Interview on 2GB with John Stanley 

Subjects: GetUP!; Electric cars; Labor’s damaging 45 per cent emissions reduction target; 2016 election campaign; Jim Molan

EO&E…………………………………………………………

JOHN STANLEY:

Senator Simon Birmingham is Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment. He is the campaign spokesman for the Coalition during the campaign. Senator Birmingham good morning to you.

SIMON BIRMINGHAM:

G’day John good to be with you.

JOHN STANLEY:

It’s not often that I’m trying to think back to times when we hear that the lobby groups that are involved actively in the campaigns actually putting their head up and talking like that, when they do they probably should get their notes correct shouldn’t they and their lines right.

SIMON BIRMINGHAM:

Well indeed GetUp!, clearly we’re exposed there in terms of the type of lies and misleading information that they spread all of the time, but usually not in a forum where they can be held to account and GetUp! is just you know the campaign wing now, the Labor Party and the Greens they’re out there peddling the lies that even Bill Shorten is not game to say himself, and they do that across targeted seats around the country and it’s very good to see that they have been called out, even called out on the ABC, and that people can see the type of mistruths that are being told and from that the risk that is there if you believe GetUp!’s lies, what does it lead to? Well it leads ultimately to Bill Shorten’s $387 billion in additional taxes, crippling the economy, threatening jobs growth and ultimately of course hurting households in terms of their budgets and their ability to pay for things in the future.

JOHN STANLEY:

Obviously both sides have got their lines and you’ve got yours which you’re going to be hammering from now to election day, just before we get on to some of the issues of the day. You won’t be campaigning tomorrow or Sunday is that is that the situation.

SIMON BIRMINGHAM:

That’s right, the both major parties have agreed the Prime Minister was particularly keen on this, that there not be advertising on Good Friday, Easter Sunday or Anzac Day, again there’ll probably be the odd thing and the cameras will still want to follow the leaders if they’re doing certain events or otherwise, but it will be much more a low key kind of day and certainly not that type of advertising that would undermine the solemnity of those days.

JOHN STANLEY:

I’m having a look today the cost of the carbon emissions scheme because Labor’s got a 45 per cent emission reduction target by 2030, your target is 26 per cent is that correct?

SIMON BIRMINGHAM:

That’s right.

JOHN STANLEY:

Ok and Labor is at the moment accused of adding an extra $25 billion, this is on the front page of The Australian today. Businesses could spend more than $25 billion on international carbon credits to get to that 45 per cent is that your understanding?

SIMON BIRMINGHAM:

Well that’s what we can distill from the very limited information that Bill Shorten has been willing to give out, a couple of days ago he was asked by the travelling press pack, whether he would outline what the economic cost of Labor’s higher emissions target was and I think you would have seen in many of your listeners would have seen the journalists getting incredibly frustrated that Mr Shorten wouldn’t answer that question and so yesterday when he was asked the same question again he fell back on an argument where he said well there won’t be any difference in the economic cost because what we’ll be doing which the Government  doesn’t allow is letting Australian businesses buy these international permits, now that argument there just doesn’t stack up to scrutiny if to meet a much, much higher emissions reduction target. And let’s bear in mind the target our Government has said already is on their capita terms or GDP terms one of the highest in the world, and yet Labor want to nearly double it, but to meet that if you’re going to have Australian businesses go out and spend billions of dollars buying offshore permits and to make up the gap, well what does that mean, that means those businesses have got billions of dollars less to spend on employing more Australians, on paying higher wages, on growing their businesses, on indeed transforming their businesses to reduce their level of emissions, I mean it is an opportunity cost of immense magnitude, that means Australian business will have a projected $25 billion less to invest in growing those businesses.

JOHN STANLEY:

So am I right. Your 26 per cent would reduce economic growth GDP by point 0.6 per cent and the 45 per cent reduces it by 1 per cent. Is that right?

SIMON BIRMINGHAM:

Well that’s one lot of modelling that’s out there. It’s relatively dated modelling now we believe that ours is achievable, the Prime Minister has outlined and released more than

JOHN STANLEY:

But that’s the modelling that on which this is based this is $25 billion. So I mean well both of you are going to be reducing economic growth to an extent aren’t you by doing this?

SIMON BIRMINGHAM:

John, the problem with that modelling is that it’s quite dated and at the time it was done the price of these international permits was projected to be around $5 per tonne, now you’re looking at prices that are more in the order of $50, so you’re actually looking at a vast and disparate arrangement compared with what Mr Shorten is claiming there, and that he says there is no real difference because will let business by the international permits, but the evidence shows that at a higher cost of those international permits it will come at a much greater cost to Australian business and that is less money that those businesses have to spend on their employees, to create jobs and opportunities here in Australia, it’s just money that will be walking right out the door, now as Australia’s Trade Minister I’m very proud of the fact that what our Government has achieved is a record trade surplus and that we’ve managed to grow exports so well in our time in office that Australia is now routinely each and every month exporting more than we import, and yet Mr Shorten’s proposing a policy that will see tens of billions of dollars go out the door offshore without any job creation or opportunities for Australians attached to it.

