Andrew Leigh

I spoke in parliament yesterday about climate change and carbon farming.

Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Bill, 25 May 2011

Once upon a time in a country far, far away a world leader stood up and discussed three environmental challenges that faced the world: acid rain, the hole in the ozone layer and greenhouse gases. The first, a nation solved through an innovative approach, an approach the member for Flinders championed in his honours thesis. It was a market based approach, which was the same market based approach George Bush Snr put into place, that made companies pay for the privilege of putting noxious gases into the air. The results of market based mechanisms tend to be better than were envisaged by policy makers at the time. Industries put in place innovative solutions to ensure that the economic cost was minimised and the environmental problem was solved.

The second of those problems—the hole in the ozone layer—was resolved through nations being good global citizens, acting in the knowledge that other nations were acting, as well. That process culminated in the Montreal protocol and has seen the hole in the ozone layer gradually shrink over recent decades.

On the last challenge, this leader in a land far, far away, Margaret Thatcher, pledged to make drastic cuts to her nation's greenhouse gas emissions and set up a centre for research. Thanks to the work of research centres such as the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, there is a consensus among climate scientists that dangerous climate change is occurring and that dangerous carbon pollution is the cause. Yet many of those opposite continue to be silenced by those who do not accept the evidence. The Minister for Climate Change has on many occasions put on record the comments of the sceptics opposite. Indeed, yesterday, on the very day the Climate Commission was meeting in this building to outline the scientific consensus, the likes of Senators Joyce and Macdonald were in Senate estimates challenging the Bureau of Meteorology on climate change.

Anthropogenic climate change is of course backed by the Australian Academy of Sciences, the Bureau of Meteorology, CSIRO, NASA, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the vast majority of climate scientists. Yet there are many in the coalition party room who still cannot accept the overwhelming scientific evidence.

If the Leader of the Opposition is the political love child of John Howard and the member for McKellar, then Margaret Thatcher would surely be his political godmother. Yet Margaret Thatcher accepted the scientific evidence for climate change as far back as the 1980s. The UK Conservatives—the role models and political cousins of those opposite—have accepted there is no debate about the science of climate change and the necessity of acting. The British Tories have accepted this. They are using a market based approach to secure the future of Britain and that of the globe. The bill before the House is part of the government's commitment to act on dangerous climate change to secure our future so that future generations can continue to enjoy our golden soil and wealth for toil.

A creed of the farming sector is to ensure that farmers leave the land in better shape than that in which they inherited it. Our farmers are some of the most passionate advocates for environmental protection. The Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Bill creates opportunities for farmers, foresters and landholders to access carbon markets and help to reduce emissions. We know that Australians are among the highest per capita emitters in the developed world. We also have among the highest agricultural emissions. Protecting biodiversity, helping to regenerate landscapes, improving soil quality through increased carbon storage and helping to address salinity through tree planting are just some of the opportunities available to us.

Some of these things are not new, but this bill will help us to drive innovation, to find better ways of using our agricultural and land assets to reduce our emissions. The bill will help us to create a market for carbon permits and provide investment certainty. Credits will be given for every tonne of carbon stored. Schemes will need to go through an approval process that will ensure the integrity of the abatement being undertaken. We are balancing regulatory simplicity with environmental integrity.

Projects will need to be recognised. The offset methodology will need approval. Projects will need to be done in accordance with the approved methodology and any other eligibility requirements. Once project managers have reported on the projects, they will be issued with Australian carbon credit units, or ACCUs. These units can be used to offset emissions or can be traded on the market. To ensure the integrity of the abatement, an expert committee, the Domestic Offsets Integrity Committee, has been established to make sure we get real and verifiable abatement.

Other elements of the design of the scheme to ensure the integrity of credits include issuing credits after the sequestration or emissions reduction has actually occurred; tracking credits through a central national registry—that is included in the registry bill; transparency provisions, including the publication of a wide range of information about approved projects; appropriate enforcement provisions to address noncompliance; and a robust auditing scheme based on the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting System.

