TONY EASTLEY: Senator Penny Wong was climate change minister in Kevin Rudd's government. She says putting a price on carbon remains a tough but necessary challenge for Labor. Penny Wong, now the Finance Minister, is speaking here to Naomi Woodley in Canberra.
WOODLEY: Penny Wong, Kevin Rudd says he was wrong and made a mistake in shelving the emissions trading scheme. Do you agree with him?
WONG: Well look, I'm not going to go back over the past. I'm focused on the pretty tough fight we've got now, which is to put a price on carbon. I mean I was climate change minister in the last term of our government and I know this is a very tough reform.
WOODLEY: But Mr Rudd has seen fit to go back to the past. Is this helpful for the Government?
WONG: Oh look, you know, everybody makes their own judgements about what they want to focus on. I'm focused on the future and the very tough fight against Mr Abbott, who clearly doesn't want to act as a responsible leader should and deal with climate change in an economically sensible way.
WOODLEY: Mr Rudd says others were trying to kill it off to junk it in his words. You weren't one of those were you?
WONG: Well look, you know, there's a lot of discussion over the last year about the events of last year, and I can understand why people would be interested in that. But I think the important thing is what we're going to do now and the fight now.
WOODLEY: The decision to delay the CPRS triggered a fall in support for the government. Does today's Newspoll show that you're still suffering from that decision?
WONG: Todays Newspoll shows that this is a tough fight. I think everybody in the Government - and certainly I've said this before - knows that this is a tough fight. And when you're confronted with the sort of scare campaign and blanket opposition that Mr Abbott is putting forward, of course this is going to be a tough fight.
We have to continue to talk to the Australian people, talk with the Australian people about why action on climate change is important, why we can't just let this go, why we can't just say let's leave this for someone else to deal with.
Someone has to take responsibility here and Julia Gillard and this Government is prepared to take responsibility. We know it will be hard, we know that this will be a tough fight but it is the right thing to do.
WOODLEY: But on today's poll results that message isn't getting through. The Coalition is 10 points in front.
WONG: And I would anticipate that this will continue to be a tough fight for a while. Good reform, important reform, is not won over a short period of time. And we know that from history. We know that if you look at past reforms like Medicare it took two Labor governments to entrench Medicare over the opposition of the Liberal Party.
WOODLEY: If I can move to the Federal budget, Treasury's warning that company tax revenue will be about $3 billion lower than previously estimated in November. How much extra pressure is that putting on your budget decisions?
WONG: Obviously the budget was always going to be tough. These circumstances have made what was a tough budget even tougher. And that's for a range of reasons. We do see, as you said, revenue slightly down - about $3 billion from the November figures.
And that's as a result of what we've been saying - a patchwork economy where some parts of our economy are doing very well, a cautious consumer and of course the high Australian dollar. And all of those things are impacting on revenue.
But we have to look through the short-term to the medium and longer term, where all the data shows that our economy over that period is going to be growing very strongly. So we have to prepare in this budget now for those times, make sure the Government does come back to surplus as the private sector is expanding.
EASTLEY: The Federal Finance Minister Penny Wong speaking to Naomi Woodley in Canberra.
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