JOHN STANLEY:

Isn’t one of the issues here because I’m sitting right here and there’ll be a lot of people listening to this radio station, this radio network, because there’s a view that really in the end we can’t do anything about climate change so why should we be subjecting ourselves to these emission reductions at all and curbing our economic growth. So that’s on one side they say you shouldn’t be doing anything and in fact you’re hobbling our economy by 0.6 per cent potentially by doing this. And then on the other side you’ve got people saying you’re not doing anything. Bill Shorten says you’re not doing anything about climate change when in fact you are doing something, aren’t you trying to straddle both sides of the fence here.

SIMON BIRMINGHAM:

Well we’re trying to be responsible in terms of being a good international citizen Australia is a G20 nation where one of the world’s leading economies it’s to our nation’s great credit, that we may only be the 53rd or thereabouts most populous nation on the planet but we are the 13th largest economy, we’re seen as a global leader, we play our role, we’re about the only country in the world to consistently meet and exceed the commitments we give in relation to emissions reduction, and yes we’ve made a new batch of commitments, looking forward to 2030, but our Government  believes the commitments we’ve made are responsible are proportionate and that they can be achieved without putting in place higher costs on electricity without putting in place higher costs on purchasing a new motor vehicle, yet the Labor Party’s policies which nearly double the targets that we’ve put down, will lead to higher costs on electricity and will lead to higher costs on motor vehicles and will lead to billions of dollars going offshore.

JOHN STANLEY:

I guess the point I’m making is you don’t you don’t get any credit from the people who want more done on climate change for what you’re doing. And on the other side you’ve got people who say you shouldn’t be doing anything because they think it’s a hoax and therefore there’s no need to do anything if they believe it is happening, they think we can’t do much ourselves so we should be trying to grow our economy as quickly as possible.

SIMON BIRMINGHAM:

No doubt there are extremes in this debate and occupying a sensible responsible middle ground is challenging in this debate because you do have those means…

JOHN STANLEY:

It means you get no credit from anyone does it?

SIMON BIRMINGHAM:

I would hope and believe that a large part of the Australian electorate want to see us undertake action on climate change, they want us to be responsible about it wants to make sure Australia is not at a disadvantage, and that’s the type of balance our Government  has managed to strike to date, you know we have made sure that Australia will meet and exceed our 2020 emissions reduction targets, we’re well and truly on track and we will exceed those significantly and we have done so without Labor’s carbon tax, will have done so by investing in and targeted way to make our businesses more energy efficient to make our land use practices more sustainable, they’re good things to do because they actually give you a win-win outcomes for businesses are more efficient your actual land use practices our more sustainable plus you’re capturing more carbon in the soil and so forth which is good for productivity, they’re the types of smart things to do not go out and drive up the cost of electricity and cars and send billions of dollars offshore as Labor would do.

JOHN STANLEY:

Just on cars with a lot of debate on cars and I pick up the Australian today as a full page of what our largely total electric cars that are being launched at the new car show in China. Bill Shorten’s saying 50 per cent of new cars by 2030. Your own policy says what 25 per cent up to 50 per cent, is that right?

SIMON BIRMINGHAM:

Ours is a projection John and if what we believe will happen and as the market evolves for electric cars that’s a good things.

JOHN STANLEY:

Do you think that by 2030 there’ll be at least a quarter of new cars being sold?

SIMON BIRMINGHAM:

That’s what our projections, look to be the case and that’s what we have based our modelling on, where is what Labor’s saying is they’re going to impose new emission standards in terms of motor vehicles which will force a change in the nature of new car sales in Australia and enforcing that change the motor vehicle industry is estimated that the average price increase for Australians buying a new car will be around $5000, so you can’t you can’t have it both ways as I know some of the Labor Party have been trying to do and say what we actually are doing isn’t any different to what will happen anyway, that the growth in new car sales will occur, well that’s certainly what we acknowledge will happen there will be a growth in electric vehicles.

JOHN STANLEY:

And your funding and subsidising charging stations aren’t you?