The scheme, not surprisingly, has received backing from a range of organisations. CSIRO experts told the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Climate Change, Environment and the Arts looking at the bill:

'… industry and community individuals and groups as well as the private sector have much to offer in terms of innovative ideas on greenhouse gas abatement.'

Carbon Neutral said:

'This initiative has the potential to drive funding into rural communities, increase green collar jobs and improve the natural environment whilst simultaneously contributing to domestic climate change adaptation and mitigation measures.'

Greenfleet, who have established 450 forests and planted more than 6.8 million native trees since 1997, said:

'We believe that carbon forestry projects are unlikely to displace high-value agricultural production on the nation's most productive soils. We believe that carbon forestry projects are and will remain peripheral to prime agricultural production and in fact may improve, but not replace, sophisticated farming systems.'

The scheme is also backed by the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, named after William Wentworth, whose name seems to crop up quite frequently on the science based side of the climate change debate.

Today the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and the Parliamentary Secretary for Climate Change announced that Indigenous land managers across remote regions will be able to earn carbon credits through improving fire management under the government's carbon farming initiative. The methodology is a world first and represents a unique combination of traditional Indigenous ecological knowledge, cutting edge modern science and the substantial economic potential that is emerging in carbon markets as governments around the world take action on climate change. This world action is also reflected in part of these bills today. The Australian National Registry of Emissions Units Bill 2011 is part the government's commitment under the Kyoto protocol. The registry will help ensure accurate accounting of emissions, consistent with the Kyoto protocol.

But those opposite continue to deride action on climate change. They miss the fact that the world is moving. They miss the fact that 32 countries now have emissions trading schemes. They miss the fact that India and China, despite having far lower emissions per capita than Australia, are making substantial investments in renewable energy. They miss the fact that the UK, as part of the European Union, is engaged in emissions trading.

At the same time, we are listening to the economists just as we are listening to the scientists. We are recognising the benefits of market based mechanisms over command and control. I think it is often recognised in this place that there is an overwhelming consensus among scientists, but the overwhelming consensus among economists is sometimes missed. I quote from two senior economics professors. John Quiggin wrote in his blog on 10 May:

'I had a call from a local business organization asking if I would talk at a breakfast about the carbon tax to be held in a few weeks. The date was fine, so I said yes, then came the kicker—they wanted an economist on each side of the issue. The organizer said they had plenty of economists willing to speak for the tax, but they couldn't find any willing to speak against it. I gamely offered to present the case for an emissions trading scheme as opposed to a tax (even though, at the moment, I lean to a tax). But they wanted an actual opponent of any kind of carbon price, who was also an economist. This has proved to be impossible, which is pretty impressive testimony to the quality of the Queensland economics profession, and to the underappreciated fact that economists are among the strongest supporters of good environmental policy.'

Joshua Gans, currently at Melbourne Business School and now moving to the University of Toronto—Canada's gain and Australia's loss, I have to say—wrote on the website of The Drum on 7 April:

'Sadly, there are plenty of people who aren't climate change scientists who are comfortable disbelieving the general consensus from climate change scientists.

'But perhaps it is more disturbing when people—especially politicians—ignore or deny the evidence on how to actually achieve lower emissions. Why is that more disturbing? Because it could be that politicians want to actually reduce emissions but instead advocate policies that are likely to do the opposite.

'Of course, when I am talking of advocating opposite policies I am talking mainly, but not exclusively, of the Federal Opposition. What they want to do is take direct action. It's not big on specifics but it will cost a lot of money ($10 billion plus) and will award that money to people who claim they are going to do good things in reducing emissions.'

Joshua Gans goes on to say:

'It is ironic that on climate change policy, politics are in the bizarro-world where the supposedly anti-market Greens side with Hayek while the supposedly pro-market Coalition sides with Lenin. The economic evidence strongly suggests that the Greens policies match their goals while the reverse is true for the Coalition. I can't parse the dual hypotheses that either the Coalition just deny economic evidence or that they actually want more emissions and handouts to business. Perhaps one of their number can enlighten us.'

