HOST: Prime Minister good morning.
PM: Good morning Deborah.
HOST: So battled hardened or battle weary?
PM: I'm made of pretty tough stuff.
HOST: The question of onshore processing is now the biggest question I guess facing the Government, you're hostile to the idea yourself, it was proven through the debate and everything that proceeded it, the reality though now is that you've arrived at a position dictated by the High Court and backed by a lot of good people in the community. So do you now face the position of making onshore processing work as a principle priority of the Government?
PM: Deborah I think there are a lot of good people in the Australian community, in fact I think the Australian community right throughout our nation is filled with decency and compassion, we are a compassionate nation which over the ages has settled a lot of genuine refugees in this country and we have seen them prosper. My view is that we should be implementing the arrangement with Malaysia, it would send the maximum deterrence message, it would be the greatest blow that we could land on people smugglers and it would be the greatest deterrence to stop people risking their lives at sea and getting on leaky boats and unfortunately in recent years we've seen more than 400 people lose their lives trying to get to Australia by boat.
So I remain determined that we should implement the arrangement with Malaysia. Of course in this Parliament we have seen Tony Abbott chose his political interest over the national interest and he has acted to wreck offshore processing. That means we are making appropriate arrangements for onshore processing and we will continue to do that. We are at real risk Deborah of seeing more boats, and the person responsible for that will be Tony Abbott.
As we see those more boats I think it's very important in terms of the reaction of the Australian community and the very good people that make up the Australian community, that we separate the problem of seeing more boats arrive, and it is a problem, from our views of the people on the boats, many of whom are genuine refugees fleeing circumstances like torture and genocide.
HOST: Now because most of them in fact do end up being granted asylum in Australia and many people applauded the High Court's decision to call, to try and call time on what has been deeply politicised area of policy. Are we, I don't know how you de-politicise this area of policy now, but is that now something that both you and the Opposition have wound up in the situation where that's the reality, it would be better if it were de-politicised, but it's still trying to be political underneath?
PM: Deborah my view about this area of policy has always been that it's important to get the facts on the table and work through those facts in designing policies. I've never been someone who's wanted to go with the overblown rhetoric about how many people arrive by boat, it's Mr Abbott who has used terminology like armada of boats and peaceful invasion, not me. And I've been keen to get to the Australian people that facts about the risks people run losing their lives at sea, the facts about how people smugglers try and profit off this human misery, and the facts about what would create the biggest deterrence effect and what would put the biggest blow we can on people smugglers and that's this innovative arrangement with Malaysia, where we have worked with the Malaysian Government, we would take more refugees from Malaysia, people who have waited literally for years for an appropriate resettlement opportunity, but we would transfer to Malaysia people who have arrived here unauthorised, to send a message: don't get on that leaky boat, to smash the people smugglers business model.
Now I remain committed to that, but in this Parliament it is absolutely clear that Mr Abbott will continue to play to what he thinks is his political interest, even though he supports offshore processing he is determined to end offshore processing to play politics with this.
So in these circumstances we will make appropriate arrangements so that we are of course keeping our borders strong and secure and we are also doing what we need to do to protect genuine refugees who deserve our compassion.
HOST: It's interesting though Prime Minister because trying to pin this on the Opposition is going to be very difficult, to the extent that voters will lock on to it in a couple of years time when they come to vote, it'll probably be interpreted as a Government responsibility that went wrong. I don't know how you think you can pin it on the Opposition when you're the Prime Minister.
PM: Well I think people are entitled to the facts and people will judge those facts Deborah and that's absolutely appropriate, that's what our democracy is all about, and the facts are these, we designed this arrangement with Malaysia, the High Court then spoke about the migration law in this country and took a different view from the view that had been taken in the past. We then went to the Parliament and said here are amendments to put executive government back in the position everyone believed it was before the High Court case, we didn't ask Mr Abbott at any stage to endorse the Government's policy of having an arrangement with Malaysia, we never asked him to do that. What we did ask him to do was to support amendments to the Migration Act which would enable this Government and future governments to make appropriate choices about offshore processing, indeed Mr Abbott says as he hollers stop the boats, that what he would do if he was Prime Minister is have processing in Nauru. Well in order to do that he needs an amendment to the migration law and our amendment would have enabled a future government if there was ever such a government, to make that kind of policy choice.
So Mr Abbott has actually come to the Parliament and said he won't vote in favour of amendments which would enable him, if he was ever Prime Minister, to do what he has said he believes is the best thing to do. I mean how crassly political and destructive can you get, and that is Mr Abbott's track record. I believe Australians are entitled to know that.
