households, aren't we supposed to feel the pain of the tax so that we can reduce our carbon emissions?
PM: The essence of this Lisa is actually the price signal to the big polluters, so around 500 big polluters who are going to pay the price and we want those big polluters to change their behaviour and to do things in a cleaner way and create less carbon pollution as they work.
As for households, of course we are providing tax cuts and increases in payments to households. Many people will want to do their bit, make greener choices, cleaner choices, that's a great thing. What that means is for almost six million households they'll have the amount of money they need to fully assist them with the flow through of the carbon price. If they want to make a greener choice then they can save some money as well.
HOST: Now you acknowledged last night that this conversation on a carbon tax has been going on since 2007, so why do you think that after four years so many Australians are still completely confused by it?
PM: I think it's my job to keep explaining it and at its core it really is quite simple. At its core we at the moment as a nation put carbon pollution into our atmosphere for nothing. A big polluter can just keep chucking it up into the skies and not pay anything. The core of this is those big polluters will pay a price. They're smart business people, when a bill comes in for carbon pollution they'll say ‘How can I reduce that bill? How can I change my processes so I generate less carbon pollution?'. If people understand that, then they understand the real driver in this package that cuts carbon pollution.
HOST: OK, well Tony Abbott pointed out yesterday one example of a single mum, one child, a single income on $60,000 a year, so budget is tight. She's not going to be better off, she's going to be paying more. What do you say to people like her?
PM: Well in that example, yes there is a slight cost, it's less than a dollar a week and what I would say to Australians generally is we have made sure in providing assistance to households that we've reformed our tax system.
A million tax payers will no longer have to pay tax, they'll no longer have to do tax returns with all the inconvenience and shuffling through receipts that means at the end of the tax year. For almost six million households they will come out effectively square. Our four million lowest income households will come out slightly better off, with a buffer because their budgets are tight. Yes, there are around three million households who are not fully compensated, of those 80 per cent get something and for all of them the impact is quite modest, we're talking about 0.5 per cent of their income as a difference. We're asking them to do their bit to combat climate change.
JOURNALIST: Alright, well we asked viewers yesterday after both of your broadcasts if they had any questions for you so let's go through some of those now. Phillip Brown wants you to clarify your statement last night that quote “Australians want this carbon tax”. Now the most recent poll by the Lowy Institute said it was only supported by 41 per cent of voters?
PM: Well, overwhelmingly Australians believe climate change is real. Overwhelmingly they believe that it's caused by carbon pollution that humans generate and overwhelmingly they want the Government to act, then it's up to me, up to the Government as the nation's leaders, to work out what's the best way to act. We've opted for the cheapest way of cutting carbon pollution. The economists tell us putting a price on carbon is the cheapest way to cut carbon pollution, that's why we've designed the scheme the way we have.
JOURNALIST: Alright, well Matt Teasedale asked ‘Why don't you call an election so that voters can decide on this policy, which would effectively give you the mandate that most decisions of this size would require?'
PM: The nation has been talking about this for years. Another female leader, I made this point yesterday, Margaret Thatcher, she was the Prime Minister of Britain a long time ago, she was warning the world about climate change and carbon pollution.
John Howard as Prime Minister decided to put a price on carbon pollution. We've got to get this done and by the time people vote at the next election they'll know what this means for them and their families because they will be living with the new system in operation, they'll be able to see big polluters paying the price, they'll be able to see the tax cuts and payment increases that their family is getting. So people will be able in the 2013 election to vote with actual knowledge of what it means to address climate change and tackle carbon pollution.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister I'm sure you won't be surprised to know that a lot of the questions that viewers were asking were very much shaded with the whole issue of you going to the last election saying that there would be no carbon tax under a government you lead and this one from Alice Gorman is along those lines, she says why should she trust your word or your figures on this carbon tax or that your figures won't go up given past performances on the pink batts debacle or the BER cost blow out.
PM: Look I'm very happy to answer that and they're all very legitimate questions. In terms of the modelling what it will cost, the 0.7 per cent impact on the cost of living, those figures are generated by our Treasury experts. They're the same people who modelled the impact of the GST which of course was a bigger price impact and they got it right, so that's where the figures come from. In terms of the implementation of the scheme, we will be saying to 500, around 500 big polluters, you've got to pay the price of your carbon pollution and then the tax cuts and the changes in family payments will flow.
JOURNALIST: Well, Prime Minister you've obviously got a very busy day and a lot of shoe leather to wear out. Just quickly, are you gambling your Prime Ministership on getting this ahead for voters, voters really supporting it?
PM: Look the thing that's driving me is getting a clean energy future for this country. People will talk about the politics and the political commentators will go through all of that. What this is about is this nation creating a clean energy future for itself. We generate more carbon pollution per person than any other developed nation on earth. We've got a long race to run to create a clean energy future. It's time to start, we've got to get this done, I'm determined to do it - that's what's driving me and that's what will be driving me to wear out some shoe leather as I explain that to the Australian people.
JOURNALIST: Okay very quickly, are you going to clear out a space for Lady Gaga on A Current Affair tonight?
PM: Well, you never know! I suspect I'm going to be a little bit busy, but I also understand that for many people in Australia today, they'll be thinking about pricing carbon but they'll be thinking about Lady Gaga too.
JOURNALIST: We wouldn't want to think about what her carbon footprint is but Prime Minister we do thank you very much for your time this morning.
PM: Thank you.