Finally, I want to go to the amendment moved by the member for Flinders. As I have noted in my speech, the government's legislation will create new, real and lasting economic opportunities for regional communities. Stakeholders in the land sector are desperate for a mechanism to credit their actions to reduce and store carbon pollution. Farmers and landholders want access to carbon markets worth hundreds of millions of dollars each year for regional and rural Australia. But the coalition are currently holding them back.

With the amendment moved today, the member for Flinders has essentially told farmers that the coalition wants to delay the farmers from receiving benefit. He is signalling that the coalition would rather play politics than support farmers. Farmers and landholders want politicians to end the gamesmanship so that they can know the framework that they will be working under. They want us to resolve the detail and put in place a framework that measures the savings that they are making.

There has been extensive consultation on this initiative over a number of years. It builds on the work of other offset mechanisms. Let us look at what key groups like the National Farmers Federation submitted to the House inquiry. They said that the legislation addresses NFF concerns around potential perverse outcomes in relation to food production, water, local communities, environment and biodiversity as well as reduces some of the uncertainty and administrative costs surrounding crediting periods, reporting timeframes and offsets compliance. They said that the government deserves credit for listening to the farm sector and modifying its proposals to ensure that genuine abatement opportunities under the CFI are not unnecessarily overlooked.

The CFI is based on the science of climate change but developed with a key focus on practicality. The department is releasing over the next few weeks a number of the first detailed methodologies showing in practical terms how particular landholders can put projects together. We have been consulting extensively on the regulations to establish the positive and negative lists. We will be providing details of those lists shortly. The regulations deal with technical matters required to be based on independent advice from the Domestic Offset Integrity Committee. It is essential to the credibility and value of the offsets credit that are created by the initiative. The coalition's amendment is for a scheme in which the activities added and credited are based on politics, which appears to be the preferred approach advocated by the coalition, rather than science. That approach has not credibility in carbon markets and no credibility in the community. The government calls on the coalition to stop playing politics and to support the government's efforts to reward farmers who are taking action on climate change.

In closing, I note the sad fact that, as scientists often note, climate change can be dominated by tipping points—sudden moments like the melting of polar icecaps, at which point the progress of climate change, the warming, becomes more rapid. Perhaps the best example of a tipping point was, alas, the Leader of the Opposition's one-vote ousting of the member for Wentworth as the Leader of the Liberal Party in 2009. That tipping point moved us from a path on which the coalition were, as they had been in the 2007 federal election, advocating market based mechanisms supported by sensible conservatives around the globe. That moved us into a bizarro world in which the current Leader of the Opposition advocates command and control policies, policies unsupported by serious scientists or serious economists. That tipping point has left the Australian debate over carbon pricing in a world that is well adrift from what you see in mainstream debates all around the globe. Even when I go into schools in my electorate I find young children in Australia deeply concerned by the lack of willingness to act on climate change and deeply concerned at the fact that at the moment carbon pollution is free and that the opposition is attempting to block the government's sensible and practical move to put a price on carbon pollution.

I spoke in parliament this week on new appointments to the Reserve Bank of Australia, inflation, and public debt.

Reserve Bank of Australia, 24 May 2011

I would like to speak about three things today: the recent appointments to the Reserve Bank board and the members who are stepping off the Reserve Bank board; the broader outlook for inflation in the Australian economy; and the current low levels of government debt.

Appointments

Firstly looking at appointments to the Reserve Bank board, I want to use the opportunity to put on the record my thanks to Don McGauchie and Warwick McKibbin for their service to the Reserve Bank board. Warwick McKibbin is not only an extraordinary Australian economist but was also my immediate boss before I came into parliament. Warwick is the director of the Research School of Economics at the Australian National University and in my last position at ANU I was his deputy director. Warwick is an extraordinary economist, someone who was awarded his PhD from Harvard University studying under Jeffrey Sachs. He has been awarded the Centenary Medal for service to Australian society for economic policy in tertiary education, and was made a fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences at the age of 40. I wish him well in the next public endeavours that will occupy his now freed-up weekends.

