In Their Own Words: Coal compensation, extreme weather inquiry, Labor-Greens agreement

Christine Milne
Australian Greens Leader

Adam Bandt
Greens Deputy Leader

Wednesday 20 February 2013

Press conference

Transcript

Subjects: Coal compensation, extreme weather inquiry, Labor-Greens agreement

CHRISTINE MILNE: I’m in Victoria today because we are having a hearing on the impact of extreme weather events in Australia and in particular whether or not we as a nation are ready for the increase in these extreme weather events that are going to occur because of accelerated global warming. The Climate Commission brought out a report last year saying we will have more extreme hot days, more heat waves, more bushfires and will be taking evidence this afternoon from the bushfire CRC, from the firefighters, and these are the things the Greens have been warning about in terms of dealing with climate change. It is essential we continue to work hard to reduce emissions and at the same time make the nation ready. And with the firefighters there this afternoon it’s something that in this period of government Adam Bandt’s put forward a bill to help firefighters suffering from cancer as a result of their activities and so it’s just another example of the Greens caring for both people and the environment.

But looking at the impacts of global warming, it is shocking to see today the result of overcompensation to brown coal generators as part of the climate package. When the package was negotiated in 2011, the Greens warned very strongly that this was a mistake. Professor Garnaut and I sat across a table and argued with the Government – way too much money to coal-fired generators, we do not need to be propping up their asset value, we need to be moving to a clean energy future. Paying polluters to keep on polluting ought not to be a large part of a clean energy package. The tragedy is the Government insisted on it as part of the package and now the evidence is in. The brown coal generators are making a windfall profit – millions, in fact billions, of dollars in windfall profits as they pass on the carbon price to consumers and collect the cash for themselves. This can’t continue. Paying polluters to keep on polluting just can’t continue and that is why we need the Government to review this aspect of the package. The Greens said it was a problem in the first place, it has proved to be a problem and needs to be fixed. Adam Bandt was with me at the table over that weekend arguing the case.

ADAM BANDT: Victoria could be running on renewable energy by the end of the decade. There’s potentially enough geothermal energy down in the Latrobe Valley to power whole cities. We have sun and wind and wave power, it’s the energy of the future. During the negotiations for the clean energy package the Greens very strongly said that we need to make sure the lights stay on and that we have energy security during this transition, but that we need to move from dirty coal-fired power to clean energy as quickly as possible. We were very clear that giving billions of dollars to these big polluters to keep polluting was going to slow down the transition to renewable energy. The Greens together with Professor Ross Garnaut said we should give guarantees to these power companies so that they can keep on working until we transitioned to clean energy, but we shouldn’t be giving them money. What’s transpired today is that the Greens and Professor Ross Garnaut were dead right and what we warned would happen has come to pass – and that is that there’s now billions of dollars of public money going into the coffers of these polluting power companies so that power stations like Hazelwood can stay open for longer. Now that is not what Victorians expected from the climate change package, it’s what the Greens warned would happen and the Government now needs to step in and fix it. The Government stepped in before and fixed parts of the climate package. They need to step in again. Victorians and the community would not expect that we are paying power stations to keep polluting when there is clean and renewable energy that’s abundant.

JOURNALIST: Do you have a suggestion on how the Government should get in and fix it?

CHRISTINE MILNE: Well the Government should immediately commission their own review. Minister Combet has questioned the figures that have been put forward by Mr Mountain in this report for Environment Victoria – well if Mr Combet isn’t satisfied then he should commission his own review. But we worked with the Government to change the clean energy package to link with the European Union. We can work together to change the package to fix this but the point is that the Government has walked away from its commitment on climate change and has effectively embraced the mining industry, the brown coal generators rather than the clean energy future. Now really this is the big challenge to the Government. Work with us again to actually fix this package because I don’t think anyone in the country thinks it’s a reasonable thing for brown coal generators to keep on polluting and to actually be paid to profit from polluting when we are holding up the roll out of fantastic renewable energy, especially here in Victoria.

JOURNALIST: Given your comments yesterday and also your comments today about these new figures do you regret some of the decisions made after the 2010 election?

CHRISTINE MILNE: I have absolutely no regrets about the signing an agreement to, for Labor to go into Government after the 2010 election. Central to that package was achieving a carbon price in Australia. That is the piece of legislation for which this Government will be remembered by history very kindly. In fact the International Energy Agency came out in November last year saying that the whole design of the Australian package was exactly in line with what the International Energy Agency regards as world’s best practice – with the exception of the over-generous compensation to coal-fired generators. The International Energy Agency recognised what the Greens recognised, what Professor Garnaut recognised – this is the mistake in the package and it needs to be fixed.

JOURNALIST: Just getting back to your announcement, Labor has brushed aside your statement to end the deal, what does this mean?

CHRISTINE MILNE: Well the fact of the matter is I wanted to come out to the Australian people that Labor had walked away from its agreement with the Greens, it’s walked away from its promise to work together with us in the public interest because it actually prefers to give in to the big miners, it has embraced the agenda of Gina Rinehart, it’s embraced the agenda of Rio Tinto and Xstrata. How is it possible that you could have a situation where they pay no tax but single parents are slugged? How is it fair in Australia that people living on Newstart, in poverty, are being told we can’t afford as a nation to give them an extra $50 a week but Rio Tinto can celebrate paying no tax? That is not right and that shows the extent to which Labor has moved to embrace the miners at the expense of people. They don’t care about people and environment and that’s exactly what is showing up here with its overgenerous compensation to allow the polluters to keep on polluting and we have got to actually wind it back. We need the community at the heart of Government, not the big miners.

JOURNALIST: But haven’t you done Labor a favour because you’re perceived as their partners?

