Subjects: ARENA, Direct Action, local government referendum, paid parental leave, GST Greens in balance of power
CHRISTINE MILNE: (Inaudible) very clearly that Australians must take better care of our natural environment and must do more to address climate change. These are big challenges for a population that’s growing and for denser cities and how we actually engage with our whole environment here in Australia. At exactly the same time that we are being been told we have to look after our environment, that we need to address global warming, we’ve got the Coalition out saying that they are going to cut back to $3.2 billion that they had set aside as their supposed Direct Action Plan to address global warming. Now Treasury has already said that $3.2 billion would not go anywhere near reducing greenhouse gas emissions by even the 5 per cent that Tony Abbott is committed to and now Greg Hunt is questioning whether they’d even spend that much. Big companies, energy suppliers like AGL, like Origin, have come out with Santos saying tell us more about this Direct Action Plan, at least with the emissions trading scheme they have now got they know exactly what the rules are, they know what to anticipate, but now they are saying to Tony Abbott let’s have the detail. The Greens have been saying to Tony Abbott it’s time to come clean with the Australian people Direct Action is a sham, everybody knows it’s a sham, let’s have some straight answers. Exactly how much money is in the Direct Action fund, exactly what gigawatt hour target will you agree to with a 20 per cent renewable energy, will you keep the 41,000 gigawatt hour target?
But it’s not just the Coalition cutting back on its commitments to global warming, it’s also the Government. I was horrified to see that the Government is saying that it will reduce the funding it made to ARENA, the new Australian Renewable Energy Agency. Now this was an arrangement that was made with the Greens as part of the Multi-Party Climate Committee agreement. ARENA was set up to look at the early research and development and commercialisation of that early research. That is a critical component to addressing global warming, to accelerating the shift away from fossil fuels to renewable energy which all Australians want. It is unacceptable to cut ARENA and the Greens will not be supporting it. And put the question, put to the Government why is it that you want to always cut back on renewable energy on addressing global warming when everyone says it’s more important and yet you will not touch the big miners, you keep supporting fossil fuel subsidies to the big miners, there are billions to be had with the big miners but no, instead of that you are going to cut back on the things that will help us transition to a low carbon economy. It’s the wrong way, go back.
JOURNALIST: Do you not think though that given the collapse of the European carbon price that it’s due diligence to review respective carbon programs?
CHRISTINE MILNE: Certainly in terms of the tax-free threshold, the Greens helped to negotiate that and I totally support it, but equally I have said that if Treasury is downgrading the price it expects carbon to trade at in in 2015 then it’s appropriate that the tax-free threshold is maintained at $18,200 until the price goes up to the anticipated $25, so ARENA is a separate case altogether. The reason that we got a renewable energy agency, a statutory authority together with the Clean Energy Finance Corporation is because the carbon price is too low to drive the transition to renewable energy and given we had to have that transition and it needs to be accelerated, that money and those agencies were set up as independent statutory authorities so that Governments couldn’t keep dipping their fingers in and taking money out of those. The Prime Minister dipped her fingers into the Solar Flagships program to try and take money out to bolster the flood relief program in Queensland, we said no to that and preserved the funding. I do not accept ministerial and Government interference in independent statutory authorities set up to accelerate the transition to a low carbon economy.
JOURNALIST: Do the Greens support a referendum into the local government structure or the payments?
CHRISTINE MILNE: When the Greens negotiated our agreement with Prime Minister Gillard in 2010 right upfront was a recognition of local government in the Constitution and a recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the Constitution. Expert committees were set up for both. In the case of local government the expert committee recommended that the referendum proceed and I’m absolutely delighted with that. It was core to our agreement with Prime Minister Gillard, the Greens have been driving it, wanting it to happen for some time and we’re totally behind. We need a tripartite response, we need all sides of politics out now campaigning for a yes vote in that referendum on constitutional recognition of local government and it’s actually just recognising what already happens. Already federal government goes into partnership with local government, federal government is putting money into some very good programs that local governments are delivering on the ground. We’re all seeing now local government, as the closest tier of government to the people, is delivering a lot of programs and we have to make sure that that recognition is there in the Constitution. I don’t think a lot of Australians would even realise that the Constitution doesn’t recognise local government at the moment. Let’s put it in the Constitution, it’s a pretty straight forward change, it legitimises what we already do and recognises it and it’s a great thing to celebrate the contribution that local government makes.
JOURNALIST: What you think about Colin Barnett’s comments in Parliament the other day that there’s an in-principle agreement between the four big states on trying to change the GST distribution?
CHRISTINE MILNE: What we’ve seen from Tony Abbott is a lot of ducking and weaving on the GST and Tasmanians really deserve an answer and Eric Abetz needs to come out with Tony Abbott, not separately but together, and tell Tasmanians whether first of all they’re going to change the GST arrangements and that will undoubtedly will be to the detriment of Tasmania, and the other question the need to answer is what about the in excess of $70 million that Hydro Tasmania now gets because of the carbon price. When they were in Tasmania the federal leadership was saying that Tasmania would be compensated for that. Then they got back to the mainland and said oh no they made a mistake – they’re not going to compensate Tasmania for the loss of that more than 70 million to the Hydro every year. So I challenge Tony Abbott and Eric Abetz to stand together and tell Tasmanians are you going to change the GST – yes or no? Are you going to compensate the Hydro, if you say that you are going to take away more than $70 million a year that the Greens have delivered through the energy package.