I also note that joining the Reserve Bank board are Ms Catherine Tanna, who is currently the executive vice-president of BG Group and managing director of its Australian unit QGC Pty Ltd, and also Dr John Edwards. Dr Edwards is somebody who has a long and distinguished career in economic policy-making. He has served the Australian public well as a senior economic adviser to then Prime Minister Paul Keating. He has been actively engaged in policy debates for a number of decades and has also produced a number of terrific books over this period. He is in every sense a public intellectual and the Australian public are fortunate to have his skills joining the Reserve Bank board.

Inflation

The second issue I want to speak about today is the issue of inflation. I want to draw the attention of the House to some of the statements made during our last Reserve Bank hearing regarding Australian inflation. On the headline number, I would like to quote from the Governor's opening statement when he said:

'It is worth recording that a combination, on the latest figures, of a 5 per cent unemployment rate and an inflation rate clearly 'in the 2s' is a pretty favourable one by the standards of recent decades.'

In questioning, the Governor was drawn out on the issue of inflation perceptions and made some comments that I think are particularly salient in the current policy debate. It is always important to focus on the cost of living but we need to do so by looking at the facts rather than some of the spin that is occasionally heard from those opposite. The Governor said:

'People do, though, tend to overlook prices that fall a little bit, and 30 per cent of the CPI items actually had a negative price change in the latest quarter. There are certain things that people do not buy quite as often as the weekly groceries and it is human nature that we tend to forget that those prices go down in many instances. So I think that is a factor and it is understandable. But, in the end, the consumer price index samples 100,000 prices every quarter. There is a far better sampling there than any of us could do by keeping a casual tab on our grocery bill ...'

The governor went on to say:

'The prices of many goods at the moment are declining. If you go through the CPI over the past year, you see that the price index for clothing is down six per cent, the price index for major household appliances is down four per cent, the price index for audiovisual equipment is down 18 per cent, the price index for furniture is down two per cent and the price index for linen, manchester, is down around two per cent. Almost all the goods in the CPI are down quite significantly. I think many people, because they do not buy these goods on a regular basis and have in their mind a clear concept of what the actual price is for a shirt or some Manchester, do not feel price declines but they are real and they are happening. What people are noticing is the higher price of utilities in particular.'

The governor went on to speak about some of those prices. But as we know, households make a set of consumption purchases and we need to look at those consumption purchases as a whole, not simply cherry pick parts of the consumer price index but look at the overall picture that Australian households are facing. For example, if we look at the year-on-year percentage change for the current March quarter, the latest figures available at the moment, we have a fall over the last year in clothing and footwear prices of one per cent, in household contents and services of around half a per cent, in communications of 0.2 per cent and in recreation of 1½ per cent.

So it is important to keep all of those factors in mind when we are looking at the overall picture for inflation. I think it is that overall picture which has naturally led the governor to point out that Australia's inflation rate is clearly in the twos, certainly not a picture that one would receive if one were to listen solely to pronouncements from those opposite. I think this is important and goes to the very heart of the economic challenge. If those opposite intend to be taken seriously as economic managers then it is important that they focus on the facts rather than the spin.

Public Debt

Finally, I said that I would go to the issue of government debt. Here again, I think it is important to lay out the facts. Ross Gittins, in an opinion column on 15 November last year, wrote as follows:

'Even the press gallery is buying the Libs' propaganda about excessive, wasteful spending and the need for swingeing spending cuts to get the budget back on the rails. Nonsense. The real story is how amazingly responsible the government's been.'

He goes on to say:

'From the start, the government adopted a "deficit exit strategy" to bank all revenue growth and limit real spending growth to 2 per cent a year until the budget was back in surplus. No government has ever voluntarily donned such a chastity belt.'

