Jamie Briggs MP

Hello and welcome to capital hill where much of the discussion today has been about two of the Governments big unresolved issues. The first is climate change where the Government appointed Climate Commission has delivered a report on the science of climate change. It finds that the climate is changing and that human activity is triggering the changes. And it says that this is the critical decade for coming up with solutions. The Government too is getting more confident about its regional on asylum seekers, although the big deal with Malaysia is still yet to be finalised. Joining me to discuss these issues is Labor MP Debra O’Neil and the Liberal’s Jamie Briggs. Welcome to you both.

 

 

Hi Lyndal

 

 

Hi Lyndal

 

 

Debra, as I pointed out, the Government was pressuring the Opposition today on both the issues of climate change and asylum seekers but both of those are unresolved aren’t they?

 

 

Look, we have got the interests of the Australian people at heart and we are determined to get on the with the job of shifting in to a clean energy economy. And increasingly, the voices all around the world are supporting what we have been saying all along, that climate change is real, that we need to shift to a clean energy economy and that we are among great other nations that are getting on with the job, including the Prime Minister of Britain, Cameron, who is getting on with the job by 2020. And day by day we are going to see more and more of this acceptance that climate change is there and we have to advance in a proper way to make sure that we get a carbon free economy. That is where we are headed.

 

 

Jamie, if we can talk about the issue of climate change first and the Climate Commission’s report, do you accept its findings?

 

 

Well we have agreed, we have a bipartisan target with the Labor Party. A five percent reduction by 2020, so both major parties have got that target, where we have an argument is how you get to that target. We have had the same policy on this now for some time. We took that policy to an election and we have still got that policy today. Now of course that is unlike the Labor Party who took at the last election a couple of climate change policies, one was cash for clunkers. The other one was to have a group 150 people chosen from the phone book to work out what their policy on climate change was. Now, not long after the election when Senator Bob Brown said ‘We need to have a carbon tax’, the Prime Minister back flipped on her promise that she would never have a carbon tax under a government she led and announced that she would have a carbon tax. So we have got a bipartisan agreement of 5% reduction by 2020. We accept the science; we say lets reduce carbon by 5% in 2020 on 1990 levels. The same of the Labor Party, we just have an argument about how we get there.

 

Deb, does the Government have dual problems? One as Jamie pointed out that the Prime Minister promised before the election that there would be no carbon tax and the second that as one of the Garnaut updates showed people accept the science increasingly less.

 

 Look we have no problem with leadership. In contrast, we have got Tony Abbott full of negativity. He’s got no intention, no capacity to lead on these issue. He is all opposition and no leader. And this issue shows once again, exactly the stark differences between a future and forward looking government and the backward looking opposition. You know the report itself has come out today, it is wonderful that we are looking at direct action in terms of doing something about the carbon cycle and getting and sequestering it in the soil, but this set report says that the offset approach if poorly implemented as the potential to lock even more climate change in for the future. This science is now telling us that its not only that we are heading in the right direction the Government, but the Liberal Party’s Direct Action Policy is flawed and will not attack the issues that need to be attacked, if we are going to move to a clean energy economy.

 

 

Does it in fact point out that though that some of the proposals from the Coalition on direct action actually will rapidly reduce the pollution in the atmosphere in the short term, although it is long term prospects are less clear. That it won’t work in the long term, but certainly in the long term.

 

 

The Climate Change Commission’s Critical Decade says this is the critical decade and we need to get on with doing the job. We need to advance to reduce the lines we currently have on a carbon economy, we have a very clear plan that 1000 large companies that are currently polluting will pay if they continue to pollute. Every cent that they pay will go into a fund to do three important things. To support households, to support climate change programs and to support jobs. Now that is a clear mandate, taking it from the polluters and giving it to the people. In contrast, we have a Liberal Party policy putting its hand in every Australian’s pocket, every family household to the tune of $720.00 per household and heading in the wrong direction according to this report.

 

 

It is interesting you mention mandate Deb, I think that that is a very important word because if the Labor Party want to show real leadership, if they really believe in their policy here they would call an election. Take it to the election; let’s have a honest approach to the election. At the last election Labor..

 

 

I find this comment absolutely laughable.

 

 

Laughable? Do you think your electors don’t deserve to know that the intention of the Prime Minister was to have Prime Minister carbon tax when she said five days before, five days before...

 

 

Our country needs leadership on this issue, we need to progress.

 

 

Well leadership would be to take it to an election.

 

 

Look we are six months out, the aussies that I know I don’t they would be that excited about going back to the polls and I think that this whole discussion…

 

 

So a mandate 

 

 

That we hear about the election reveals absolutely that Tony Abbot is about one thing.

 

 

No, no, no.

 

 

He is about himself and not acting in the interest people. The people who have put their name to this are academics; there are pages and pages of…

 

 

That has nothing to do with this.

 

 

…recommendations about the way….

 

 

You said you had a mandate

 

 

…we have to proceed in the proper order and a proper plan for the country that takes us into the future in a safe way.

 

 

Jamie, if could I ask you about what the report finds about putting carbon into soils? Some of the measures unde the direct action proposal finds that it will yield some quick gains, while the slower process of transforming energy and transport system unfolds. Do you actually have to have two arms to the policy, a direct action policy and maybe a carbon price policy to allow for that transformation? Particularly electricity ….

