ALAN JONES:
Prime Minister, good morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning, Alan.
ALAN JONES:
You’re on the line from Canberra. The Lodge is being renovated. Where did you sleep last night?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I was at the police college which is where I’ve been for the last eight weeks or so. They’re quite hospitable, the students at the police college, and at 5:30 in the morning if I’m in the gym, they’re there in numbers and they’re always very friendly.
ALAN JONES:
How long are you going to be there for?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, as long as The Lodge is under repair. Now, I’m told they need to do quite a lot of work. There’s asbestos, I gather, in the roof. There’s wiring, there’s plumbing. Basically, the place hasn’t really had any major renovations or repairs since it was put up in the 1920s. So, it will probably be at least twelve months, Alan.
ALAN JONES:
Now, good news today of course. There’s been local heavy falls along the coast and they’re forecasting more so you won’t have to put the fire fighter’s uniform on.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, it was very soggy in Sydney yesterday morning. It was raining in Canberra overnight. So, yes, a reprieve for the fire fighters, but Alan, it’s the old story, you only need a couple of weeks of hot dry weather and the bushfires start again and that’s part of the Sydney summer.
ALAN JONES:
And you’ll continue to do that?
PRIME MINISTER:
I will, because as I once said to a colleague who thought I came into a Cabinet meeting smelling like a barbecue after a night with the brigade, I said you’ve got to be a human being before you can be a Cabinet Minister and I think you’ve got to be a human being before you can be a Prime Minister as well.
ALAN JONES:
Good on you. Well Parliament resumes tomorrow with all its pomp and splendour. You will enter it for the first time as Prime Minister. How will it function or how are you hoping it will function under you as Prime Minister and Bronwyn Bishop as Speaker?
PRIME MINISTER:
Alan, thanks for mentioning Bronwyn, because I think Bronwyn will be a very, very good Speaker. She loves the Parliament. She served in the Senate and in the House of Representatives. She understands the standing orders, but most of all, she understands that, in the end, the Parliament is bigger than any of its members and all of its members are there to serve the people, not to grandstand, not to big note themselves, not to think l'état, c'est moi. None of us should be allowed to get away with that and I think Bronwyn has the guts and the authority to sit down people who are abusing the Parliament, whether that’s the Prime Minister or the Treasurer or a senior minister or the Leader of the Opposition. I think Bronwyn will act as a Speaker without fear or favour.
ALAN JONES:
You’ve already decided I understand as Cabinet reports today that Australia will not be signing up to any new contributions, taxes or charges which might be discussed or agreed to at this climate change conference in Warsaw?
PRIME MINISTER:
One of the things that’s on the agenda is a climate finance fund and we’re not going to be making any contributions to that. We’re attempting to scale back the increase in our overseas aid commitments and that’s why we won’t be making new commitments in this area. We’re scaling back our commitments and as you and your listeners also know, Alan, we don’t believe that carbon taxes – whether they’re floating taxes or fixed taxes – are the way forward. We do want to get emissions down, but we want to get emissions down taking sensible steps that will plant more trees, improve our soils and use smarter technology and indeed doing this kind of thing well before a carbon tax came into being, Australian businesses have reduced their emissions intensity by some 50 per cent over the last two decades. So, we think that’s the sensible way forward.
ALAN JONES:
You’ve talked about this Warsaw business involving spending money and levying taxes as ‘socialism masquerading as environmentalism’.
PRIME MINISTER:
And that’s what we’re not going to be part of, Alan. We absolutely won’t be part of that. The carbon tax – which the former government put in place – was socialism masquerading as environmentalism. It was a great big new tax, a great big new bureaucracy, a great big new fund and that’s why it needs to go and the point that I hope the Parliament will be making this week is that we want to get rid of the carbon tax. The only people who want to keep the carbon tax are the Labor Party and the Greens. I think the Labor Party will come to its senses because, in the end, the Labor Party wants to govern, not…
ALAN JONES:
My understanding is that Shorten was rolled on Friday on this issue; that he was arguing that the government, your government, should be allowed to repeal the tax, but that the Party itself. Of course, he got the leadership with the left’s support, he’s most probably compromised before the Parliament is assembled, surely?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, let’s wait and see. I thought he was dancing around this a bit on one of the interviews he gave yesterday, but the point I’ll be making, Alan, is that the people voted on the carbon tax. They voted to reject it. This week, the Parliament will get its chance and I’ll be saying when I introduce the carbon tax repeal bill: this is my bill to reduce your bills; this is my bill to reduce everyone else’s bills; this is my bill to reduce the bill that you and your listeners pay, Alan, every time your power bill comes through.