Those opposite would have you believe that Australia's government debt is out of control, and they would do so because I sometimes believe they live in a little bubble, a little bubble in which climate change is not real, a little bubble in which you can ignore everything happening in the rest of the world, a little bubble in which the only thing that drives asylum seeker arrivals is Australian policy rather than wars going on overseas. Of course, if you take a global perspective, and any responsible economic manager does take a global perspective, you are immediately struck by how low Australian public debt is.

A special report on the world economy in The Economist quoted research by Carmen Reinhart of the University of Maryland and Ken Roghoff of Harvard University looking at the effects of a couple of centuries of sovereign debt. It reads:

'Their verdict is that public debt does little discernible harm until it reaches about 90% of a country’s GDP, but then the effect on growth can be sudden and big.'

This is relevant because there are OECD countries that are looking at debt loads at that level. Every member of the G7, according to The Economist report, will go over a threshold of 77 per cent of GDP. The article noted:

'The IMF says governments should aspire to cut their debt ratios back to 60% by 2030. To do so they will have to perform some fiscal heroics.'

Australia is simply not in that ballpark. Our debt level remains well below 10 per cent of GDP and will continue to do so. The government will bring the budget back into surplus in 2012-13. Australia is better off for having taken on that public debt. That is what mainstream economics tells you. When faced with the largest global downturn since the Great Depression, it was the right decision to put in place a timely, targeted and temporary fiscal stimulus—saving 200,000 jobs and tens of thousands of small businesses—and then to responsibly pay back that debt. At the end of that, not only do we have lives that were not blighted by periods of unemployment and small businesses that did not go to the wall but we also have public assets future generations will look back to: public assets such as some of the valuable school infrastructure in my own electorate of Fraser; infrastructure such as the Amaroo school's investments that allow their teachers to do team teaching; and infrastructure such as a school hall that allows all of the children in Black Mountain special school to attend the same assembly. It is infrastructure of which I am proud, and I wish those opposite were equally proud of it.

I'm not in the habit of linking to corporate press releases, but given how many people find themselves falling foul of unduly complex mobile phone plans, this is a welcome announcement:

Telstra consumer mobile customers soon will be able to use their phone’s data service without the risk of an unexpectedly high bill, commonly known as “bill shock”.

They will be among the first in the world to have their data speeds slowed when they exceed their mobile data allowance and not be charged for excess domestic data usage.  The changes are in development and will be launched by year’s end.l

Centenary of Canberra, 23 May 2011

When Canberra turns on its charm and offers that perfect day—the sun shines, the water glistens and the temperature is neither too cold nor too hot—it is easy to see how this city charmed the federal parliamentarians who visited in 1906 and 1907 on their tour of potential sites for the new nation's capital. Originally Canberra was not the preferred location of either the media or the politicians. But for the perfect Canberra day on 13 August 1906 and then again on 23 August 1907, the parochial interests of a Premier and the change of heart invoked by a Victorian senator, our nation's capital could have been somewhere entirely different.

On 23 May 1912, entry No. 29 by Walter Burley Griffin, a landscape architect from Chicago, Illinois, was declared the winner of the competition to design Australia's new federal capital. Walter Burley Griffin heard about the Australian government's competition to design the national capital while on honeymoon with his wife, Marion, in 1911. Although it was Walter's name that headed the entry, theirs was very much a collaborative effort. Without Marion's elegant drawings, it is unlikely that Walter's design would have grabbed the judges and lifted it above the 136 other entries in the competition. The winning design incorporated leading international ideas of the day in the science of town planning, such as the 'city beautiful' and 'garden city' movements. Yet, for the city to flourish, Griffin believed it also needed a community with 'great democratic civic ideals'. He wanted Australia's capital to be a place where citizens enjoyed a high quality of life based on 'egalitarian legislation, genuine public spirit and organic, scientific cities'. The 13th March 2013 marks the Centenary of Canberra. The Australian government recognises the national importance of the Centenary of Canberra as the national capital. We have been working closely with the ACT government to develop a program of events in the lead-up to and in the centenary year. The Australian and ACT governments have established an intergovernmental working group under an agreement signed in December 2008.

