PRIME MINISTER:
Ladies and gentlemen, I've called this news conference this morning to announce that the Commonwealth has decided to withdraw from the sale of the Snowy Hydro. We will no longer have our 13 per cent share on offer in connection with the sale by the New South Wales and Victorian Governments of their shares.
The reason why we have decided to withdraw is a combination of two things. Firstly, it has never been a policy commitment or an election commitment of the Commonwealth Government to sell its 13 per cent share in the company. The only reason that we decided to sell our 13 per cent share was in consequence of the unilateral decision of the New South Wales Government to sell its 58 per cent, followed by the decision of the Victorian Government to sell its share. And together those two Governments hold 87 per cent.
It was never something that we regarded as a long term policy objective, but we felt at the time that it would make sense to add our 13 per cent so that there would be a sale of all of the shares. But there is, for whatever combination of reasons, there is overwhelming feeling in the community that the Snowy is an icon. It's part of the great saga of post-World War II development in Australia. It conjures many stories of tens of thousands of European migrants coming and blending with each other, and in the process of working on the Snowy becoming part of this country and people feel that. And I have listened to that and it is important that on occasions, a government have both the courage and the willingness to change its mind on something.
I'm not somebody who backs down in relation to things that I really care about and I will never compromise my commitment to things that I regard as important public policy for the future of this country and I will always ignore transient opinion polls on those issues, but it has never been part of my master plan in public policy to sell the Snowy and quite frankly, the feeling within my own party has grown very strongly.
Gary Nairn, the Special Minister of State and the Member for Eden-Monaro, where the headquarters of the Snowy, of course is located at Cooma, Gary has been crucial in persuading me and the senior members of the Government that we should take this decision. As a Minister he has quite correctly put his point of view, expressed the concerns of his constituents and argued the case for a revision of the Government's position in the counsels of the Ministry and to me personally. That's his duty as a Minister but I nonetheless thank him for that and he's withstood, without public comment, an enormous amount of attack and criticism within his own electorate on this and I thank him for the way in which he has conducted himself. There have been other Members of course, that in varying ways have expressed their concern.
The decision to sell has created a lot of unhappiness in the Australian community right across the political spectrum. I am not such a zealot about privatisation that you sell everything under the sun irrespective of the circumstances. There are good policy reasons for the sale of Telstra. And as you know, we've withstood all sorts of criticism on that front. There are, as well, but these aren't the central reasons for the decision, there are a number of outstanding Snowy Water Licence issues which are creating uncertainty and affect the interests of the environment, farmers, irrigators and all of those who depend on the health of the Murray Darling Basin. And those issues, if the New South Wales and Victorian Governments go ahead with their sales, and there's no indication they won't, then those issues will need to be resolved to the satisfaction of the Commonwealth in the not too distant future.
I want to make it clear in making this announcement that the Government has absolutely no intention of buying the shares of the New South Wales and Victorian Governments in the Snowy. Some people will now say 'as you're not selling your 13 per cent, will you buy out the New South Wales and Victorian Governments?' ANew South Wales er: no. We won't buy out the New South Wales and Victorian Governments. It's for them now to decide what they do. We only hold 13 per cent.
I repeat that the decision of the New South Wales Government was a unilateral one at the end of the last year. It was not one on which was made conditional on our selling our 13 per cent, and we have decided, for the reasons I've outlined, and let me say to the Australian public we do listen, and where there is a strong expression of concern about something and where there is contemporaneously no strong public policy reason why Government attitudes should be maintained, then there is a case for being willing, as we have done on this occasion, to change our position. And that is why we have decided to act as I have announced.
JOURNALIST:
Do you think the New South Wales decision was sensible in the first place at the time?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Michelle I can't unsay what was said at the time by either New South Wales or the Commonwealth. We went along with the decision. We made a decision to sell the 13 per cent.
JOURNALIST:
But did you think it was sensible, that New South Wales was acting sensibly?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't know that it was given at the time an enormous amount of consideration.
JOURNALIST:
Do you acknowledge that your decision is a direct response to backbench rebellion?