ALAN JONES:
These leaks unleashed by the disgruntled US National Security Agency contractor, Edward Snowden. Do they have the potential to sour the relationship that you established with Indonesia when you visited Jakarta on your first overseas trip? I mean, it is true isn’t it that governments tend to feign outrage in such situations. Indonesia wouldn’t have been under no illusion about Australia listening to its communications, but is there a bit of tension there now that wasn’t there a couple of weeks ago?
PRIME MINISTER:
Alan, look, I think the Indonesians are realists. I think they know that every government gathers information from all sorts of sources. Every government does – always has, always will – but our point is that we don’t comment on intelligence matters. We don’t comment on ours, they don’t comment on theirs and the point is that whatever we do, it’s designed to build up our relationships with our friends and neighbours, countries like Indonesia. So, look, you may well get a bit of hyperventilating in the press, hyperventilating on both sides of this particular issue, but I think that our relationship with Indonesia is good and getting better all the time.
ALAN JONES:
There were headlines at the weekend that Indonesia had drawn a line through your turn back the boats policy; senior ministers saying that Jakarta had no obligation to take back asylum seekers picked up at sea unless lives were at risk and so those 60 asylum seekers have gone, have they, to Christmas Island?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, they’ll be in Manus and Nauru very, very quickly, because we’ve now got a 48 hour turnaround policy. If anyone does get to Christmas Island illegally by boat, within 48 hours those people are in Manus or Nauru. So, they’re not going to end up in Australia. But the point is, Alan, that these people were in a search and rescue situation in the Indonesian search and rescue zone. Now, the normal international law is that if you are rescued in a country’s search and rescue zone, that country has an obligation to take you. You can go to the nearest port and the nearest port is normally the port that is in the country whose search and rescue zone you’ve been picked up in. Now, we have good and improving relations with Indonesia on this and I wouldn’t want to make too much of what did or didn’t happen on Friday. We will continue to do our job to uphold the ordinary law of the sea and I think other countries will do theirs.
ALAN JONES:
Yes, I should say for the benefit of our listeners. In the 54 days that the government’s Operation Sovereign Borders up until last Friday and in that 54 days, 561 people arrived illegally by boat. In the previous 54 days, 2,399 turned up under Labor’s policies and in the same period last year, 4,181 arrived. So, boat arrivals are down, costs to taxpayers are down – hardly the disarray the ABC and the Fairfax media would present. Prime Minister, are you going to CHOGM? Senator Lee Rhiannon was detained by immigration officials as you know in Colombo. She was on a fact-finding visit and I noticed that people such as Stephen Harper and indeed the Indian Prime Minister have said they’re not going – concerns there over human rights. Will you be going?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, I will Alan, because I respect the Commonwealth and I want Australia to be a good participant in the Commonwealth. I want us to be a good international citizen generally, but I certainly don’t want us to trash one of the very long-standing and important bodies that we are a senior member of. So, I’ll be going to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Sri Lanka. The other point that is quite important is that Sri Lanka has been a source of illegal arrivals by boat, but the Sri Lankan Government is very committed to stopping the boats. It readily takes back people who have come to Australia illegally by boat from Sri Lanka and if a country is cooperating fully and effectively with Australia, it seems right and proper to maintain the best possible relations with them.
ALAN JONES:
There is talk nonetheless about human rights abuses being so serious some saying that CHOGM should be scrapped; talk of massive illegal land confiscation by the armed forces, people being jailed and detained with regular disregard for legal rights, violence often involving rape of women and children with no police investigation and ongoing intimidation of media workers. Two Australian journalists had their passports held recently in all of that and the UN has estimated up to 100,000 lives including 40,000 civilians were lost in the last months of that civil war fighting. Stephen Harper has cited the country’s human rights record as a reason for pulling out. Will you be making some of those observations when you go to CHOGM?
