Radio interview with Alan Jones, 2GB
28 November 2018
ALAN JONES: Prime Minister good morning.
PRIME MINISTER: Good morning Alan. Bit wet in Sydney today?
JONES: Very wet even in your Shire. Can I just ask you then about that; when are people going to wake up to this hoax? Flannery was made Australian of the Year. He said because of global warming, Sydney dams could be dry in as little as two years. Global warming, he said, was drying up the rains and the city would face – I’m quoting him exactly – “extreme difficulties with water.” How much evidence do you need before it’s demonstrated that these people are talking rubbish?
PRIME MINISTER: Well look Alan, we take reasonable and sensible policies in terms of managing our climate. That’s what you do, that’s what all Australians largely believe in. They just want us to look after the place. They want to ensure that we’ve got responsible policies, that we don’t go and blow up our economy basically, with reckless targets and going out on the fringes and on the edges, when it comes to this. They just want the government to be sensible when it comes to climate policy and that’s what we’re doing. That’s what we’ll continue to do.
But you know, we’re a country that deals with extremes of weather, we always have. I mean we’ve got bushfires burning across Queensland, there are 88 bushfires burning across Queensland at the moment, Deepwater, Finch Hatton, places like this. Those communities are under a lot of pressure today and obviously we’ve been watching that very closely and we’re providing support to the Queensland Government where they need it. I know New South Wales firefighters, they’re up there supporting their Queensland colleagues. So there’s a lot of things going on, but people in Australia who are dealing with some real, significant things
JONES: I know, but I suppose what people are asking now is that – there’s this ridiculous Paris Agreement, they’re going to be meeting in Poland in a couple of days time and government ministers, those who are signatories to the Paris Agreement, we’re one of them, are going to agree on rules for the implementation of the Paris Agreement. That will mean $100 billion being spent, going to a whole heap of developing nations. I mean why are we there?
PRIME MINISTER: Well Alan we’ve had this conversation.
JONES: We have.
PRIME MINISTER: Many times on your program. The Government has a 26 per cent emissions reduction target. We set it as a Government, we set it. I was in the Cabinet, Tony Abbott was in the Cabinet, Malcolm Turnbull was in the Cabinet, we were all in the Cabinet.
JONES: But only if the rest of the world did likewise, that’s why you agreed.
PRIME MINISTER: No, sorry Alan I was there, we agreed on 26 per cent. It was middle of the pack, it was an achievable target and it’s not going to put up prices. Its not going to do any of that. We’re not signing up spending more money or sending it offshore or doing any of that. We’re just going to meet the commitment we said we’d meet and that’s what I think Australians expect us to do – to live up to our commitments. That’s what we are as a Government, that’s who I am as a Prime Minister; I make a commitment Alan, I keep it.
JONES: Right well then where do you stand, what comment would you make about the energy policy announced by the Labor Party last week, which says that they’re going to go to 50 per cent renewable energy and a 45 per cent emissions reduction target. How many people is that going to put out of business? How many people is that going to put in the dark?
PRIME MINISTER: It’s going to be a wrecking ball through our economy. I mean this is the thing, a 45 per cent emissions reduction target is reckless. Its going to wipe out industries. It’s going to wipe out the Boyne Island aluminum smelter, it’s going to wipe out jobs from one side of the country to the other. It’ll put up electricity prices, it’s an electricity tax. That’s exactly what it is and that’s where the difference is. That’s where the different is, this is a reckless climate policy that is driven by ideology, not driven by common sense, not driven by just being sensible about these things, and measured. It’s driven by ideology that the Labor Party has bought hook, line and sinker. They’re going to drive a wrecking ball through our economy and make the jobs that we’ve been creating, a million and more jobs over the last five years, 100,000 youth jobs in the last 12 months, the strongest youth jobs performance ever in Australia’s economic history – that’s what Labor would put at risk with these reckless targets.
JONES: Okay well just let me ask you this, because I thought this was a significant comment which was made in the wake of Victoria. Not that I believe, and I’ve said this publically, that there’s any correlation between what happened in Victoria and what will happen at a federal election, the circumstances are entirely different. For a start, it’s the prosecution of policies. You’ve got a fair stack of them that you can be proud of. Nonetheless it may well be in light of what we saw there - and let’s face it for the last 36 years, Labor have been in power in Victoria for all but three – is there an emerging and disturbing development that the voter wants government to spend and let someone else worry about debt? How do you prosecute that case?
