PRIME MINISTER

TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW WITH ALAN JONES

2GB
25 FEBRUARY 2011
 
E & O E – PROOF ONLY
 
Subjects:      Carbon price; Flood levy
 
HOST: The Prime Minister Julia Gillard is in the studio in Canberra. Prime Minister,
good morning.
 
PM: Good morning, Alan.
 
HOST: Prime Minister, look, can I just make a minor point? I’ve got my job to do,
you’ve got your job to do. Your people rang here yesterday. It was agreed this
interview would take place at 7.10. We accommodated that and cancelled someone
who was to be here who’d made very significant personal arrangements as well.
7.10 is 7.10, isn’t it?
 
PM: Well, I’m sorry about that, Alan, but I’ve been delayed on another interview.
 
HOST: Yes, but I mean, this is what your staff, we have made many requests for you
to be on this program. None of those requests have ever been acknowledged. I can
understand you may not want to come on or you can’t come on, but surely courtesy
has to be part of the way in which the way the public are treated?
 
PM: Alan, I believe I am a very courteous person, I’m also a very busy-
 
HOST: -(inaudible)
 
PM: If I can finish my sentence Alan-
 
HOST: -We’re all busy-
 
PM: -I’m also a very busy person and-
 
HOST: -We’re all busy-
 
PM: -And Alan, if I can finish my sentence uninterrupted, I’ve had media
commitments this morning and I was delayed-
 
HOST: -You had a media commitment this morning at 7.10 which your staff agreed
on this program.
 
PM: Well, Alan, I am happy to apologise to you for being late. I am now here. If you
have a question in the nation’s interest then please feel free to put it.
 
HOST: Thank you. I’ve got several.
 
PM: Right.
 
HOST: Do you understand that there is white-hot anger out there and there was
yesterday and there will continue to be, because five days before the August 21 poll
you said there will be no carbon under the Government I lead, I mean this what
you’ve said:
 
AUDIO CLIP: There will be no carbon tax under the Government I lead.
 
HOST: And then, in case there was any doubt, you repeat the line in The
Australian newspaper the day before the election. You said ‘I rule out a carbon tax.’
 
PM: Well, Alan, let me answer that. In the last election campaign I talked consistently
about how climate change was real, it was caused by human activity, that we
needed to cut down on carbon pollution and that the best way of doing that was to
price carbon through a market-based mechanism, and that’s what I announced
yesterday-
 
HOST: -No, no, Julia, you didn’t say that-
 
PM: -And when I announced that yesterday, Alan, I announced that there would be a
fixed price for the first few years, and rather than play any semantic word games -
that is a market-based mechanism - but rather than play any semantic word games I
was frank enough with the Australian people to say that that first few years would
work effectively like a tax.
 
But, Alan, I know, and if we’re going to go through history let’s just be really clear
about the history, I know that you speak to Tony Abbott regularly on this show and
you listen to what he has to say-
 
HOST: -Well you’re welcome anytime. You’re welcome anytime-
 
PM: -Let me remind you of what, Alan, let me remind you of what he’s had to say
about carbon pricing, and I’m reading from a sheet here, ‘why not just do it with a
simple tax?’ He’s actually said the simplest way to price carbon is by putting a fixed
price on it.
 
HOST: He went to the election, he went to the election, Julia, saying, quite clearly,
there will no carbon tax. You said, in 2009, on the ABC, ‘I think when you go to an
election and you give a promise to the Australian people, you should do everything in
your power to honour that promise.’ Now, your Deputy Prime Minister, who became
the Deputy when Kevin Rudd left, your Deputy Prime Minister said this also to the
nation during the election and prior to the date of the vote:
 
AUDI O CLIP: No, it’s not possible that we’re bringing in a carbon tax. That is a
hysterically inaccurate claim being made by the Coalition.
 