PRIME MINISTER:
Alan, to be honest, I am not inclined to go overseas and give other countries lectures; really aren’t. Now Sri Lanka had a horrific civil war – an absolutely horrific civil war – and the Tamil Tigers were the inventors of suicide bombing. The Tamil Tigers were an absolutely vicious outfit. Now, that’s not to say that the atrocities were all on one side. I don’t pretend that for a second. The Sri Lankan army fought a savage war against the Tamil Tigers and yes, terrible things happened in that war, no doubt about it and it wasn’t all on one side. I accept that. But the war is over. Thank god the war is over. My understanding is that ordinary civil society is resuming in the Tamil parts of Sri Lanka. I don’t say everything’s perfect there for a second, but I think things are getting better and while, yes, I will be urging the Sri Lankan Government to respect everyone’s rights, I think I will also be acknowledging that a lot of progress has been made and in the end the most important civil right is the right to live without the threat of death or horrific violence through some civil war.
ALAN JONES:
There seems to be confusion, definitional confusion in Canberra, between foreign investment and foreign ownership. I don’t know anyone who’s opposed to foreign investment, and indeed, common sense tells you there will always be a capital shortfall here and we need foreign investment. That’s different from saying well we sell Cubbie Station, or we sell GrainCorp or we allow Warrnambool Cheese and Butter to be merged not with Bega Cheese or with Murray Goulburn but be taken over by a Canadian outfit, Saputo or a Japanese dairy company, Kirin. Have you got some thoughts about that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, yes, Alan and I understand people’s concerns in this area because we do want to maintain control over our own country and obviously we want our national interest to be advanced by foreign investment and that’s why we’ve got a process in place which involves Foreign Investment Review Board scrutiny and ultimate decisions by the Treasurer. Now, we do need foreign investment as you rightly said. Our mining industry, our motor industry, our agricultural industry wouldn’t be as strong as they are without foreign investment but it does have to be the right investment not the wrong investment…
ALAN JONES:
And where does foreign ownership – this is what people are worried about. I mean do we then sell GrainCorp to foreigners? Do we sell Cubbie Station to foreigners? Do we sell land to foreigners? Dairy farms, so that they can have paddock to plate, they can grow the product here and feed people in Qatar and in India? Where, at the end of the day, do we stand in all of this?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, again, I think it depends; for instance, I’m perfectly happy to have, for argument’s sake, that big Citic iron ore mine in Western Australia because that Chinese state-owned enterprise has invested $8 billion in our country to produce something from nothing, so…
ALAN JONES:
That we couldn’t have produced, we wouldn’t have had the capital to do it, yep.
PRIME MINISTER:
Exactly. So, look, if they’re buying the farm, that’s one thing. If they’re building the farm, I think that’s another thing.
ALAN JONES:
They’re not building the farm, they’re buying it, aren’t they? You’re dead right.
PRIME MINISTER:
This is the distinction, Alan, that I think we have to be conscious of and this is why I think all of these things need to be judged on a case-by-case basis.
ALAN JONES:
Do you have a view on this Warrnambool Cheese and Butter? I mean it seems that competition policy here would say, oh, hang on, we can’t merge Warrnambool Cheese and Butter with Bega Cheese or Murray Goulburn because that would reduce competition even though the Woolworths and Coles experience seems to be entirely different. So, we’ve got a Canadian outfit or a Japanese outfit rather than providing the wherewithal to build an Australian capacity to take on the massive Asian market.
PRIME MINISTER:
And I think this one is still in play. There are lots of different businesses that are circling Warrnambool Cheese and Butter. The fact that it is of interest to so many businesses, local and foreign, means that it obviously is a pretty good business itself and all credit to the people behind Warrnambool Cheese and Butter. Let’s wait and see who looks like the favoured bidder and I think all of us emotionally hope that the favoured bidder is either Bega Cheese or Murray Goulburn.
