HOST: Now the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, rang in earlier this morning requesting a spot on this show. Now, this is quite unusual, it's often very difficult to get federal ministers to come on the program, they're very busy, obviously. The Prime Minister's visiting the Gunning wind farm today, on her round the country carbon pricing sales pitch and we are very privileged to have Julia Gillard on the show.
Prime Minister, good morning.
PM: Good morning Andrea.
HOST: So has this what it's come to, ringing into local radio stations, looking for every opportunity you can get?
PM: Oh that's a fantastic thing, I said I wanted to be out and about, talking to Australians about our plans to put a price on carbon, and to cut carbon pollution, get the clean energy jobs of the future. So, in order to do that, talking to local radio stations is a great way of making sure we're touching base with communities right around the country.
HOST: Tell me what you're doing at Gunning today.
PM: Well I will be having a look at what is a major wind farm, of course, with a price on carbon, and with our major investments through entities like the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, which is going to have $10 billion in it, to invest in clean and renewable energy sources, we will see the renewable industry turbo-charged in this country. That means you and I will be able to use more renewable energy but it also means that we will attract our fair share as a nation of the clean energy jobs of the future. As the global economy moves to look at cleaner energy sources, I don't want all of the jobs associated with that huge new industry being jobs that are overseas.
HOST: This is a make or break time for renewables, like wind farm developers and your carbon pricing scheme needs to provide a certainty and security that is not being felt within the region yet. How can you sell that? Are you trying to sell the unsellable?
PM: No, a big by-product and a big reason that we've moved so hard to get a price on carbon and the full details of the scheme announced is I understand that investors want certainty. One of the clearest messages to me from the business community has been that they can't put hundreds of millions, billions of dollars on the table in long lived assets unless they understand what the underlying rules are going to be. So as we price carbon from 1 July next year, we will be saying to the business community, here are the rules of the game, it's absolutely crystal clear now, and you can get on with certainty into making these new investments.
HOST: From a regional perspective, wind farms have divided communities with possible health issues, there's been a bit of debate as you would be well aware, is there any type of inquiry underway? And, if not, would the federal government fund that type of inquiry to put minds at rest?
PM: Look, there will always be local planning issues that need to be worked through, I mean that's true whatever energy source we're using, there'd be planning issues, if people decided that they wanted to build a traditional power station as well. So I don't think we should pretend that somehow planning issues only arise when we're talking about renewable or clean energy. So, planning schemes, the work, local councils will do what they do, but around the country there are plenty of places that are perfect for clean energy investments where people want to see the clean energy development and they want to see the jobs. And I've seen those with my own eyes, obviously, I'll see a big wind farm today but I've been in Queensland, Darling Downs where I've seen a power station being supplemented by solar. We're making huge investments in Chinchilla, at Moree, to bring what, by today's standards, are the biggest solar investments in the world, to this country and I want to see more of that around the nation and that will be achieved by pricing carbon.
HOST: Some residents in regional areas have felt a little bit like lab rats. You mentioned there about planning issues, I was talking more about the health issues, and the health debate that renewables such as wind farms have brought up in the past.
PM: Look, I'm always prepared to be guided by the science. I'm guided by the science now and that's why I'm just so determined to act on climate change and to put a price on carbon pollution and to get a cut in carbon pollution by at least 160 million tonnes in 2020. So, being guided by the science on that, I'm happy to be guided by the science on all other things.
HOST: You mentioned the electricity grid there. Will there be, will there need to be, a major upgrade to electricity grids in order to cope with renewable energy implementations around regional Australia?
PM: At the last election campaign, we announced a billion dollar scheme to connect renewables to the electricity grid. Now, many sites that are actually perfect for renewable energy are very near where the electricity grid is now so there isn't a big challenge about connecting up to the grid. But, obviously, some sites are quite remote and that does mean that we have to look at the grid extension, which is why we put a billion dollars on the table at the last election to work with private industry on those necessary expansions.
HOST: Super market prices, cost of living, these are being thrown up constantly by the Opposition. Should Australians be concerned?
PM: Well there's been a lot of nonsense talked and a lot of fear induced, and I'm very determined that people have the opportunity to work this all out for themselves with the facts at their fingertips. Tony Abbott has talked about unimaginable increases in the cost of living. Well of course, the truth is that the increase in the cost of living will be less than one percent of the cost of living of the consumer price index. That is, less than a cent in a dollar and this will be in circumstances where nine out of ten households get assistance and so if we go through that, I mean people earning less than $80,000 a year, the vast majority of them will see a tax cut of around $300. If we're looking at our 1.8 million pensioner households, they'll come out $210 in front, having dealt with any of the price impacts from putting a price on carbon pollution and we've associated tax reform with this package, so that the first $20,000 that people earn will be tax free. And around a million Australians now who have to do a tax return won't have to do it anymore. So, people can get the facts for themselves on the cleanenergyfuture.gov.au website and I'd recommend people have a look, it's got an estimator so that they can see what their household is entitled to.