HOST: Do you understand, Julia, that you are the issue today, because there are
people now saying your name is not ‘Julia’ but ‘Ju-liar’, and they are saying that
we’ve got a liar running the country. Just listen to Brad here, who rang this morning.
Julia the lines were on fire, believe me, about this, and this is what Brad said:
 
AUDIO CLIP: I felt sick in the stomach. I felt like I could cry. How much of this raping
have we got to tolerate from this Government. The wastage, the pink batts, the
school halls, the bloody internet thing, and now this. I feel sick throwing out a carton
of milk that goes out of date. These people could throw out billions of billions of
dollars, without giving a stuff how hard it is to earn money every day. I’ve been up
since 3.00 this morning trying to earn money, but these clowns, they pee it up
against the wall, Alan. I’ve had enough. How do we organise a march or a petition?
This has to stop.
 
HOST: Do you understand those sentiments?
 
PM: I understand people work incredibly hard, Alan, and I understand people worry a
great deal about making ends meet, and that’s why on your show I can say that I’m
determined to price carbon; I believe Australians agree that climate change is real
and it’s the right thing to do to have a clean energy future for this country with all of
the jobs that go with it; that people don’t want Australia left behind and losing those
jobs in the future-
 
HOST: -Left behind whom?-
 
PM: -But I understand, Alan, if I can just finish, I understand people will think about
‘how is this going to impact me?’, and what I can say to them is that the single
biggest use of money from the money raised by pricing carbon will be to assist
households with cost of living.
 
And I can also say to people like Brad, any dollar figure he has seen referred to in
today’s newspapers suggesting a particular family would pay a specific dollar cost is
a misleading figure. We haven’t determined the price yet and households will get
assistance with the cost of living.
 
HOST: See, that’s because you haven’t determined the price because Christine
Milne said yesterday it’s happening because we have shared power in Australia.
Brown, Senator Brown, was at least honest enough to say that this will rise every
year. How can you, as the, you see, you just said before ‘We don’t want to get left
behind.’ Who are we being left behind? America? Europe?
 
PM: The world is moving, Alan. There are more than 30 countries with emissions
trading schemes, and 10 American States with emissions trading schemes. The
world is moving. Now I don’t believe Australia has to move in front of the world, but I
also don’t believe we can afford to be left behind.
 
We are very big emitters of carbon pollution per head of population, one of the
biggest emitters in the world. That means if we don’t change as the world moves we
could get stuck with an old-fashioned, high-carbon-pollution economy and not have
the jobs of the future-
 
HOST: -But PM, today-
 
PM: -I am not, Alan, going to put the nation in that position. Pricing carbon is the right
thing to do and I said that during the election campaign.
 
HOST: No, you did not.
 
PM: Yes, I did Alan-
 
HOST: -Julia, you gave a policy speech-
 
PM: -Get all of the statements out, Alan, and you will see-
 
HOST: -Julia, people-
 
PM: -During the election campaign I said climate change is real; I said we needed to
address it-
 
HOST: -Julia-
 
PM: -that pricing carbon-
 
HOST: -PM-
 
PM: -is the most efficient way to do it-
 
HOST: -PM-
 
PM: -that is what happened during the election campaign.
 
HOST: PM, PM, this is untruthful. You launched-
 
PM: -Alan, Alan, check my statements-
 
HOST: -You launched the campaign- PM, you launched the ALP campaign. You
uttered 5,400 words in that speech to the ALP faithful when you launched the
campaign. You did not mention carbon tax and you had one sentence on climate
change. That’s your prospectus-
 
PM: -Oh, Alan, Alan, are you suggesting in a 35-day campaign the only speech I
ever made, the only statement that ever came out of my mouth, was on the day of
the ALP campaign launch-
 
HOST: -At the launch you weren’t game to say it because-
 
PM: -How ridiculous, Alan, and how calculated to mislead your listeners. I am asking
you to look at all of the statements I made in the election campaign-
 
HOST: -You said specifically there will be no carbon tax under the Government I
lead-
 
PM: -Alan, and any Australian after three years that have just been in Australian
politics-
 
HOST: -Unbelievable-
 
PM: -seriously say-
 
HOST: -Julia-
 
PM: -that the Labor Party was not committed to pricing carbon and dealing with
climate change.
 
