HOST: Julia Gillard joins me now. Prime Minister, good morning to you.
PM: Good morning.
HOST: Are you going to be fresh for your meeting with the President, given that you were kept up all last night with fireworks?
PM: Look, I am doing alright, but you're right, it was Territory Day in Darwin yesterday and Darwin is one of the few places in the country this you can get out and celebrate with firecrackers. So people took the opportunity, that's for sure.
HOST: These are your people down there, they were breaking the law because it they were supposed to stop setting them off at 11 o'clock and I was told they were setting them off until about 3 in the morning.
PM: I certainly hard some going off at 2:30 this morning, so yes, it was well after 11.
HOST: Alright, let's talk carbon tax. As you would be aware the Coalition are running a range of hoardings around the country saying they will definitely reverse the carbon tax.
They are also running television advertisements which focus on what they say is your lie; not on your watch and yet we have a carbon tax. Do you know regret having ever said that?
PM: I've fully explained why I said those words during the election campaign and when I said them I meant every one. But I have always supported our nation putting a price on carbon, so that we do the right thing by our environment, tackle climate change and lock in prosperity for the future.
I have wanted us to have an emissions trading scheme. So, in fact, did Prime Minister Howard in the 2007 election and Tony Abbott in that election and we are going to get to that emissions trading scheme through having this fixed price on carbon, this carbon tax for the first three years.
So we will lock in our prosperity, we will do the right thing for the environment and millions of Australians around the nation this week will see tax cuts. 7 million of them.
And pensioners have already seen an increase and so have people who have families and get family payments. And those increases will continue for the future.
HOST: I just can't help but think that you must regret having said that because those words have come back again and again and again to haunt you, haven't they?
PM: Ultimately, you have got to make a decision about what is right for our nation and what is right for our nation is to start cutting carbon pollution.
That is what putting a price on carbon is all about. That is why it's the right thing to do.
And businesses, and some of them are in today's newspapers, are already out there talking about the benefits of carbon pricing and a clean energy future. Global giants like GE, banks like Westpac, talking about the opportunities that this gives our nation.
HOST: The thing is, though, Prime Minister, you have got to take people with you in politics. Do you really think you have? If you look at the polls, people don't like this tax, but more importantly, perhaps, very few people think this will have any impact on the environment at all.
PM: Well now Australians get their own chance to judge, not based on what the politicians are telling them, but based on their own lives and their own experiences.
Already people will see that the fear campaign that the coal industry is going to close is false. That the claims that a Sunday roast is going to cost you $100. That that claim is false.
Already those myths that have been pedalled for more than the last 12 months have been shown to be untrue. When people get their pay packet this week, 7 million Australians will see more money in it.
HOST: Which in a funny sort of way highlights the fact that it probably won't make any difference to the environment at all because the only people who will have to pay money for using carbon are the people that can afford to. So there's no real, I mean there's going to be no real benefit.
PM: No, that's completely untrue and a direct misunderstanding of the scheme. It has never been individuals who are going to pay the carbon price.
It is our biggest businesses that generate the most carbon pollution who pay the carbon price. So in terms of reducing-
HOST: But that's obviously not true Prime Minister or you wouldn't be giving people-
PM: Let me explain that because I think it is very important that everyone understands the fundamentals of this scheme. Big businesses that generate a lot of carbon pollution pay the carbon price.
Because they pay the carbon price, they will find ways of reducing their carbon pollution. And because we put a price on carbon, we will see, for example in 2020, 160 million less tons of carbon pollution going into our atmosphere.
Now, some of those businesses do seek to pass through some of that extra cost. That is going to change our cost of living by less than a cent in a dollar and that is why we are helping families through tax cuts, pension increases and family payments.
HOST: I want to move onto the asylum seekers, but just, it annoys me, it is so disingenuous to say that it's only big business paying for it. Because big business pays for nothing. They're charged for things and then they - that is how business works. They have a cost of doing their business which they pass on to their consumers which is why you're handing out money to people to help compensate them for it.
But as I say, we need to talk about asylum seekers.
PM: It's only big businesses that directly pay the carbon price.
Some of that cost will be passed on, and that's why we're doing things like giving 7 million Australians a tax cut, and why we are taking the opportunity to reform our tax system by increasing the tax free threshold from are $6,000 to 18,200, which means you can earn that amount of money and not give the taxman a cent.
HOST: It's also why the poor sorry taxpayer is having to prop up some of these big businesses that are using a huge amount of fossil fuel, isn't it? They are being propped up to the tune of about 94%. Isn't that right?
PM: Well it's not individual taxpayers who are doing that, not at all.
HOST: No, collectively we are doing that.
PM: No, it is not collectively individuals who are doing it. The big businesses that pay the carbon price, that money is being used to help families in the way that I have described. It's also is being used to assist businesses that are trade exposed and that need to change the way that they work so that they have a clean energy future.
So that assistance is not coming out of your pocket or anybody else's pocket. It is coming out of the carbon price paid by big businesses.
HOST: Alright Prime Minister, just very quickly, I know we are running out of time. You are meeting the Indonesian President today and tomorrow. Do you think a solution will start to come out of that meeting with regard to asylum seekers?
PM: Our relationship with Indonesia is an important one for our country and it's a very broad one.
So I will be talking to the President of Indonesia over today and tomorrow about our economic links, which are ever-growing, about our people-to-people links, about our joint strategic interests in the region in which we live.
Of course we will also be talking about the evil trade of people smuggling. But to find a path through here requires the Opposition and the Greens to actually move a millimetre.
I have been prepared to compromise in this debate, to get a solution. We did that last week in the Parliament and sadly, neither the Leader of the Opposition nor the Australian Greens, were prepared to move one millimetre.
Now, they need to consider the cost of that kind of negativity.
HOST: Prime Minister, thank you very much for joining us this morning. I appreciate it.
PM: Thank you.