HOST: Australians are nervous, they're not spending their money. New figures are showing that we're hanging onto our money because we're nervous about the future and a lot of that has to do with the carbon pricing scheme that the Government has proposed. I mean, you're not likely to go to an election for another couple of years, is this going to be sold to the Australian public by the time it's implemented? Are you confident of that?
PM: Well, people will get the opportunity before they vote in the 2013 election to actually live with us having put a price on carbon. They can see what the biggest polluters are doing because now they face a price for putting carbon pollution in our atmosphere. They can see what's happening as new investments start being discussed in clean energy, they'll be able to know exactly what it means for them and their family and their household. So, people will have the opportunity to see it as a fact, rather than worry about some of the needless scares that have been out and about in the community.
HOST: Prime Minister Julia Gillard is my guest. Prime Minister, a couple of text messages here from Mark, he says can you please list the renewable energy sources that can provide base load power?
PM: Yes, I certainly can, of course, clean energy sources, there's investment in wind, in solar, in tidal, in geothermal, of course there is investment in gas too. There is a lot of work being done about using these renewable energy sources so it can provide reliable base load. I've seen, for example, the CSIRO project in Newcastle, which is all about capturing solar energy and having it available in a reliable way. I've seen geothermal, the heat that's in the earth's crust, used in Brunswick, in inner city Melbourne, to provide the heat necessary to warm a building. So these technological developments are around us. What we need, of course, is the investor money on the table, to upscale them into commercial projects and putting a price on carbon will help with that, and the complimentary measure of having $10 billion in a Clean Energy Finance Corporation will certainly push that along.
HOST: And another very straight forward question from Anton - what is carbon pollution and what is the worst outcome from it?
PM: Well, carbon pollution is the set of gases, greenhouse gases that go into our atmosphere and are causing the world to warm. Now, CO2 is one of those gases, carbon dioxide, but it's not the only one. Methane, for example, is another greenhouse gas. Now, what this does, according to the scientists, is as it goes into our atmosphere, it creates a layer which means more heat is trapped around our world and that is what is warming global temperatures. The last decade has been the hottest decade on record, and the scientists then point to all of the problems that stem from global warming including increased sea levels, which makes a difference to coastal areas including the likelihood of more extreme weather events, more droughts, more bushfires. And, consequently putting at risk some of our big icons like the Great Barrier Reef and Kakadu, as well as putting at risk prime agricultural land, like the land in the Murray Darling Basin.
HOST: And, we've had a tweet Prime Minister, saying do you agree with former Chief Minister John Stanhope that Canberra residents can sometimes be wealthy whingers who can afford to pay more? Slightly off topic but-
PM: Look, I'll let John Stanhope, for whom I've got a great deal of respect and affection, use his own words. On the carbon pricing and us cutting carbon pollution, what I do believe about Canberra residents is overwhelmingly, people believe that climate change is real. Overwhelmingly, they want to see government do something effective to address climate change and cut carbon pollution and that's exactly what I'm determined to get done.
HOST: Finally, Prime Minister, I know you're busy and you need to take off. Do you have any regrets about announcing policy so early? I'm not going to talk about the fact that you said there would not be carbon tax, and now that there is, but do you regret announcing it so early and has it left the Government open to what you may consider to be uninformed debate?
PM: Well, I'm happy to talk about the election campaign, and I certainly did say there would be no carbon tax and when I said that I mean every word of it. I spoke to people about the need for pricing carbon and for an emissions trading scheme, a scheme where you put a cap on carbon pollution. In the Parliament that Australians voted for, I confronted changed circumstances, so yes, I did change my mind. If we were going to address climate change in this Parliament, then we needed to work with the Parliament and get through a scheme to put a price on carbon. We will reach that emissions trading scheme. There will be a three year fixed period, effectively a carbon tax and then we will reach that cap and trade scheme. On the way we've gone about designing that scheme, we did need to have a period where we consulted with people, having announced the framework and if we hadn't done those consultations, we wouldn't have got, for example, the real information we needed to make sure we got arrangements for the coal industry right or arrangements for the steel industry right. So, that time was well used. Of course, a lot of fear has been generated in that time, people have been told petrol is going up six and a half cents a litre, completely wrong. People have been told that the coal industry is closing down, completely wrong. People have been told the steel industry is shutting down and towns will be wiped off the map, completely wrong. So now is the time to just go around calmly and methodically, making sure people have the facts.
HOST: Prime Minister Julia Gillard, thank you very much for joining us on the show today.
PM: Thank you.