JOURNALIST: Penny Wong joins me now. Penny, thanks for your time.
WONG: Good to be with you, Steve.
JOURNALIST: Penny this devastation in Japan is truly appalling. Youre hearing what our Governments doing. What are we being asked to do as of late?
WONG: Well as you said, Steve, it is appalling. Japan is not only an important trading partner for us, theyre a nation that is a friend and now a friend in great need.
You yourself said weve seen really very, very worrying statistics and we also know of course that we are likely to see some aftershocks subsequent of the earthquake. Australias been asked by Japan to send a search and rescue team. So I understand a 72 -person search and rescue team from New South Wales has arrived, it would have been this morning, in Japan. Theyll be working in the Miyagi prefecture which is the area you talked about, I think, earlier in your program where we have nearly 10,000 people still unaccounted for. So thats obviously a very hard-hit area.
JOURNALIST: Penny, if I can turn to the matter of your debate tonight. Its a fascinating topic are the major political parties are letting us down. A well-written article today in todays Australian. You say in government or opposition, major parties must engage with the community in a debate about the future of the country and governing requires hard choices and demands courage to hold firm and the capacity to convince.
Yet on the single biggest issue facing this country the carbon tax arguably you failed to engage in the public debate by saying such debate was not required in respect of the carbon tax issue. Failed to show courage in putting the carbon tax before the electorate at an election. And failed to convince the public at a time when it needed to be most convinced, that is, at an election when you were seeking a mandate. Why have you failed on your own test in respect of the carbon tax?
WONG: I suppose there is a range of things in what you say that I wouldnt accept, Steve. I think the point Im trying to make in the article is that governments, major parties, are not necessarily popular when theyre trying to do the right thing. Because the right thing at any one time may not be the popular thing to do. But it doesnt mean its any less the right thing to do for the nation. Thats why we want to act on climate change. Thats why we want to put a price on carbon, which we did say we would do before the election because it will cut pollution, it will tackle climate change and help us move to a clean energy economy.
Now, in terms of convincing, weve got a very big fight ahead of us. You know, youre right, we are faced by an Opposition that used to want to do the same thing and is now, under Mr Abbott, intent on a different approach. He will run a hard campaign; a campaign that is about speaking to peoples fears. And we have no doubt that it is going to be a tough debate.
We also have no doubt that this is the right thing to do by the nation. The reason it is, is if you think 4, 5 or 10 or 15 years. Do we really think that we will at that stage, not have moved to put a price on carbon, not have moved to start to tackle climate change? Not have moved to try and shift our economy, which is one of the most polluting in the world per person, to a cleaner economy?
I think if you step back a bit from the furore of any day in politics at the moment, and think forward over the next 10 or 20 years, perhaps the perspective gets a little clearer. But look, weve no doubt got a lot more work to do. Weve got to keep talking with the Australian people about this issue.
JOURNALIST: When you were Climate Change Minister in 2008, and during your term as Climate Change Minister, you said these things.
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More specifically, you went on to say that the introduction of a carbon price ahead of effective international action can lead to perverse incentives and particularly the relocation of Australian industry elsewhere. You also said theres no point imposing a carbon price domestically which results in emissions and production transferring internationally for no environmental gain. Can I ask you Penny, why have you changed your mind?
WONG: Well I havent. And I think what you played is part of Mr Abbotts campaign on the Liberal Party website. But I would encourage people to actually look at what I was talking about. I was not arguing against the sort of mechanism we are putting forward. What I was arguing against was an ongoing tax on carbon as opposed to a price on carbon moving to a market mechanism. And I was making a point about the various merits of the two mechanisms.
What we said before the election is we will put a price on carbon. We want to use a market mechanism because that is the most efficient way, and thats an emissions trading scheme. What we have said, is that as an interim measure, we will fix the price. The Prime Minister has made it clear it does operate like a tax. She has been upfront about that. But the reality is that is a transition to the carbon price via an emissions trading scheme, which was very clearly the position weve had.
The reason we are moving with this interim mechanism is because that is the only way we are able to take this through the Parliament. That is the reality.
Can I just respond to your international point because I think its an important point. I made that point in the context of a speech where I was arguing for transitional assistance for industry. And the importance when we construct these policies to make sure we look at whats happening internationally as well as whats happening domestically and the firms that operate in those markets. Thats why we had the sort of assistance we had as transition for industry under the previous policy. Thats why Greg Combet as the current Climate Change Minister, is making sure that the Productivity Commission has a look at precisely what is happening internationally because they are relevant considerations.
Now we are going to work through this carefully and responsibly. It isnt something that can just be fixed overnight. And it certainly isnt a debate that can be won by a three second grab. But it is a debate that is important for the nations future.
JOURNALIST: I want to talk about nuclear energy in light of whats happening in Japan. And it is early days. We dont know whats caused this or what the consequences are going to be. But is it fair to say that this will have a drastic effect on the debate concerning the use of nuclear energy for power in Australia?
WONG: Steve thats a good question; thats been in some of the commentary today and I have to say, the Governments position on this hasnt changed. But I think our focus at the moment really needs to be on whats occurring in Japan. How we best assist the Japanese people in what is their time of need. Im not sure this is a domestic policy debate that we need to have at this particular time. Were more focused on what we need to do to assist the Japanese people.
JOURNALIST: The polls for Julia Gillard are fairly shocking. Highest disapproval rating, lowest approval rating. You must be listening to the electorate. What do you interpret the mood of the community to represent? Is it a backlash against the way you communicated the carbon tax. Is it about the fact of the carbon tax? Or is it the broken electoral promise? Or do you just see it as a communications exercise?
WONG: I think this is a very tough policy area. I handled climate change in the last Parliament, in the last Government. It is a controversial area. Its an area that cost Malcolm Turnbull the leadership of the Liberal Party, because of the divisions inside the Liberal Party. It is a tough policy area but it is not an area we can run and hide from because climate change isnt going anywhere.
The need for Australia to be able to compete in a world where there is a price on carbon is not going to go away, and it is going to be even more pressing in five or ten years time than it is now. So it is a tough debate, its even tougher because of the way Tony Abbott is handling this. So we dont have John Howard, who previously supported a sensible economic reform to put a price on carbon and went to the 2007 election with that policy.
We dont have a sensible debate from Mr Abbott, we have a fear campaign. And a policy from him which will cost $30 billion, some $720 per Australian household. So in that context, its going to be a tough debate, I think its going to be tough for us for some time but as I said, its the right thing to do because its not going to go away, this challenge.
JOURNALIST: Penny Wong, appreciate your time. Good luck in the debate tonight. Its an Intelligence Squared debate: both major parties are failing the Australian people. And youre on the negative I take it?
WONG: (laughs) I hope so. Be difficult if I had gone the other way, wouldnt it?
JOURNALIST: Wouldnt be a good start to the week. Good on you. Penny Wong, Finance Minister, appearing tonight in the Intelligence Squared debate.
ENDS