CHRISTINE MILNE: Sorry I don’t understand the question

JOURNALIST: Haven’t you done them a favour because you’re seen as a minor partner and you’re giving them the opportunity to break loose from the Greens?

CHRISTINE MILNE: Well the Labor Party already walked away from the agreement. That is the point. They had made a choice some time ago, they made the choice by refusing to fix the mining tax, by refusing to make the big miners pay, they made the decision to walk away from the Greens and the fact that they’re now celebrating the fact that they walked away from the Greens so that they could save the miners having to pay and take it out of single parents’ pockets shows you just how far the Labor Party have abandoned the agenda of caring for people.

JOURNALIST: Why do you continue to give them supply, why wouldn’t you end entirely the agreement and just go to an election?

CHRISTINE MILNE: Well the Greens signed an agreement in good faith and we said we would offer this Government confidence and supply. We have no intention of casting this parliament into some kind of chaos. We have been a driving force for stable Government. The fact that there has been instability in the Labor Party and amongst the independents has not been as a result of the Greens. We have done for the Australian people what we promised and that is stable Government and we will continue to offer that until September 14. We will have no truck with giving Tony Abbott a leg up in this circumstance. We will do as we said. But that means we would simply be using this period in the Parliament to drive home the opportunity to fix the mining tax. Adam Bandt’s got a bill in the House of Representatives, we are going to push hard and we’re asking the community to get behind us to actually fix that mining tax, to get money into public schools before the election because I know that’s what people want.

JOURNALIST: On Mr Abbott and the Coalition – can you 100 per cent rule out that you will do a preference deal in the seat of Melbourne with the Liberals?

CHRISTINE MILNE: What I can say is the Greens will be saying to people that we want to win Melbourne in our own right. We want to achieve Senate quotas right around the country in our own right and that is what we will be campaigning to do. The whole preference discussion now is a big distraction by Labor because they’re putting out a dog whistle for Liberal preferences, it’s exactly what they did in Victoria in the state election and what they have both said is that they will preference each other to try to cut out the Greens and that’s why we’re saying to the voters – you decide, you put your preferences where you like and of course we would like them to vote 1 for the Greens. In terms of preference negotiations, they are going to go on between all parties between now and the election and that is something that the parties will do and are required to do by law to lodge that ticket for the Senate.

JOURNALIST: You say that the refusal by Labor to change the mining tax is one of the main reasons that you ended the agreement but by making that statement haven’t you removed the last shred of leverage that you had to actually change the tax and seek further change?

CHRISTINE MILNE: Labor walked away from the agreement, the Greens had said we are prepared to work with Labor in good faith, in the public interest to deal with climate change, to get transparent outcomes. Labor walked away when it basically abandoned the public interest on the Tarkine, when it drove massive coal seam gas, when it refused to fix the mining tax. No, it does not mean there is no parliamentary leverage, we are moving in the Senate for an inquiry into the whole flaws in the tax. The Coalition has said they will support that inquiry, it will get up. And in that inquiry the extent of the flaws in the tax will become obvious and it will allow the community to get behind us and put pressure on the government to fix it before the election. Fixing it is what we care about. The Coalition just want it to not exist so that the miners pay nothing. We want it fixed so that we can put money into public schools, money in to disability insurance. We have to do that before the election because the Coalition don’t want to do any of it.

JOURNALIST: Why have another parliamentary inquiry? There have been two already.

CHRISTINE MILNE: No, there has not been an inquiry into what’s wrong with this tax. The House of Reps inquiry looking at specifically at the state royalty issue. We need a much broader inquiry because it is shocking I think to learn that this tax was negotiated with all the big mining companies on one side of the table and Wayne Swan and Julia Gillard on the other, and the Treasury weren’t there. It is now clear that the mining industry ran rings around the Prime Minister and the Treasurer, they didn’t get their experts in there and they were duded. It’s not the fact that they were duded that matters, it’s that the Australian people were duded. Because we are not getting the money we need and the Government’s response to that is not let’s go back and fix it, their response is let’s take it out of the pockets of single parents. Well that’s not on.

JOURNALIST: You knew about these issues a long time ago why didn’t you walk away from the agreement a while ago?

CHRISTINE MILNE: We were certainly aware when the mining tax came in that it was flawed. We told Wayne Swan that across the table. He refused to fix it. We moved amendments in the Parliament to fix it at that time and the Government rejected them. That’s why we’ve brought in the bill now again to try a second time. But the point here is you either have some money, the 26 million as paltry as that is, or you had no because Tony Abbott does not want Gina Rinehart or anyone else to pay any tax, they want to sack public servants instead. They want to abandon money going into public education and disability, well we don’t. We care about people and we care about the environment and we want to raise the money from the people who can afford to pay to give to the people who need it most.

JOURNALIST: Just to be clear on preferences, you won’t be part of any negotiations on preferences with either Labor or the Liberals?

CHRISTINE MILNE: All political parties will be engaged in discussions on preferences, that is normal practice because it is part of the law that you have to lodge a preference ticket as a part of the federal elections and all political parties will be engaged in that, but that is something parties deal with, but at the parliamentary level our job is to take it straight up to both the Government and the Coalition and to fix these problems so that we get money into the coffers so that we can deliver for single parents, for people on Newstart and for the environment. We want to get out there right now and help those farmers who are really struggling because of coal seam gas and we don’t want any more of the simple and cynical political fixes on coal seam gas. We want a genuine end to the destruction of farmland and contamination of water.

JOURNALIST: What do you make of Marius Kloppers stepping down from BHP?

CHRISTINE MILNE: I’m not across the details of what BHP is saying as a result of that. In fact I was rather hoping he might be one of the people who might front the Senate inquiry but it appears not so, so we will have to deal with that as BHP replaces him.
Christine Milne, Greens Leader, Adam Bandt Greens Deputy Leader