PRIME MINISTER:
It's a response to public concern. The reason we are changing our position on this is that the public is unhappy with the sale of the Snowy and there is no good public policy reason from our point of view why the sale should go ahead. I mean, if there were some huge policy gain in selling the Snowy we would have maintained our position, but there's not. And if the public is unhappy and there is no benefit for the nation, why wouldn't we be willing to change our position?
JOURNALIST:
The public was unhappy with selling Telstra. What's the difference?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there's a big difference. There's a long term public benefit. It's the major telecommunications company in the nation and it has been our policy for each election. It was our policy in 1996, it was our policy in 1998, it was our policy in 2001, it was our policy in 2004. The Snowy has never been an election commitment. The sale of the Snowy was not part of our election policy. I've never campaigned around the country and argued the case for the sale of the Snowy. I don't think I've ever made a speech on it except to aNew South Wales er questions in relation to our decision to follow the decision of the New South Wales Government. So there's absolutely no comparison. The public will not see any comparison between the sale of Telstra and the sale of the Snowy and to suggest there is is ludicrous.
JOURNALIST:
What do you do with that 13 per cent? Senator Heffernan for one said the Commonwealth would need a much bigger slice of the pie to be effective in its ownership?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we will simply hold on to it. We're not going to buy more.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, given that the Commonwealth holds only 13 per cent, what is the practical effect of this sale that demonstrates it's beyond a token gesture?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it's a total gesture because the only share of the company in respect of which we can make a gesture is the share we own. I mean, I don't know how you can call it a token gesture. It's all we own and what I'm saying is we're not going to sell what we own. What others do with what they own they can decide.
JOURNALIST:
But do you think they should now also withdraw it?
PRIME MINISTER:
That is a matter for them. I'm not giving them any advice. They made their decisions, certainly in the case of New South Wales, without consulting us. The New South Wales decision was a unilateral decision. They did not say to us 'will you join us if we sell?' they said we're going to sell. We don't really care what you do. Now what we are doing as a result of the clear public opposition and because this has never been our policy, it's never been seen by me as a huge public policy objective. I mean have you ever heard me make passionate speeches about selling our 13 per cent in Snowy? You've heard me make passionate speeches about the sale of Telstra and about industrial relations reform and about tax reform and about welfare reform and about foreign policy. I defy anybody to find a passionate speech I've made about this issue in those circumstances as it is not a strong public policy priority. I believe there is enormous merit in listening to the concerns of the public, and the public right across the board is feeling very strongly about this issue. Now some commentators may say that's illogical. I never ignore what the Australian public says. I don't always respond because if I think there's a good public policy reason, a national interest, in resisting majority opinion I will do so, but where there is clearly no national interest, there's no passionate policy commitment by the Government, why should the views of the Australian public be ignored?
JOURNALIST:
Will the Commonwealth have to pay any sort of compensation to the investment bankers and to the other shareholders for the, I mean this will require the prospectus to be completely re-written.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there could be some but that would be in the overall scheme of things, quite small.
JOURNALIST:
What's the status now of the foreign ownership package that your Government outlined this week?
PRIME MINISTER:
I haven't given detailed thought to that but would imagine, Greg, that those things will still go ahead.
JOURNALIST:
Does this have any implications for the New South Wales election, would you be criticising State Governments now in that election?
PRIME MINISTER:
Does this have any implication to the New South Wales election? I don't know, that is a matter for New South Wales .
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister Howard have you informed Premiers Iemma and...
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, he was... well Senator Minchin informed his two counterparts, Senator Minchin is the action Minister, he rang them this morning.
JOURNALIST:
If the States do go ahead and sell their share, would it still be feasible to have a part-Government, part-private owned Snowy?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes. We've got a part-private, part-Government ownership of Telstra.
JOURNALIST:
Yes but you've said that's unworkable.
JOURNALIST:
That was half pregnant, will the Snowy be 13 per cent pregnant?
PRIME MINISTER:
Greg, that doesn't alter the substance of this issue, the substance of this issue and you know it, is that this has never been an important policy goal of the Government. It hasn't ever been an important policy goal of the Government and why in those circumstances, if I don't believe there's a strong national benefit in selling our 13 per cent and there's enormous public opposition to it, expressed through my colleagues, why on earth, in the scheme of things we should go ahead with it, it escapes me, and that is the essence of the situation. If it were Telstra or IR reform, different matter, I mean those things really matter to me and they are important to the future of the country.