Along with the support of the Centenary of Canberra creative director, Robyn Archer, the working group have identified centenary national program activities, activities that have national reach and engage communities right around Australia, not just residents of the ACT. For example, the draft program includes the construction of the Canberra Centenary Walking and Cycling Trail. The trail will guide walkers and cyclists through urban and nearby rural areas, incorporating a variety of iconic and lesser known locations that tell the story of Canberra. The ideal for the trail was raised from community submissions received as part of the Canberra 100 call for centenary projects. Taking in existing fire and walking trails, it will merge with new ones. It will start here at Parliament House and loop around the ACT through locations including Anzac Parade, the Australian War Memorial, Lake Burley Griffin, Mount Ainslie, Mount Taylor, Red Hill, the National Arboretum, Stromlo Forest Park and Mulligans Flat Sanctuary. A result of the partnership between the Australian government and the ACT community, the Centenary Trail will be a gift to Canberra and visitors to our city for years to come.

The Australian government's commitment to the Centenary of Canberra is evidenced by the recent announcement in its 2011-12 budget of $6 million over three years as a contribution to the centenary national program. The Australian and ACT governments are keen to collaborate with all stakeholders to ensure the success of this activity and the entire national program. The final size and shape of the program is currently being negotiated with the ACT.

Our national capital is a source of pride for all Australians. The Centenary of Canberra is a unique opportunity to celebrate this historic moment and for the Australian government to continue its conversation with the Australian people about the kind of nation we want over the next 100 years. As the federal member for Fraser and father of two young boys who proudly call Canberra home, I welcome the positive attention being paid to this city by the member for Menzies. I would also encourage the opposition to support the initiatives being put in place by the Australian government to celebrate the Centenary of Canberra, such as the Centenary Trail and new investments in the National Arboretum. I know they will join other national institutions in enriching the lives of the city and the nation.

Transcript (courtesy of JB)

GILBERT: Welcome back to AM Agenda, with me now is Jamie Briggs and Labor MP Andrew Leigh. Guys, thanks for being here. Jamie, first to you. The Climate Change Commission report has said that the science is done, the debate has been had. Yet you still have some Liberals this morning, Dennis Jensen on the doors this morning said that temperatures are actually levelling out. You do have a number of climate sceptics, is that damaging for the Coalition?

BRIGGS: Our policy is that we accept the science and we have got a bipartisan target with the Labor party. Both parties agree that their needs to be action on climate change. Both parties have agreed to a five per cent reduction by 2020. And all we disagree on is the method on which we get there. We have a policy which is about direct action carbon, green carbon so speak, and the soil, about cleaning up the dirtiest of power stations to reduce our emissions by 5 percent.

GILBERT: So you obviously believe that the science, although a number of your colleagues don’t?

BRIGGS: Oh look well it’s a free country still Kieran, last time I checked, people are entitled to a view. But ultimately it is the policy that matters. Now we have had the same policy for about 18 months now. When we first announced the policy we took it to an election and we stuck with it after the election. I know that is an unusual concept and I know that the Labor Party aren’t that finding that something that they do, because of course at the election the Labor Party announced one hundred and fifty people from a phone book to tell them what your climate change policy is. They said they would not have a carbon tax. Just after the election they announced a carbon tax and today we hear that that is going to put up electricity prices by double, from the electricity industries. So the story here is that we both have a target, it is five percent reductions by 2020. We just have a different method of getting there.

GILBERT: Andrew, I spoke to Professor Steffen earlier who worked for the ANU, he is the lead author of the Climate Commission. He was not at all scathing of the direct action approach, he said it needs to be part of the solution, but he was not critical at all of this idea of taking direct action.