 

 

Well let’s get back to the aim here, the aim is to reduce carbon emissions by 5 percent by 2020. That is the bipartisan target that both parties have agreed to, now we could do that by not just soil carbon. We also have part of the Direct Action Plan is to clean up the dirtiest of coal fire plants. Alternatively we say we can get to the five percent target by 2020 and we can justify that. We have had a policy on that before the election, it is the same policy it has been their the whole time. The Labor Party has a new policy after the election about announcing a carbon tax, both trying to achieve the same outcome, fiver percent reduction by 2020. So that is why we say we can do what we said we would do, with soil carbon, absolutely part of the story. But also other aspects to it including a cleaning up of the dirtiest coal fire plants.

 

 

Malcolm Turnbull is perhaps the best critique over what is going on with the Liberal Party. He is a man who does understand this issue and he has provided the critique from within. Today we are hearing from Jamie that the Liberal Party are bipartisan, that the Liberal Party and Tony Abbott believe in carbon change.

 

 

We have said that the whole time.

 

 

Yet we have got Ministers going, ‘Well depends who you talk to and on what day’.

 

 

Here we go.

 

 

There is this incredible dissent in the Liberal Party about whether they believe in climate change for starters. That is a done deal that is already assured and we need to move forward. The problem is the negativity and uncertainly that we see in the ranks of the Opposition reveals that they are not, not only do they not have confidence in their policy, they know it is not going to take us in the right direction.

 

 

Deb, the only negativity we see is the constant negativity from a Prime Minister who is obsessed by Tony Abbott. All she can do talk about is Tony Abbott. The one liner on the weekend, which does not befit the office of the Prime Minister, it was just something that would not have happened under former Prime Ministers. They have never lowered themselves to get involved in such just what is rank amateur university politics and that is what we saw from the Prime Minister on Saturday. And I think that shows how desperate she is.

 

 

If we can move onto the issue of asylum seekers, Debra, the Prime Minister and the Foreign Affairs Minister were in the Parliament today trumpeting their regional solution but it is a regional solution, a regional deal that has not been done yet, is it?

 

 

Well it is a regional solution that is a big step forward. You know the issue that we are talking about here is not just about Australia, it is about our entire region.

 

 

But there was no deal with East Timor, the deal with Malaysia still hasn’t been done. And there is no sign of what deal might be done with Papua New Guinea.

 

 

Look, I don’t agree with that position. We have a joint statement by the Prime Minister of Malaysia and the Prime Minister of Australia, in terms of talks advancing. We have a commitment from the Minister himself, we have the advancing of the movement towards a regional solution to this issue we the United Nations involved. You know these things are moving us in the right direction and the moment it really looks like it is beginning to really have some impact, we are hearing anecdotal stories from Malaysia about the impact of this immediately. What we have from the Opposition is just a decry of a positive result.

 

 

Would you say that you are moving forward? Would that be the best way to describe it? You are moving forward.

 

 

Well I think forward is always going to better than the backward looking policies that you guys. You keep referring to the past, the past, the past.

 

 

Oh gosh. As a member who has one of the consequences of the Labor party’s management of this issue, a detention facility in my electorate, which was foisted upon my community after the election. There was no announcement about that prior to the election either I might say. The Labor Party found an issue in government and created a problem when they changed the rules in August 2008. They changed the law, they created a market for people smugglers again and now they are desperately trying to hunt around for a solution. There is an easy solution to this, ring the President of Nauru and reintroduce TPV. That is what fixed it in the first place.

 

 

Won’t a deal with Malaysia, which is underway and a possible deal with Papua New Guinea have the same affect?

 

 

Well we have just heard talks and we have a commitment to talk further and we have got some UN involvement now and there is all sorts of discussions going on, some diplomatic cables I am sure are involved. But there is no deal, there is no arrangement, all we have seen since the announcement is more boats. We have seen the pressure cooker, the lid being put back on the pressure cooker again. Like they did with in affect a suspension of processing and what that does is put more pressure on the detention network, which will explode again and we will see the consequences yet again of their mismanagement of this issue. A problem they created themselves.

 

 

I think we are on the right track, here we are in the midst of the negotiations that look like they are going to resolve a really important issue and something that is very distinctively different from Nauru. Is that people who are in a cue, who have been processed by the United Nations, are going to actually be able to get on with their lives after years of waiting for a spot. They are going to bring the assets that they bring to our country as refugees and we know so many amazing Australians have come from a refugee background, with all that courage that they bring and the skills and the assets. They come to our country having waited in a cue. Australians are about fairness, we are proceeding with a fair and reasonable regional solution. A lot different to an island in the middle of the pacific.

 

 

But even if a deal is done it is going to take some time for it to work the way you think it will and in the mean time there have been problems in detention centres and even today the Immigration Minister Chris Bowen has ordered a review of refugee housing because of problems with settlement in Newcastle. So there are still, the issue is far from resolved.

 

 

Well that is an indication to a commitment of transparency. You know the negotiations are underway, Australians are being formed about how this is progressing in a diplomatically sensitive and sensible way we are open to making sure that people who are in detention are cared for in the correct way. We are making statistics more and more available to people, freedom of information laws have changed. There is nothing to be hidden here. There are challenges, but we are facing up to them honestly and openly. We are getting on to the job of making sure fair and inequitable access to Australia by refugees who have a right to get on with their lives and we are taking away from the people who would be smugglers, people who would be trading humans and we are keeping them off the boats. That is plan and that is what we will be persecuting.

 

CURTIS:

 

Jamie just finally, in Question Time the Government did push back on some of the history from the Howard Government, do you think it is a problem for you if the Government is more increasingly confident in taking you on on this issue.

 

BRIGGS:

 

No, I don’t think so because we go back we had six left in detention when the Labor Party came to Government. They found a solution, created a problem as I said before. In August 2008, they made a mess of this and the people who suffer are communities like mine which have got detention facilities in them which are having incident after incident and that is why Scott Morrison is right to pursue an inquiry into the detention network.