HOST: You weren’t prepared to say that in the policy speech because you knew it
would alienate a major constituency that you wanted to support, namely the working
families. You knew they’d be alienated and you left it out. Now-
 
PM: -What I can say to those working families, Alan, is the carbon price mechanism I
announced yesterday will assist households with cost of living pressures. Obviously I
understand there are many households that really struggle to make ends meet,
many families that do it tough and for those families we will be providing assistance.
 
No-one should be fooled by any of the dollar figures in today’s newspapers. Those
figures are not based on any known facts.
 
We will price carbon. We’ll have a specific price and we will have an assistance
package to help Australians under cost of living pressure.
 
HOST: How can you say to the Australian people that this will cut our emissions of
carbon dioxide when you’re pocketing - because you represent us, the government -
billions of dollars from selling coal and iron ore to China and the rest of Asia?
 
Surely this is hypocrisy and deceit rolled into one, isn’t it?
 
PM: We’re a resource rich economy, Alan. We’re going to use those resources and
we’re going to export them around the world, correct. That creates jobs, that creates
wealth–
 
HOST: -Helping China?
 
PM: That’s good for Australia -
 
HOST: -Helping China double or triple its emissions?-
 
PM: -What’s also good for Australia’s future is to move to a clean-energy, low-
pollution economy. That means Australian jobs too.
 
What’s the theme here Alan? Australian jobs. I want Australian people to have the
benefits and dignity of work with everything that gives them in terms of supporting
their families. I want this nation to have jobs. That’s why I believe in a clean energy
future. That’s why we can’t afford to risk being left behind as the world moves and
the world is moving on climate change.
 
HOST: Well, Barack Obama is doing nothing on climate change.
 
PM: That’s completely untrue, Alan.
 
HOST: But let me just come to the jobs business –
 
PM: -You should look at Barak Obama’s State of the Union address and that
statement you’ve just made to your listeners, Alan, is not true.
 
HOST: Every business person, not every business person, significant business
people, last year the Reserve Bank board member Dick Warburton said Australia
had to follow Mr Obama’s lead and investigate other ways to cut carbon emissions.
He said we’d be stupid to introduce a carbon price without the United States.
 
Now, Alan Joyce, the Chief Executive of Qantas, said at the end of last year, against
a carbon tax, ‘We’re one of the biggest users of fuel and where I think the carbon tax
is going to be important to us to make sure that Australia doesn’t go on its own and
applies a tax that causes distortion to competition and ends up with wrong outcomes
for both the environment and business.’ He said ‘We spend $3.5 billion on aviation
fuel a year, so the potential for us to move to sustainable fuel is huge. What we need
is not a penal tax, but to try and encourage people to move in a direction and help
people who’ve made the commitment to move in a direction to actually get there with
the right investment.’
 
PM: OK, Alan, and I would hope that over the next few days when you’re
broadcasting you’ll get out the statements of the Business Council of Australia that
talk about the importance of tackling climate change and the importance to business
of the certainty of knowing what the price on carbon is.
 
I hope you get out the reports of the Australian Industry Group that says the same
thing. I hope you get out the statements of many leading Australian business people
that say we do need to tackle climate change, we do need to price carbon -
 
HOST: -Is Dick Warburton a leading business person?-
 
PM: -And it is preventing investment that we do not have a price on carbon now. It is
certainly preventing investment in electricity generation, so if you want to give your
listeners, Alan, and it’s right for you to do so, a representative selection of the views
of business, then go right across the board. The biggest business organisations in
this country have said consistently to government ‘We need the certainty of knowing
what a carbon price is.’

HOST: Prime Minister, you can give the certainty to the business community, and
I’ve said this over and over again, by saying there’ll be no carbon tax, which you said
during the election. Do you accept the fact that you’ve stolen an election with a false
promise?
 