LEIGH: Well Kieran you have got to recognise where this report is coming from. It is very clearly stating that there is overwhelming scientific consensus that the world is warming and humans are causing it and yet we have this frightening situation where every other seat in the Coalition Party Room is taken by a climate change denier, somebody who doesn’t believe that global warming is happening. That is incredibly dangerous because it means that Tony Abbott has now put in place a policy that is designed to be easily repealed as Malcolm Turnbull pointed out last week. The thing is, if you look across economists the consensus is as strong as it is across scientists. Economists almost universally back the idea that you should use a market based mechanism pricing carbon. I will be curious if the Jamie can name one, even two economists who would back a direct action plan. I have not been able to find any and frankly Tony Abbott has had the same problem.

GILBERT: Well if it is such a compelling case, why has the Government struggled to prosecute it, so badly to this point?

LEIGH: Well look Tony Abbott is very good at doing one thing and that is saying no, he is running a small target strategy at the moment. He is running a strategy as saying no, no, no to absolute everything and he has been prosecuting that very strongly. You see him at weetbix factories talking about climate change; I mean this is frankly ludicrous. Where by contrast, we have Tony Abbott’s colleagues in the UK, the British conservatives, to Margaret Thatcher, who are entirely comfortable with the idea that you would have an emissions trading scheme.

GILBERT: There are a lot of people who seem like they have stopped listening though;

LEIGH: Use the market to price carbon.

GILBERT: A lot of people have seemed to stop listening to you and your government. What, how do you turn them around? I mean that’s a compelling and a very easily argument to prosecute and one which Mr Abbott has been very successful at thus far.

LEIGH: Well Kieran, somebody said to me last week ‘good policy is good politics’. And I think frankly that is exactly the right way to go. We have to be absolutely clear that this is going to be a tax on the thousand biggest polluters. At the moment they can put as much pollution into the atmosphere as they want to. We are saying that if they are putting carbon pollution into the atmosphere, they should pay for it. We should provide assistance.

BRIGGS: That’s interesting.

GILBERT: Jamie, you can respond to that as well, but Will Steffen said that on its own, direct action is not enough to deal with this. Now what do you say to your kids and the next generations, that’s two generations apparently this report says, unless there is action now in the next ten years…

BRIGGS: Well let’s get to basis here, five percent target, bipartisan. Five percent reduction by 2020 that is the bipartisan target. We can get there with direct action by cleaning up the dirtiest of power stations, by investing in soil carbon, the Labor Party want to have it with a tax. Now I would say to Andrew, who is compelling in his argument, he seems convinced by his own arguments that if they are so convinced, take it to an election, do the right thing. I mean the problem here is good policy is good politics. And I think it is being told in the story at the moment about how people are receiving this. About how good of policy this is. If they are so convinced about this policy and about how people are receiving this about how good of policy this is, if they are so convinced, if they are so convinced that this is the way to go, do the right thing and take it to the election.

LEIGH: Well Jamie it is very clear why you would make that argument because when the carbon price comes in next year, then this scare campaign that Tony Abbott has been running around the country will be exposed as hollow.

BRIGGS: That’s complete rubbish.

LEIGH: It will be very clear that the sky has not fallen.

BRIGGS: Do the right thing.

LEIGH: Carbon pricing has modest price impacts. We can see that, I mean the Labor Party has been consistent…

BRIGGS: Why was the Prime Minister not honest at the last election? Why did she not tell the Australian people that this is what she wanted to do?

LEIGH: We have been consistently pointing out that Tony Abbott scare campaign is entirely overblown. The impact of the CPRS on a weetbix, is a tiny fraction of one cent. This negativity that we see relentlessly from the Opposition is now starting to have blow back. I mean we can see first Malcolm Turnbull, now Joe Hockey, deeply concerned that the Coalition is nothing but negativity. Just driving a small target.

BRIGGS: I think this sums up the desperation of the Labor Party. The really personal vicious attacks on Tony Abbott, I think it sums up exactly where the Labor Party is at.