PRIME MINISTER: Well the public want two things Alan, they want the economy to be strong so they’ve got a job and they want to be able to have the services they rely on delivered, like Medicare and all the rest of it. That’s what the next election is going to be about; a clear choice between me and Bill Shorten of course, I made that point in the Parliament the other day, but it’s about the Australian people ultimately. We’re saying we can deliver the hospitals and the schools, Medicare, the affordable medicines, the pension, all of these things without putting up people’s taxes. Bill Shorten just wants to –
JONES: Nevertheless, when he says in that energy policy; “Oh, you’ll get a $2,000 subsidy for households to install a battery,” …
PRIME MINISTER: Yeah, after you’ve spent $10,000 to $20,000 on a battery. Because there are so many families out there on the sort of incomes who can just have a lazy $10,000 to $20,000 lying around to go and buy one of those Elon Musk batteries. I mean how out of touch can you get. I mean I said it the other day; this is going from pink batts to pink batteries. We saw all of this from Labor last time. The policy that we saw from them last time when they were in Government, they’ve learned nothing in the last six years. But the other thing they haven’t learned is that the way you pay for hospitals and schools is not by putting up taxes. You pay for it by running a strong economy, which is what we’ve done. That’s why the Budget will be in balance next year.
JONES: You see in 2007, you had Costello and Howard who had given tremendous levels of economic growth and everyone thought: “Oh, this is automatic, this is automatic. Let’s give the other bloke a go, c’mon” you know, “Time for change, Kevin 07”. And we got Kevin and we got Julia and we got Kevin again and now you mob have got to sort of try and mop it all up, how do you win that argument that there is a very high risk? That this stuff is put at risk?
I thought your answer in relation to that, in relation to the Victorian election was – I’ll just take you through this – I thought there was a very good answer by you if I might say so, in Question Time. Because you were asked about the whole business in Victoria, what happened and so on and you said that you congratulated Daniel Andrews. You said: “I did it because in Victoria, an incumbent Premier, who has been presiding over a strong economy which has enabled him to deliver services and infrastructure which the people of Victoria have clearly respected, a Premier who is favoured over his opponent, has been reelected. So an incumbent Government, running a strong economy, with a preferred Premier and delivering services and infrastructure for the people that they’re intended to serve.” And you said – it was quite clever – “Who does that sound like? Our Government is running a strong economy. Our Government is delivering infrastructure and services the Australian people respect and want more of”. That case has got to be prosecuted.
PRIME MINISTER: That is exactly the case and I believe that is what happened in Victoria. I mean what Bill Shorten is proposing Alan, is radical change to our economy. Radical change to our industrial relations system. Radical change to environmental policies. Radical changes to our social policies. And I don’t think Australians want that change, that’s why it’s so important that my team, the Liberal team, the National team, have to band together. And that means our supporters listening to this program right now, we can’t be going on about ourselves. I mean that is just unacceptable because there is too much at risk. That is the risk of a Shorten-led government who will seek to change it all.
Do you remember how Peter Garrett said back before 2007, he let the cat out of the bag. Kevin Rudd was trying to pretend that he was John Howard lite. No way, no way, he said he’d “change it all,” and Labor did change it all from 2007 and Bill Shorten will be worse.
JONES: I hate to give this oxygen but I have to ask you the question because it’s driven me nuts to read all the rubbish yesterday. But there is a report this morning that Julia Banks told the crossbench – I mean this is a woman who wasn’t even a member of the Liberal Party, she became a member of the Liberal Party around preselection, she’s a one stop shop and she’s gone - but she has told the crossbench about her defection weeks before announcing it to the House of Representatives. Did she tell you?
PRIME MINISTER: No, no she didn’t and of course that’s disappointing as all of our colleagues were disappointed.
JONES: How do you think all those Liberal who manned the booths and worked their butts off, how do you think they feel?