JOURNALIST:
Obviously this wasn't an icon to you though.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Michelle I have been surprised by the level of public disquiet. It's turned out to be much greater than I expected. Just please, it's been much greater than I expected and I don't mind admitting that. What is the point of denying the obvious? The obvious is that the public feeling about this is much greater than many people believed at the beginning, although people like Gary began to articulate their concerns and perhaps it's because of his special position as the Federal Member for the area and in that sense people like Gary have been ahead of the game, but I have been impressed, surprised by the depth of public feeling but the important thing I would say to the Australian public is that given there is no strong public policy gain in going ahead, I am willing to take on board and to listen and to respond to the concerns that they have expressed.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Nairn, was your seat in danger if the sale went ahead?
GARY NAIRN:
As the Prime Minister said, I've been listening to my constituents. In the first instance, this was not privatisation by the Australian Government, it was the privatisation by the New South Wales Government and as a minister I accepted the decision that Cabinet made initially to put up the 13 per cent but from that point I have been listening very carefully to my electorate. The scheme is important, and I am as passionate about it as anybody. I was educated by surveyors who came from overseas and worked on the Snowy, I've owned a house on Lake Eucumbene for 25 years and still do. So I was as close to it as anyone.
PRIME MINISTER:
Sounds like a good weekend.
GARY NAIRN:
And I have been listening to people and I have been talking very closely with Nick Minchin and my colleagues, all my other colleagues, backbench colleagues, I have certainly been talking to them and getting feedback from them and from around the country as well, that's the background to it.
JOURNALIST:
So were your people telling you that they would vote against you if they sale went ahead.
GARY NAIRN:
You always get people that will say on all sorts of issues you know if you don't support this I will vote against you, I mean that is part and parcel of being a Member of Parliament, that's part and parcel of being a marginal seat holder I guess too. But I have been listening very carefully to the detail of it and the widespread view, not only right across my electorate, but right around Australia.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister...
PRIME MINISTER:
Can we have someone who hasn't asked a question?
JOURNALIST:
Yes, that's me. Prime Minister the National...
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh Sam I am sorry.
JOURNALIST:
The National Senate Leader Ron Boswell has called for discussion of a joint Senate ticket in Queensland, that's something some in the Liberal Party would support as well, what's your view of that, would that be a way to heal the rifts of the last week?
PRIME MINISTER:
That would be an organisational matter and I don't intend to go into it, except to say this, that the most important thing to occur in Queensland is for the two parties there to work in a very close coalition and obviously if they can reduce to zero the number of seats where there are three-cornered contests that would be very good, that's their first priority. My understanding is that there are only four seats in Queensland where there is potentially a three-cornered contest. Now if they can eliminate those and have the same policies and a united coalition, they can do as well over the longer term in Queensland as we have done federally and they can get together very effectively. As for that other issue, well that's an organisational matter further down the track and it really doesn't bear and shouldn't be seen as some kind of cross trade for what the parties have got to do Queensland. One more question.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister could I get your reaction to the announced redundancies, 43 redundancies at Beaconsfield?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that is a matter for the company and a matter for the workforce, I would expect all of the entitlements to be paid. I understand that the company is seeking voluntary redundancies and I imagine that quite a number of the workers would respond. I understand that the redundancy package has been beefed up and so far as the Commonwealth Government is concerned we are providing, which we often do in these situations, some additional help in relation to people seeking alternative jobs and there is the $8 million community fund. I hear that the Federal Secretary of the Australian Workers' Union rather sneeringly dismissed that and he talked about the tea party. I think the only person who's been playing politics on this issue since the miners were rescued, and I stress, since the miners were rescued, is Bill Shorten. The Federal Government has avoided party politics, we've given proper credit to the role of the Australian Workers' Union in the rescue of the men, as was their due. Now that they are happily out, situation normal, as far as the union is concerned and nothing the Federal Government does has any merit at all. Well I think that sort of petty politicking is, I think, unfortunate, but that's his decision. Okay, thank you.
[ends]