PM: Oh, Alan, what a load of nonsense. The Australian people voted for the
Parliament that I am sitting in here today. I’m sitting in Parliament House, I sat in the
House of Representatives yesterday, Australians voted for the people sitting in that
House of Representatives-
 
HOST: -149 of them –
 
PM: -and when you look at the people sitting in that House of Representatives, the
Labor representatives have consistently said to the Australian people ‘you remember
the debates about the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme - we need to price
carbon’. I am working with the others in the Parliament of good will who also believe
that we need to price carbon.
 
HOST: You and I talked about about those things off air, you might remember. Julia,
we talked about that off air, didn’t we? We talked about the emissions trading
scheme off air, didn’t we, Julia? Do you remember that?
 
PM: I’ve got no idea what you’re referring to, Alan, so if you’re going to try and make
some allegation, get out there and make it. You haven’t got the guts to make it, then
don’t refer to it.
 
HOST: I’ve certainly got the guts to make it. I told you in a discussion we had here
that that emissions trading scheme proposal was going to bury Kevin Rudd and your
Government. I told you that off air and I said you’d be unwise, off air, to be part of
that debate. I told you that and the emissions trading scheme buried Kevin Rudd and
this will bury you.
 
PM: Alan, I’m not responsible for the statements you make off air. I’m responsible for
the statement I make on air and off air -
 
HOST: -I made it to you, I made it to you. Just coming -
 
PM: -And Alan, you would be aware from discussions I’ve had with you on air and off
air, that I have always supporting pricing carbon using a market-based mechanism –
 
HOST: -Well then why did you say that–
 
PM: -because that is the most efficient thing to do. If you look across the election
statements–
 
HOST: -But why did you say that?
 
PM: -you will see me saying those things, when you look at the Parliament – Alan, if I
can finish – when you look at the Parliament that Australians voted for–
 
HOST: -One Greens member-
 
PM: -they voted for Labor members-
 
HOST: -One Greens member-
 
PM: -Alan, if you can let me finish my sentence, they voted for Labor members
committed to pricing carbon. They voted for some Independent and a Green
member, many of whom are also committed to pricing carbon.
 
I believe in pricing carbon. It’s the right thing to do for this country’s future.
 
I am not going to risk Australian jobs in the future. I am going to get on with doing
this and I will work with people of good will voted for by the Australian people to get it
done.

HOST: 150 people in the Parliament. There’s only one Greens member. Why did you
say–
 
PM: -Well, Alan, have you seen today’s newspapers and that Mal Washer, a Liberal
member, has said we need to price carbon? Have you ever read any of the things
that Malcolm Turnbull, the Liberal Member for Wentworth, has said about pricing
carbon?
 
HOST: Yeah, I’ve read them all, that’s not the issue Julia.
 
PM: How can you say to your listeners–
 
HOST: -That is not the issue-
 
PM: -that the people who sit in the Parliament, apart from one, are not committed to
or interested in pricing carbon? You could get a Liberal member, Malcolm Turnbull,
on this show, following me right now, and he would say that we need as a nation to
price carbon.
 
HOST: I’m sure he would.
 
PM: So don’t try and mislead the Australian people, Alan-
 
HOST: -I’m not misleading anyone-
 
PM: -on the positions of people in the Parliament.
 
HOST: Malcolm Turnbull was ditched as the Leader of the Liberal Party–
 
PM: -And he believes in pricing carbon–
 
HOST: Because of pricing carbon he was ditched.
 
PM: Mal Washer believes in pricing carbon, half of Tony Abbott’s backbench
believes in pricing carbon and Tony Abbott himself is on record as saying-
 
HOST: -Julia, Julia-
 
PM: -a carbon tax is the simplest way of pricing carbon.
 
HOST: All of that, all of that we could accept, all of that –
 
PM: -All of that’s true Allan.
 
HOST: Whoa, whoa, whoa - if it’s true, why then, why then, before the election,
listen, why then did you say this:
 
AUDIO CLIP: There will be no carbon tax under the Government I lead.
 