SIMON BIRMINGHAM:

And an awareness of that, that’s right we’re supporting some of the basic infrastructure that will facilitate that, that’s a good thing that’s recognizing that there are consumers out there who want to buy electric cars, who will buy electric cars and will support some of the infrastructure that goes with that, but what we’re not going to do is force a change in the marketplace, that just drives up the cost of cars for people and ensures that tradies or other people have to go out and spend a whole lot more on buying a new car that they just can’t afford to spend, and that will just be another handbrake on our economy, and I understand that the cycle that happens here if you have all of these extra new taxes or new costs on cars on electricity, $387 billion of other new taxes that are proposed, it just slows economic growth down and slow economic growth down, tax receipts slow down if tax receipts slow down there’s less money to spend on schools hospitals or roads, and the reason we can spend record and growing sums in those areas while still balancing the budget and delivering tax cuts is because we’ve got a growing economy.

JOHN STANLEY:

Can you put your hand on heart, because I know you’re part of the, the wing of the Liberal Party that would have been supportive of Malcolm Turnbull but come on, hand on heart. You must have been disappointed by the way he campaigned in 2016 and you must be looking at the way Scott Morrison’s going now and thinking you know what is a lot better campaigner than the bloke we had?

SIMON BIRMINGHAM:

We were all disappointed with the 2016 campaign, including Malcolm who I think has expressed this publicly, mainly because what we didn’t do effectively was present the choice to the Australian people and get them to think about not just our agenda but also the consequences and the risks that come with Labor’s agenda and this election, and we’re going to be completely open here, yes we’ve got our own positive policies to sell more investment in mental health support, tens of thousands of new tradie and apprentice opportunities, good positive things that are part of the economic growth people expect, but we are being unashamed about talking about the fact the risk of Labor is $387 billion of new taxes which means retirees who have less money to spend on buying Christmas presents for their grandkids, or meeting the electricity bills in their household, which means that those saving for their retirement will find it so much harder with higher taxes on superannuation under the Labor Party, it’s about presenting the stark choice and making sure when people go to vote they know that it’s not just us with positive policies, it’s the risk of Labor’s higher taxing higher spending agenda that will really cripple jobs growth, and it is the proudest achievement of our Liberal-National Government over the last few years and it’s hard to pick one when you’ve got a budget back to balance and you’ve got secure borders, the proudest achievement would clearly be nearly 1.3 million jobs created to date and it’s off of that that we’ve seen a record level of jobs created for young Australians last year, and we want to keep that going in the future.

JOHN STANLEY:

Just a final one, you’re in the Senate, is it disappointing that we have a situation in Australia where whoever wins the election means either of you will win in a landslide. You’re not going be able to get a lot of your stuff through the Senate because of the way we’ve structured things and the way it’s elected.

SIMON BIRMINGHAM:

We think we’ve had a there’ve been some things that have frustrated us with the Senate, but in other areas we’ve well and truly surprised and exceeded expectations. And in terms of our income tax cuts that were handed down in last year’s budget we legislated the entire package.

JOHN STANLEY:

I’m talking in the broader sense it looks to me and maybe it could be proved wrong very soon but we had John Howard in in 2004, he got control of the Senate but it looks unlikely now that we’re ever under the present setup ever get to see a Government being able to have any kind of control of the Senate so they can get things through the Parliament without negotiating with very small in some cases single interest parties.

SIMON BIRMINGHAM:

And by and large that is situation normal for Governments, you’re right John Howard between 2004 and 2007 had a Senate majority, but that was only for a few years out of his 11 years as Prime Minister, Bob Hawke and Paul Keating never had a Senate majority, it’s kind of situation normal for Governments to have to work with the Senate of the day, but we will absolutely be presenting our agenda and based on our track record of successfully dealing with the Senate successfully getting our income tax cuts legislated last year, we’re confident we’ll be able to do so again and implement the agenda we’re taking to this election.

JOHN STANLEY:

Just finally one of your colleagues Jim Molan he’ll be with us later in the program, have you got any problem with him urging New South Wales voters to vote below the line.

SIMON BIRMINGHAM:

Well I urge every voter to vote for the Liberal Party and if they are going to vote below the line to make sure they vote for every Liberal and National candidate first and foremost before they deviate, of course I would encourage people to make sure that they follow the simple thing with their vote which is to vote one above the line and that way you can guarantee that it flows through all of the Liberal-National candidates.

JOHN STANLEY:

Easier these days isn’t, because you don’t have to fill out every squares it’s easier to vote below the line that it used to be.

SIMON BIRMINGHAM:

It’s easier for people, the important thing if they want a Government that can deliver its lower taxing balanced budget secure borders agenda and keep growing jobs for Australians as well as investing in schools, hospitals, candidates and they make sure that their preferences flow between those Liberal National Party candidates, if they are entertaining the idea of voting below the line.

JOHN STANLEY:

Alright Senator Birmingham, thank you for your time.

SIMON BIRMINGHAM:

Thank you very much John.

[ends]

Media Contact: Coalition Campaign Headquarters: T: (07) 3557 7533 / E: media@cchq.org.au