PRIME MINISTER: I think they feel the same way Alan, I think they feel the same way and they’d be entitled to think that. But you know we’re not going to stop Bill Shorten becoming prime minister by sitting around and being disappointed.
JONES: [Laughs]
PRIME MINISTER: We’re going to stop him by actually getting out there and prosecuting the case. And we took that case to the last election about the stronger economy, getting unemployment down to five percent, making sure we got the Budget back into balance. I mean we’re a Government that has achieved everything we said, from stopping the boats, to getting the Budget back in the black. That’s what we’ve been doing. Now we’ve got to get out of the way of our own message here and make sure we can get that clearly to every single Australian; that what Bill Shorten is proposing – his negative gearing abolition, his increase in capital gains tax, the retiree tax which will hit women 30 per cent more than it will hit men, and the Labor Party think they’re for women, give me a break.
JONES: Well you just mentioned before, social policy. Because we could talk for hours and perhaps we should – I might trip you up here. The ALP conference is going to discuss a list of 33 gender labels that could be used on birth certificates and passports. Do you know what a person who calls himself or herself “omnigendered”, do you know what that means?
PRIME MINISTER: No idea.
JONES: I see. What about “neutrios”?
PRIME MINISTER: No, clueless on that too.
JONES: No and “demigendered”?
PRIME MINISTER: I dunno. It always sounds like an alphabet -
JONES: Sounds like a what?
PRIME MINISTER: An alphabet.
JONES: Yes. Well, omnigender means all genders are the same. Neutrios means you don’t have any gender and demigender means well, you might be one or you might be the other. Now it’s not laughable is it, this stuff is on the move.
PRIME MINISTER: Well I called on Bill Shorten the other day after there was that ridiculous vote in the Tasmanian Parliament.
JONES: Supported by a Liberal.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, one Liberal who was the Speaker, but not by Will Hodgman’s Government.
JONES: Will she be run out of the Party?
PRIME MINISTER: Well that’s not how things happen in the Liberal Party as you know Alan. The Labor Party runs people out for expressing their view, the Liberal Party has never had that approach. But that was not the view of the Hodgman Government and they certainly opposed it. But I called on Bill Shorten to make it Labor Party policy at a federal level and for him to go to that federal conference and put an end to all this nonsense. It was ridiculous.
Now I know Alan and you would know too that there are Australians who at birth and for physiological reasons there are genuine issues here that we should respect -
JONES: Definitely, absolutely.
PRIME MINISTER: And everyone thinks that. I mean Australians are fair-minded people.
JONES: Absolutely.
PRIME MINISTER: But we’re not mugs and we don’t have to spend our time, you know, getting drawn off into these things every other day.
JONES: That’s going on in the classroom though.
PRIME MINISTER: It’s not going to keep unemployment down, it’s not going to make sure we keep the Budget in the black, it’s not going to pay for one extra hospital or one extra school. That’s what I’m focused on and if the Labor Party wants to run around at their federal conference talking about these things, it just tells all Australians that they have nothing in common with the rest of Australia.
JONES: Okay just one final thing before you go. You made the statement about small business, we know it’s the engine of national economic growth and so on. But many of them out there just wait and wait and wait for their bills to be paid. They’re treated as rubbish.
PRIME MINISTER: Yes.
JONES: Now what can you guarantee small business can look forward to if you achieve this business, you say you’re going to shame big business into paying small business on time -
PRIME MINISTER: Yeah there’s three things we’re doing. First of all we’re taking our payment terms from 30 days down to 20 days, that’s what the Commonwealth Government are doing. We’re already meeting 30 days, we’re going to take it to 20. I’m calling on all the state governments when we meet at COAG, that all state governments do the same thing. Credit to Gladys Berejiklian and Dom Perrottet in New South Wales, they’re getting it to 20 days. The third thing is I want to see all the big businesses sign up to the Business Council’s payment code. That’s at 30 days and I think they should match us at 20 days as well. We cannot treat small business like a bank for governments and for big businesses, they should pay on time. I mean the technology is in place now and I’d encourage all small businesses to get online with the online payment systems. The technology is there now and if you get onto those systems there is no reason why people can’t pay you within a couple of days.
JONES: Good on you. Good to talk to you, thank you for your time.
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks Alan.
