GILBERT: Penny Wong, thanks for your time this morning. I want to ask you first of all about Malcolm Turnbull. Hes made these comments criticising his partys approach on climate change. Now if youve got a senior Liberal frontbencher making these comments, your Government continues to struggle to convince people of the merits of your policy and of your alternative. How bad is the Government at selling anything when youve got that division there but you cant capitalise on it?
WONG: Good morning to you Kieran. Well can I say something about Malcolm Turnbull. I negotiated with Malcolm Turnbull as you know, over a long period while he was the Opposition Leader before Tony Abbott rolled him. And I know Malcolm is committed, one of the few people on that side of politics, is committed to real action on climate change.
And I think what we saw last night is Malcolm really telling the truth about what the Liberal policy is, that it that it is very expensive and that it is a con. Because those on his side of politics who we know really dont want to do anything on this issue are able to roll it back and switch it off whenever they want. Now thats not a sensible response to the economic challenge of climate change and the economic challenge of transforming the Australian economy to a lower polluting economy.
GILBERT: But youve got those issues that remain there, Mr Turnbull with the comments last night. And yet you and the Government struggle to argue and prosecute the alternative. In fact, youre losing ground on it.
WONG: Kieran, this is a tough reform. It is a reform thats tough because it changes the way our economy works. Its a reform thats tough because it makes something that was free, no longer free, and that is pollution. And it is a reform thats tough because were being opposed by people who are increasingly strident and increasingly shrill. And I think Scott Morrison demonstrated that today. Echoing his leaders mindless and relentless negativity. But it is the right reform, and we will continue to argue for it. We have to put a lot more detail out there. And Julia Gillard and Greg Combet have made clear we will do that after we have fully consulted and fully considered the issues.
GILBERT: Greg Hunt yesterday, the Coalitions spokesperson, referred to a $15 per tonne price that the Coalition would pay. This is a similar framework in some respects. He has adopted and explained what the direct action plan would mean. And yet the Government is copping so much flak and unable to repudiate the very successful campaign that Mr Abbott has launched against your carbon price.
WONG: Well Kieran, this is a long and tough campaign and we understand that. And sometimes the things that are worth doing do take long and tough campaigns to win them. What Greg Hunt has clearly demonstrated is their policy also costs money. And their policy also puts a price on carbon. It just does it less well and more expensively.
Remember, the figures that the Government has released from the Department of Climate Change show that Greg Hunt and Tony Abbotts policy would cost some $30 billion of taxpayers money out to the end of the decade to achieve the same reductions that the Government will. And the difference is they will take the money from taxpayers, give it to polluters, in the hope that those polluters will reduce their pollution and they wont compensate for families at all. Thats the Liberal Party policy on climate change and thats what Malcolm Turnbull was talking about.
GILBERT: Joe Hockey yesterday, on another issue, when we look at the budget he says the Government has not done enough to cut spending and that view has been endorsed by John Broadbent who up until recently about a month ago he was implementing monetary policy for the Reserve Bank of Australia. Mr Broadbent is quoted in the Fin Review this morning as saying: When I see the growth numbers from the budget it was indicative to me that they, the Government, are not pulling back fast enough. So Mr Hockeys view endorsed quite clearly there by John Broadbent, formerly of the RBA.
WONG: I think Mr Broadbent would be most upset if you suggested he was endorsing Mr Hockeys view. Mr Hockey rocked up to the National Press Club yesterday as the shadow Treasurer, he offered no savings, he offered no costings. He could not explain the massive error and holes in his costings when asked.
I mean you cant, as a person whos supposed to be financially accountable to the Australian public, the shadow Treasurer, you cant simply say I stand by my numbers when there is all this evidence that your numbers are wrong; that you have double-counted.
GILBERT: But Minister, let me, let me get this response please to the comment from John Broadbent. 30 years with the RBA. Recently in charge of the monetary policy for the Reserve Bank of Australia. He says youre doing too little and youre too slow with reining in the spending.
WONG: What I would say on the spending side is that if you look at the four years of the budget period, the average growth in Commonwealth expenditure is about 1 per cent per annum. The last five Costello budgets were around 3.7 per cent per annum. You have to go back to the 1980s Kieran to get a government who restrained expenditure from the Commonwealth level as much as this Government is doing. And its the fastest budget turnaround in over 40 years. So I mean those are pretty significant figures in terms of the history.
Can I also say, if Joe Hockey wants a surplus, he did nothing yesterday to show that he actually would deliver a surplus. In fact, what he showed yesterday is that hes likely to wreck the surplus. That is enormously irresponsible from the Opposition.
GILBERT: Finance Minister Penny Wong, thank you for your time this morning.
WONG: Good to speak with you Kieran.
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