HOST: Now the hostility between the two of you is there for all to see, on full display in Parliament and at it sort of spread to the galleries this week, you were shouted down during the debate by the public gallery, there was some very foul mouthed insults against you personally broadcast on the TV a couple of nights ago. Now it's robust and that's expected, but has it gone over the top between the two of you and then that's set something off in the community that's really quite unsettling to watch?
PM: Well my approach Deborah is to be out there talking to Australians about the facts, and to be out there as Prime Minister working through the big issues that we need to resolve to shape our nation's future. We've had a long debate about carbon pricing, it hasn't been an easy debate, at times it's been a rancorous debate, but we need to shape our future, to cut carbon pollution and to seize clean energy jobs. So I've been out there talking to community about the best and cheapest way to do that and that's putting a price on carbon. We've seen on the other side of politics Mr Abbott calling for a peoples' revolt, we've seen very overblown claims about our democracy, I mean claims that are just really very silly when you hold them up to the light. My view will always be as Prime Minister that my job is to act in the national interest, my job is to face up to the tough decisions, my job is to go out and explain those decisions to the Australian community and the community will decide in the 2013 election on all of that.
HOST: Now the manufacturing industry is obviously feeling the pressure, grocery prices it's said in research today, will more or less stay where they are at supermarkets because the feeling obviously among the supermarkets is that they can make food manufacturers hold those costs in their realm rather than passing them on to consumers.
Now that will come as no comfort whatsoever to manufacturers who are deeply worried and of course it is a wider concern that Australian food and grocery suppliers might be caught in this when food security is an issue worldwide.
PM: Well Deborah let's just once get the facts on the table here. We have as part of our clean energy future package and putting a price on carbon, an investment of more than $1 billion to work with manufacturing for a clean technology future. We've particularly got an investment of $150 million for food processing, it's a very important industry. We do expect to see some flow through costs from putting a price on carbon, and let's just remember it is the biggest polluters in our country that are paying this price, but we do expect to see some flow through, it is 0.7 per cent of CPI, that's less than a cent in a dollar, and that is why we are providing tax cuts and increases in the pension and increases in family payments.
HOST: Now you promised at the outset a decision and delivery year this year, and we all remember the good government had lost its way, reasoning behind your challenge to Mr Rudd. Now this week also yielded perhaps one of the pictures of the year, some have called it the Judas kiss, you and Mr Rudd embracing each other in the Parliament. Now exactly what is the score between the two of you at the moment, was that a genuine kiss from his side of the equation?
PM: Deborah I mean what a load of old silliness that people are going on with. The Labor Party has been committed to pricing carbon for a long period of time, it's been a hard debate, when Kevin was Prime Minister her pursued this hard debate with the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, as Prime Minister I have pursued this debate. This week we saw the legislation go through the House of Representatives, we saw that legislation then going to make its way through to the Senate, it is going to be passed. After more than a decade of debate, after all of us being out there advocating the need to put a price on carbon, to cut carbon pollution, all of us out there talking about the science, about global warming, about how our planet is warming and the dangerous impacts that could have for our country, you would expect Labor members to mark the moment and that's the only thing that happened.
HOST: Now Mr Rudd will obviously be front and centre in a month or so when President Obama comes and he's going to be addressing Parliament. The US has long seen Australia as its principal friend in this region and obviously you've got a great deal of attention now focused on China, but I'm interested in Indonesia. The national interest there is frequently derailed by the behaviour of Australians on holiday or in transit and I'm wondering whether or not it's Indonesia, policy with Indonesia, that is the most unsettled, the most tremulous at the moment?
PM: I don't agree with that analysis at all Deborah. We have a strong partnership with Indonesia, we will be working with Indonesia as we have the East Asia Summit, so you just referred to President Obama's visit, President Obama will come from the APEC meeting in Honolulu which I will also attend which will focus on trade and economic matters, he will come and visit Australia and then he and I will go to the East Asia Summit in Indonesia, chaired by the President of Indonesia, the first time that a US President has attended that summit. It is a very important event where we will work on strengthening relationships in our region and getting round a table and talking through the economic agenda, through issues associated with the security agenda, through development questions, disaster management questions and the like. Our relationship with Indonesia is a very strong partnership and I'm looking forward to working directly with the President at that East Asia Summit.
HOST: Prime Minister thank you very much for taking the time this morning to speak to us.
PM: Thank you Deborah.