JOURNALIST: Some Labor MPs are sort of suggesting that the in principle agreement between the larger states suggests there’s been some sort of deal struck, are you concerned about that?
CHRISTINE MILNE: I’m always concerned about the fact that one thing is being said in Tasmania and another thing is being said on the mainland. You can’t have it both ways, you can’t turn up in Western Australia and say that you are going to have a GST arrangement whereby Western Australia gets more and then come to Tasmania and say oh no, no I didn’t mean that, it’s not going to go to a per capita arrangement. We need a consistent story across the country, we need a consistent story on the GST and a consistent story on Tony Abbott and what he’s going to do about the fact that the Hydro will lose in excess of $70 million a year if he tears down the energy package. They’re the questions he has to answer. Whether there are any deals behind the scenes or not who knows, but he’s got an obligation to come out and be upfront with the people.
JOURNALIST: Do you think Bob Brown is becoming irrelevant?
CHRISTINE MILNE: I think Bob Brown is doing a fantastic job campaigning for conservation and today he has launched their next phase of the Sea Shepherd engagement to try and protect the whales and the Antarctic from the marauding Japanese whaling fleet. I think that is something that all Australians actually support and are getting frustrated that the Government is taking so long and that the Sea Shepherd is doing for the Australian people what they would expect the Government to do and that’s take on the Japanese.
JOURNALIST: Does the Tasmanian Premier underestimate her influence within the community?
CHRISTINE MILNE: I think the Tasmanian Premier should get on with explaining to the people of Tasmania why she thinks it’s a good idea, and the Prime Minister in this category as well, why they think it’s a good idea that people who are outside the mainstream consensus ought to be silenced. That’s for them to defend, that’s what the Prime Minister has said, and that goes absolutely against freedom of speech and the whole ethos of protest. This issue deserves to be debated on the merit of the argument. Trying to take on the person is really demeaning for a leadership position.
JOURNALIST: There’s going to be a protest at the mining conference in Hobart today. Do you think the protesting, the divisions could become as divisive as the forestry debate? Bryan Green doesn’t seem to think it’s going to be, doesn’t think the industry will be targeted over mining.
CHRISTINE MILNE: I have absolutely no doubt that people in Tasmania and around Australia who recognise the Tarkine as a fantastic area that needs to be protected will stand up and campaign for its protection and it’s not just the Greens saying it, the Australian Heritage Council came out and said very clearly that the Tarkine should be protected for its outstanding natural and cultural values. And it was the Federal Minister who is supposed to represent the environment who dismissed that and the Tasmanian Government who lobbied to have the Heritage Council’s recommendations overturned. I have no doubt that right around the country people are offended by Labor’s failure to stand up for the protection of the environment and will campaign for the protection of the Tarkine, and I will be one of them.
JOURNALIST: How likely do you think until we see the Coalition’s parental leave policy in the form they’re talking about when they win government?
CHRISTINE MILNE: Well what a debacle the Coalitions paid parental leave policy has become. One minute we hear Tony Abbott saying he’s committed to it, the next minute Peter Reith appears from nowhere and we’ve got several backbenchers who are saying that they don’t like it. I think it’s time again for those divisions in the Coalition to be put to one side and the leadership in the Coalition to say exactly what they are going to do. From the Greens’ point of view we have said that we think that the paid parental leave should be for the 26 weeks, that it should include superannuation, that goes further than what the Government wants to do but not as far as the Coalition. I think the Greens have put up a very good compromise and we’ll look forward to working with either side of politics, whoever turns up as government after the election, to see a better parental leave program put into place.
JOURNALIST: Is there any point in doing deals with Labor governments in the future given that they have broken the agreement they you were talking about earlier to do with carbon, the carbon issues?
CHRISTINE MILNE: Minority governments have enormous potential to do good in this country and it is always been that the biggest social and environmental and economic reforms actually occur in periods of minority government, especially when the Greens are in balance of power to drive those changes. In fact majority governments are too afraid to make the changes that are necessary. Let’s just review that for a moment. In minority government in Tasmania the Greens drove a doubling of the Tasmanian wilderness World Heritage Area, we drove gay law reform and gun law reform in the middle of the 90s, including an apology to the Stolen Generation. More than a decade ahead of what happened federally. In this period of minority government, in the agreement with the Prime Minister we wanted recognition for local Government in the Constitution, we’re on the way to a referendum. We said that we wanted a carbon price delivered in this period of Government and that was delivered on 1 July 2012 is in place and we are now working to see that linked to the EU and to be entrenched into the future. There’s about to be a National Disability Insurance Scheme. We’re about to see a major overhaul in schools funding. All that is possible because the Greens have stood there and said we are going to make the changes that are necessary and three and a half million children across Australia are going to have Denticare actually as part of Medicare. Isn’t that a fantastic outcome and it has all happened because the Greens are
Australian Greens Leader Christine Milne