HOST: Why did you say that?
 
PM: We, in the election campaign, were talking about climate change, pricing
carbon, what are the mechanisms to do it–
 
HOST: -Why did you say that?-
 
PM: -There are various mechanisms to do it and I was answering a question dealing
with all of that–
 
HOST: -But why did you say that?-
 
PM: -Alan, I didn’t want to get into any word games yesterday. The mechanism I am
now advocating to the Australian people is a market based mechanism. Ultimately
the market will set the price of carbon –
 
HOST: -But why did you say that Julia?
 
PM: There will a fixed price in the meantime. That is effectively like a tax and I just
wanted to be straightforward about it–
 
HOST: -But why did you say that?-
 
PM: -but we will go to a market-based mechanism, which is what I talked about in
the election campaign.
 
HOST: Why did you say, no, hang on–
 
PM: -I just explained it to you Alan.
 
HOST: Why did you say there’ll be no carbon tax under the government I lead?
 
PM: Well, I’ve just explained it to you–
 
HOST: -I rule out a carbon tax, you said-
 
PM: -and you may not have been listening–
 
HOST: -I was listening.
 
PM: -because you’re too busy to interrupt but–
 
HOST: -No, I didn’t interrupt.
 
PM: -but I’ve just explained it to you Alan. 
 
HOST: I rule out a carbon tax.
 
PM: The Australian people voted and they voted for this Parliament and we’re getting
on with the job of pricing carbon.
 
HOST: All of that would be accepted by the electorate and they wouldn’t be as angry
as they are today were it not for the fact that you said there will be no carbon tax
under the government I lead. You said I rule out a carbon tax and Wayne Swan, your
deputy, I just want to, so that you understand, Wayne Swan said this, your deputy:
 
AUDIO CLIP: No, it’s not possible that we’re bringing in a carbon tax. That is a
hysterically inaccurate claim being made by the Coalition.
 
HOST: What’s your response to that?

PM: My response to that is Alan, is I speak on a lot of radio shows and I often get
told that people who commentate on those radio shows, like you, somehow know
what the electorate’s thinking.
 
I did a lot of radio immediately after I announced the flood levy and I had people
saying to me ‘the Australian community hate it, they’ll never accept it, no-one will
ever pay it, this will destroy your government, how could you make such an error’,
and I patiently and methodically said ‘I reckon Australians are people of good will
and common sense and I reckon they’ll come to accept this’, and I think on the flood
levy I’ve been proved right Alan.
 
And I understand having announced a carbon price mechanism yesterday, we’ll get
the same reaction and it’ll be fast and furious and it will be a difficult debate and
people will do television polls and phone-in polls and take talkback and all the rest of
it and people will quickly conclude that somehow this is a grave error of judgement
by me. I do not accept that.
 
I believe I will patiently and methodically explain to the Australian people this is the
right thing to do. People want us to act on climate change. People want a clean-
energy future. They’ll want the jobs of the future. They won’t want this nation left
behind. That’s what I’m going to deliver and I’ll be out there explaining it to the
Australian people.
 
HOST: Just one final point, because you’re the Prime Minister and I believe you’re
entitled to be heard and I’ve tried to allow that to happen today. I’m concerned about
the commitments that you gave before the election, but we’ve covered that ground.
 
Could I just say, though, on the flood levy, you made a very specific statement that
you’d issue a flood levy. You thought the damage, you quoted $5.6 billion, and you
said and I’ll pay for the other stuff by cutting certain Government programs. That’s
what you said to everybody, that’s what I’m going to do, flood levy, and everyone
said right-o, $5.6 billion. They said right-o, flood levy, I mightn’t agree but she’s told
us what she’s going to do, she’s going to pay for this here, 1.8, and then she’s going
cut programs.
 
Then, when the Greens found out that some of those programs were Greens
programs, you immediately did a double somersault like Esther Williams and said
‘oh, well we’ll reinstate half a billion dollars of Greens programs. In other words, what
I said last week’s not true, I’m going to change my mind now.’
 