ALAN JONES:
Absolutely. Just a final thing. As I’m speaking to you, 750,000 fruit trees in the Goulburn Valley are being ripped out of the ground – a national asset which we are trashing. The World Trade Organisation has rules here where the host nation – in this instance, Australia – can impose an emergency tax or a tariff on imports if those imports are damaging a local industry and that’s allowed under the World Trade Organisation. Now, SPC Ardmona asked the Gillard Government to impose this emergency tax or tariff to save our food processing, to save our farmers. The government wasn’t interested. We’re a member of the World Trade Organisation. It’s got this safeguards agreement. What do we way to these poor farmers that are just having their asset trashed? You can’t replace this?
PRIME MINISTER:
I absolutely accept that, Alan, and this is why it’s important that we have a very strong anti-dumping regime and we did take a much stronger policy to the election than that which was followed by the former government. Once there is a prima facie case of dumping our policy is that the onus shifts and it’s up to…
ALAN JONES:
Just explain dumping to our listeners.
PRIME MINISTER:
Dumping is when a foreign enterprise is selling goods into the Australian market, effectively for less than the cost of production and less than the cost of transport. So, where they’re attempting to drive out of the market place an Australian producer, that’s dumping, and that’s where you do have a right, under the World Trade Organisation rules to impose, if you like, a punitive tariff. Now, what we’re saying – and these are changes which we are in the process of making – what we are saying is that once there is a prima facie case of dumping, rather than the dumpee having to prove that this is happening beyond, at least on the balance of probabilities, it will be up to the dumper to disprove that it’s happening. That’s the reverse onus of proof.
ALAN JONES:
Meanwhile, what’s to happen to these 750,000 fruit trees? I mean, Julie Bishop said last week, sensibly I think, that Australian taxpayers fork out $5 billion in foreign aid. The aid should be aligned with the national interest. Why couldn’t the government say, leave the fruit trees there, we’ll buy the fruit and this will be a foreign aid substitute?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, look, it’s an interesting thought, Alan, but I just don’t know the logistics of buying a lot of fruit from SPC…
ALAN JONES:
So are these gone? Are these 750,000 fruit trees gone?
PRIME MINISTER:
Alan, I’m happy to keep talking to Sharman Stone about this because Sharman Stone, the local member down there in Shepparton…
ALAN JONES:
She knows her stuff, yep.
PRIME MINISTER:
…is absolutely passionate about her fruit growers. We will do what we can to ensure that they are competing on a level playing field but I’m just not sure about this, the logistics of buying the product and shipping it off overseas as foreign aid. I’m just not sure that that really does make sense.
ALAN JONES:
Ok, well thank you for the honest answer. Just on wind farms. I mean, you’re aware that everywhere the community now are being threatened by these things. The New South Wales Government is recommending approval for a wind farm at Collector, not far from where you’re talking to me now. Sixty-three turbines, they’re owned by a Thai generating company. The Gullan Range Windfarm, currently being constructed 20 kilometres west of Goulburn – it’s run by a Chinese company, 73 wind turbines. Where do the public get a look in here? You’ve heard from Angus Taylor and others. Where do they get a look in as to the damage this is doing these people from a health point of view, from an environmental point of view, plus the fact that they can’t survive without subsidies?
PRIME MINISTER:
And Alan, if you drive down the Federal Highway from Goulburn to Canberra…
ALAN JONES:
It’s an absolute eyesore.
PRIME MINISTER:
…and you look at Lake George, yes, there’s an absolute forest of these things on the other side of the lake near Bungendore. So, I absolutely understand why people are anxious about these things that are sprouting like mushrooms all over the fields of our country. I absolutely understand the concerns that people have and I also understand the difficulty because while renewable power is a very good idea at one level, you’ve got to have backups because when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine, the power doesn’t flow. So, this is an obvious problem with renewable energy in the absence of much more sophisticated battery technology than we have right now. We are going to review the renewable energy targets. There was going to be a review anyway next year. We’re taking this review very seriously and one of the things that we’ll be looking at is the impact of renewable energy on power prices because not only is the carbon tax adding about nine per cent to everyone’s power bills – and we’re going to get rid of that as quickly as we can – renewable energy targets are also significantly driving up power prices right now.
ALAN JONES:
Good to talk to you and all the best tomorrow. It’s a very significant day for you and I thank you for your time.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you so much, Alan.
[ends]