HOWARD SATTLER: The Federal Government’s confirmed today it’s going to spend $12 million of taxpayers’ money on its campaign to advertise promote, in other words the emissions trading scheme. Climate Change Minister Greg Combet, who hasn’t got time to talk with us today about this thank you, Greg, for nothing said the media advertising campaign won’t be launched until the Government reaches a deal with the Australian Greens got to get them onside and the Independents on the emissions trading scheme which it wants to start from July the 1st next year with, of course, the big one the fixed price for carbon there. That’s what they propose to do spend $12 million of our money. I wonder whether or not anybody who is promoting the other side’s going to get any money from the Government? I don’t think so. Senator Simon Birmingham joins us now and he is the Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment. Hello, Simon.
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: Good afternoon, Howard, and good afternoon to your listeners.
HOWARD SATTLER: Okay, $12 million. What’s it going to be all about?
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: Well, Howard, the first thing I’d say is I find it remarkable that Climate Change Minister Greg Combet’s not available to speak with you. If you need to spend $12 million of taxpayer money to get your message across, I thought the first thing you’d do is you’d take every free media opportunity that comes your way.
HOWARD SATTLER: No, he said he had a media conference, that was it, he didn’t have time to talk to us.
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: Oh, so there we go, so selling the message obviously isn’t important to him but it’s important to spend taxpayer dollars doing so? Look, this is an utter, utter, yet again back-flip by the Gillard Government. Julia Gillard, of course, went to the last election saying there would be no carbon tax under a Government she led. She went to the election before that saying that Labor would and her words were “end the abuse of taxpayer funded Government advertising” so she’s now back-flipping on her ‘ending the abuse of taxpayer funded Government advertising’ promise to fulfil her back-flip on her ‘no carbon tax’ promise and…
HOWARD SATTLER: Mr Combet says the Government will seek the approval of an independent body for the content of the ad campaign to ensure it didn’t breach guidelines for political advertising. Now, what’s the independent body going to do, do you know?
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: Well, look, the independent body has a role to play…
HOWARD SATTLER: But who is it? Who are they?
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: Look, they’re a Government appointed body so they’re not…
HOWARD SATTLER: How can they be independent if they’re Government appointed?
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: Well, look, indeed. To an extent there, that’s right, Howard, but in particular they’re not able to stop, simply, campaigns like this on a topic like the carbon tax which is inherently political. They will look at whether some of the content is overtly political, all that type of detail, so…
HOWARD SATTLER: It’ll be all about promoting a carbon tax, won’t it?
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: That’s right. This whole campaign is designed to sell a Labor Party message and that message is ‘we should have a carbon tax’ and, of course, nobody’s going to fund the ‘no’ case Government won’t stump up there and it’s not just $12 million for television advertising or advertising generally. There is an additional, already in the budget, $13.7 million that is there for what they’re calling a public engagement campaign, so they’re going to…
HOWARD SATTLER: What’s that mean?
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: Well, they’re going to give money out left, right and centre for conferences and events and community meetings and all manner of things and that, of course, doesn’t include the costs of the Climate Commissioner, Tim Flannery, travelling around the country to sell the message as well, so…
HOWARD SATTLER: Tim Flannery?
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: Professor Tim Flannery…
HOWARD SATTLER: Yeah, I know Tim Flannery but he’s totally biased in that he’s all for the carbon tax and, you know, has got all these awful predictions about the world ending if we don’t have the carbon tax and has been shown to be a little bit wide of the mark with his weather predictions.
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: Well, so what we’re seeing is significant money behind Tim Flannery’s Climate Commission…
HOWARD SATTLER: Like there’ll be no water in the Brisbane dams. Right!
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: That’s right. $13.7 million for a public engagement campaign, $12 million for an advertising campaign it all adds up very quickly. They’re going to give out grants of up to $250,000 to organisations to engage with the public on the carbon tax. Well, I think this…
HOWARD SATTLER: Organisations that are promoting the carbon tax?
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: No doubt organisations like GetUp! and the ACTU who were are all behind funding the recent advertising campaign we’ve seen, so the Government went to great lengths, when that campaign started, to say ‘no, no, this isn’t Government-funded’ but, of course, now they’re going to go and provide quarter-of-a-million-dollar grants to many of the organisations who funded that campaign.
HOWARD SATTLER: Alright, this interview’s going pretty well for you at the moment but now I’m going to point out that the Howard Government spent $121 million advertising WorkChoices and $118 million to promote the GST, so how is this any different to that except this is a lot less money?
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: Well, Howard, I think you have to acknowledge that, in the end, Labor said that spending was wrong and they said they would put in end…
HOWARD SATTLER: Well, do you think it was wrong?
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: Look, I think that it was probably excessive, to be honest, and I think that two wrongs don’t make a right.
HOWARD SATTLER: Were you in the Government then?
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: I served seven months as a backbencher at the tail end of the Howard Government, so I wasn’t there for much of it and I would hope that if we were in government, and my attitude would certainly be that, we would need to be far, far more responsible and I think this space does need change and further cleaning up and that’s what Julia Gillard promised to do and that’s what she should do.
HOWARD SATTLER: Yeah, alright, so he was wrong John Howard and his Government to do that sort of thing and this is wrong too? Do we get that from you?
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: Look, you can certainly get that from me, that I think the spending… two wrongs don’t make a right and in this case we are looking absolutely at money being spent for a highly, highly politically charged campaign and that shouldn’t happen. Taxpayers’ money should not be spent in that way and, to be quite frank, Howard, I think in the past to some extent it has backfired on the Government of the day…
HOWARD SATTLER: Do you need to get Parliamentary approval for this, by the way?
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: No. Look, these are within the sort of funds that are appropriated each year…
HOWARD SATTLER: So Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor, the Independents, saying they don’t like this, this is, to use their words, unhelpful, is not going to mean anything anyway because it won’t be a vote on it?
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: They would need to stand up to the Government in a far more creative way than simply saying they’d be not supporting this because there won’t be a direct vote on it, so…
HOWARD SATTLER: It doesn’t matter? No, alright. We’ll leave you there, Simon.
SIMON BIRMINGHAM: Thank you very much, Howard. Always a pleasure.
HOWARD SATTLER: Simon Birmingham. He’s the Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment.
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