PM: Alan, what have just said to your listeners is completely untrue. Either you
misunderstand what happened or you are trying to deceive. We are–
 
HOST: -We don’t try to deceive.
 
PM: Well, let’s get your listeners the facts then, because what you’ve just told them
is not the truth.
 
HOST: You reinstated Greens programs that you said you were going to cut.
 
PM: Well, Alan, are you going to let me give people the truth or are you going to
insist on your lie?
 
HOST: No, you’ve had a fair go.
 
PM: The truth, the truth–
 
HOST: -Did you reinstate Greens programs that you said you would cut?
 
PM: -the truth, Alan - I’ll finish my sentence, thank you - the truth, Alan, is I obviously
talked to members of the Parliament. We made an adjustment to the cutbacks of
less than three percent - less than three percent, Alan.
 
HOST: About half a billion.
 
PM: That is completely – did you just say half a billion?
 
HOST: Half a billion.
 
PM: Completely untrue. That is a lie.
 
HOST: What, 350, tell me how many million?
 
PM: That is a lie.
 
HOST: Tell me how many million?
 
PM: It was an adjustment of $150 million, less than three percent. You are trying to
deceive your listeners with the wrong figure.
 
HOST: We’ll call it half a billion.
 
PM: That is the wrong thing to do, Alan. You shouldn’t treat your listeners like that.
 
HOST: I think it’s not $150, but even if it were–
 
PM: -Well, it is, Alan. Maths is maths, facts are facts, and you can’t distort them.
 
HOST: But hang on, let go of the facts are facts, I’m just simply saying your
credibility–
 
PM: -Less than three percent, Alan-
 
HOST: -when your credibility, you stood up and said this is how we’ll pay for it, but
when the Greens got a bit dirty you said we’ve got to get this thing through–
 
PM: -Oh Alan, what a load of nonsense. I needed to work with people to get the flood
levy through because Mr Abbott irresponsibly, completely irresponsibly, putting the
politics first, said he wouldn’t vote for it.
 
In the past he’s never seen a levy he didn’t like. He loves levies. He went to the
election with a $6 billion levy that he wanted to put on the shoulders of Australian
business, but when it came to having a levy to rebuild Queensland and around the
nation, because he put his political interest in front of the national interest, he
opposed it.
 
In those circumstances I did need to talk to other Members of Parliament to get the
flood levy through and we made an adjustment of less than three percent in the
package.
 
If Mr Abbott had put the nations interest first, rather than his perceived political
interest, we would not be in that position, and if Mr Abbott comes on your show and
talks about climate change, you may want to ask him, Alan, why he said that a
carbon tax was the simplest way of pricing carbon and why he’s walking away from
that and engaging in a hysterical and hollow fear campaign today without any plans
for the nation’s future.
 
HOST: OK, one final thing. You mentioned Bill Gates yesterday.
 
PM: Yes, I did.
 
HOST: And you said the reason he’s rich today is that he got in on the change.
 
PM: Correct.
 
HOST: Now, do you understand that Bill Gates invented stuff that’d make him
money. You’re inventing a tax that will cost us money.
 
PM: What I’m doing Alan is I am pricing carbon to drive innovation and to create a
low-pollution, clean-tech future. There are lots of smart Australians out there and
what they will do is they will invent the low-pollution, clean-energy products of the
future and they’ll make a fortune out of it and that’s fantastic, because so will the
nation and we’ll have jobs here.
 
I want to see as many Bill Gates-style people in this country as possible, making
their living creating the products of the future - low pollution, the products the world
will want to buy.
 
What I don’t want to see if that young Australians get left behind and they don’t have
the jobs of the future whilst people in other countries do.
 
HOST: OK. Thank you for your time and you’re always welcome, it’s just that
sometimes we can’t get answers from your office. But anytime, as you were in
opposition, so to in government, you’re welcome to present your views.
 
PM: Thank you, Alan.