GILBERT: Asylum seekers. Scott Morrison is calling for another enquiry. Why not have another inquiry into the broad system because it is obviously enormous pressure if not dysfunctional right now?

LEIGH: Well Kieran, we have had particular enquiries into the Christmas Island affair and into the Villawood affair, but if we are going to look at the broad inquiry, I suppose you would want it to encompass the entire range of issues that have been faced in the detention centre. The Cornelia Rau affair, the children over board affair, the break outs from Baxter and Woomera, all of which occurred under the Coalition. The fact is that at the moment you have isolated incidents, the rate of those incidents is not tangibly higher than it has been in previous years, the Government is pursuing a very clear policy which is to send a tough message to people smugglers to make sure that they don’t put little kids on boats to come to Australia and also an humane way to slightly expand our refugee intake by about a thousand a year.

GILBERT: Jamie, as Andrew said a number of inquires already under way, is this not a stunt? As Chris Bowen says it is.

BRIGGS: No, not at all.

GILBERT: As Chris Bowen says it is.

BRIGGS: No, this is a very serious issue and I respect Andrew doesn’t have a detention facility in his electorate like I do, and the stories coming out in the media last week in Adelaide about allegations that SERCO officers have been rough with young people, allegations that SERCO officers have been having violence against them. It is a detention facility remember in which the Labor Party claims is their family friendly facility. Now if this is true and reports are true that are coming out, we really do need an inquiry into this. I think it reflects on the consequences of the mismanagement of Australia’s borders what is happening within these centres and from what we hear I think it is very disturbing, I think it is very concerning and I think Scott Morrison yet again is on the money with this call.

GILBERT: Okay, well one last, one last issue before we wrap up, you have got a big day ahead with Parliament back. Joe Hockey and Tony Abbot apparently had a clash over the phone. Jamie, Joe Hockey was angry at being hung out to dry over the tax treatment of trust. Is this just healthy robust discussion among the leadership or is there something more here?

BRIGGS: Well look I don’t have the benefit of being patched into conversations between our senior colleagues. As a very junior, you know insignificant back bencher, I don’t get to play part of the broader debates. Look at you know I think there is a big difference between the Labor Party and the Liberal Party at the moment, we are getting along and getting on with the job very well. We have of course from time to time, debates about policy issues, that is normal for anyone. We don’t have the Foreign Minister running around the world, making prime ministerial visits day after day, meeting with world leaders week after week, not turning up to community cabinets, acting like he is some sort of lone wolf leader of the Labor Party while building his rankings. I noticed the Galaxy Poll on the weekend had him about five lengths clear, sort of a black caviar of the political industry of the Labor Party at the moment. That far clear, so I think there is only one party at the moment that has got some leadership.

GILBERT: In terms of the PM’s position at the moment, obviously there has got to be a few nerves on the back bench with the polls as Jamie said looking so bad as they are.

LEIGH: Look Kieran, I think the Prime Minister is getting on with the job that focusing on long term reforms that is long term reform in the area of education, long term reform in the area of climate change. It is an extraordinary comment that the successor to Alexander Downer has just made, that the Australian Foreign Minister shouldn’t be meeting with foreign leaders.

BRIGGS: Foreign leaders?

LEIGH: I mean this is deeply concerning. That our foreign minister should some how just be confined to staying in Australia, I don’t understand that one.

BRIGGS: Alexander loved the Adelaide Hills.

LEIGH: We certainly talk about that. But certainly the Opposition is really having a debate at the moment as to whether it is going to small target negativity or whether it will actually come up with ideas.

BRIGGS: I think the obsession that the Labor Party has with us is quite profound.

GILBERT: I am sure it is. I am sure it will continue throughout the day and throughout the week.

LEIGH: There's a difference between Opposition and opportunism.

ENDS

A podcast of my presentation at the Lowy Institute on Wednesday can be found at http://www.lowyinstitute.org/Publication.asp?pid=1589