Interview with David Penberthy, FIVEaa
24 October 2018
DAVID PENBERTHY: Prime Minister good morning to you and welcome to FIVEaa Breakfast.
PRIME MINISTER: Hello.
PENBERTHY: Good morning Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER: G’day, how are you going?
PENBERTHY: Yeah good, thank you for that Scott Morrison, we weren’t sure if you could hear us there. Hey we wanted to kick things off, obviously with everyone has had it up to the gills with spiraling power prices. But we’ve, because of all the chaos on your side over the last few months, we’ve completely lost track of what it is the Liberal Party is going to actually do to get our bills down.
PRIME MINISTER: Well let me run through it for you Penbo. Step one is we’ve got to get these loyalty taxes, basically, that Australians pay to energy companies just for staying with them for a long time. If you don’t go an renegotiate your contract, you just end up paying more. So what we’re doing is we’re working to establish a new default price. So that means, you don’t go on a worse offer as time goes on, you get on a better offer. And the reference price that everybody has to compare to is a fair dinkum reference price and that brings some honesty and transparency, holding the big energy companies to account.
The second thing we’re doing is we’re bringing in legislation before the end of the year which gives us a big stick to deal with the energy companies when they try to rip you off or they don’t pass through the savings on the wholesale prices. That actually can lead to anything including divestment of their assets if it’s particularly egregious.
The third part is getting more reliable power into the system. Renewables are great and renewable energy can be reliable power, but we also know that with wind and solar power, it doesn’t always switch on. So getting more reliable power into the system by doing two things; enabling investment, more investment in that reliable power source and two, requiring that companies are required to contract, that is buy more, of that reliable power so it gets into the system so the lights stay on.
PENBERTHY: It’s clear that making adjustments to standing contracts will benefit people quite soon. But according to the ACCC report on retail electricity pricing, that’s about 16 per cent of people in South Australia, how do you make a really benefit for the other 84 per cent of people here?
PRIME MINISTER: Well what we’ve said and what we’re saying to the electricity companies is we want to see them make a move on all of this, not by July of next year – I mean that’s the back marker on this change from what the ACCC have recommended – but to do it from the 1st of January. We want to see the big electricity companies get this right and to start bringing prices down now. I mean Australians are rightly furious about seeing the energy companies taking bigger and bigger licks when it comes to what they’re taking out of all of this, and they’re paying higher and higher prices. That’s why we’ve got to apply the big stick legislatively, to ensure that the big energy companies get under control.
PENBERTHY: Do you feel like you’ve got to walk a fine line though, because as the law becomes more prescriptive, as there is more punitive measures contemplated, isn’t there a danger that then it becomes an environment that’s less likely to attract investment? Less likely to get organic investment in new generation, new companies, more competition? Could it actually backfire in the long run?
PRIME MINISTER: Because of where we’re focusing the incentives and the support for investment, is in the power generation, that’s where we want to see more competition. I mean take for example down in Tasmania. I mean down there, the Battery of the Nation project, that’s about doubling the size of Tasmania’s –
[Disruption]
PENBERTHY: I think we might have lost him, he’s dropped out.
PRIME MINISTER: What you need is more power into the system which increases the competition and brings the price down. So the big electricity companies, there’s only a few of them, and they operate in the pretty protected environment by regulation. Often that regulation is used frankly to increase complexity and confuse customers and increase their profits. So ensuring we even that up and balance that up with powers for the Government to have a big stick to get them in line, then that can actually remedy what you’re talking about, not make it worse.
PENBERTHY: Speaking of balance Prime Minister, there’s been a lot of discussion and a lot of it in the broadsheets from the leafier suburbs, saying that the big take-out from Saturday’s events in Wentworth, is that your Government needs to get the kids off Nauru and it needs to get serious about climate change? I think that some of our listeners might agree with those assertions but I would hazard a guess that most of them that they’re more energized by getting power prices down and they probably want Australia to maintain a pretty tough border control regime. How do you balance the sort of inner city issues with the broader suburban issues? In particular given the volatile internal politics on your side right now?
PRIME MINISTER: Well let me make a couple of points. First of all we are getting kids of Nauru, we have been doing it for years. We’ve got hundreds of kids off Nauru and we’ll continue to do that in the way that we’ve been getting about it and we’ll continue to maintain the integrity of a strong border protection policies. You don’t get kids off Nauru by putting more on, by having weak border policies. So that’s been a key focus.
But I mean the key thing is David, mate, I’m not going to play hokey pokey politics, it’s not going to be “left foot in, right foot in”, all that sort of nonsense. We’re a centre-right Party where we do get the balance on these things right. You can look after kids and have a strong border protection policy. You can get electricity prices down and meet the reductions targets that we’ve set for Paris. You don’t have to choose between these two things, you don’t have to get caught up by the shouts from the left and the shouts from the right, you just do your job every day and you stay in the sensible centre-right where successful Liberal and National Governments have always been. That’s certainly where I’m going to be, no hokey pokey politics from me.
PENBERTHY: Just finally PM, what’s the thinking behind letting Malcolm Turnbull who is no longer a Member of Parliament, go and represent Australia at Bali?
PRIME MINISTER: Well it’s not uncommon for former prime ministers to represent their country where they’re in a position to add some value. I mean this was done eight weeks ago. Former Prime Minister Turnbull had a very, very strong relationship with President Widodo of Indonesia. This oceans conference is very important to Indonesia and the president and he had invited the former Prime Minister to attend that conference. As Prime Minister I couldn’t go because of other commitments and so we discussed Malcolm attending at that time eight weeks ago and we followed that up. So it was a decision taken some while ago and I have no doubt Malcolm will represent Australian Government policy and the Australian nation extremely well. You know, I heard people are a bit upset about it, but you know, the national interest has to come first. I mean we’ve got an excellent relationship with Indonesia, these things shouldn’t be subject to what happens in by-elections or doesn’t happen in by-elections. They should be about what is in the best interests of the country. That’s how I’ll set these policies. He’s in a position, like any other former prime minister, John Howard and Tony Abbott, Julia Gillard, they’re in a position – I saw Julia this week and she did a great job on the Royal Commission into sexual abuse in institutions and I was very happy to acknowledge her role in the Parliament just the other day – former prime ministers can continue to play a very proper and important role. In fact I’ve got Tony Abbott doing that for me right now on Indigenous children and education.
PENBERTHY: Good stuff, Scott Morrison, Prime Minister of Australia, thanks very much for joining us this morning on FIVEaa Breakfast.
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks Penbo, thanks mate.
