Doorstop Interview - 22nd January 2007
RUDD: The reason I’ve called this press conference today is to call upon Mr Howard to convene an emergency National Water Summit. The reason I’m taking this measure is because every city in Australia now is facing a water emergency. Most of rural and regional Australia is facing a water emergency. Right now Australia as a nation is facing a national water emergency which demands that we have an emergency National Water Summit to deal with this problem.
The other reason we’re calling for a national water summit is this: our existing mechanisms for dealing with the water crisis across Australia isn’t working. OK, we have the National Water Initiative, we have the National Water Fund, we have the National Water Commission but so far these haven’t produced the outcomes necessary in order to deal with the practical water resource problems on the ground.
My proposal is that the Prime Minister convene this emergency National Water Summit; that I attend on behalf of the Opposition; that all Premiers and Chief Ministers attend; and that State Opposition Ministers attend as well. In addition we’d have participating the experts in the field of water resource management as well as representatives from industry. This requires all Australians to pull together to deal with what is now a genuine national emergency.
When this National Summit is convened all options should be on the table. We should consider the whole range of policy options for dealing with the crisis which now confronts us from one side of the continent to the other. Also, when it comes to dealing with this matter which is before us we need to reconstitute a spirit of genuine political goodwill. The Australian people want politicians to stop taking pot shots at each other on water. They want not excuses, they want solutions.
If Mr Howard is prepared to accept this proposal for a National Water Summit I would propose a three month political truce on any comments of an adverse nature. It’s a very real proposal on my part that is that we bury the politics, we bury the political hatchet on water for three months while we come up with a national solution, but the precondition is that we have a national emergency water summit now. That I think is the best way ahead.
Some have been very sceptical about the idea of a National Water Summit in the past, including people from my own political party. I am not such a sceptic; I believe it is time to pull the nation together on this. The time may well have arisen where we need a National War Cabinet on water. This is a genuine national emergency and it is time to stop fiddling while Rome burns. Finally if I can say this that when it comes to how we deal with the challenges which lie down the track on water, we are all going to have to pull together as a nation. This requires a genuine national effort and I put this proposal in great sincerity to the Prime Minister in the hope that he takes it up.
JOURNALIST: Is this a confession that State Labor Government’s have failed to address this problem because it’s a problem in their area of responsibility?
RUDD: The national government has stated repeatedly that it has responsibilities in this area. The national government with the States and Territories has established the National Water Initiative, the National Water Commission and the National Water Fund. Two billion dollars has been allocated to that fund. Three years later 1.7 billion dollars has yet to be expended. These are the reasons I put forward for why current systems for dealing with our national water emergency are not working. We need new systems, we need new solutions, we need new policies and the way to bring this about is for us all to work together in order to bring about a decent outcome.
JOURNALIST: If it’s not raining anywhere what more can a water summit really do?
RUDD: Mr Howard is not responsible for the drought, I am not responsible for the drought, no State Premier is responsible for the drought, the drought exists. What we are responsible for is working together to come up with a genuine national solution. If this problem was located in one city or one state alone then sure, you could rely on state processes to deal with it, but this crisis, this national water emergency, extends right across the nation and we need national solutions to deal with it.
In the past a drought has normally brought the political process together to fight the common problem. Let’s use this drought, this once in a century drought, to do the same, but also to deal with a long term national water strategy on this, the driest continent on the earth.
JOURNALIST: Things like desalination and water recycling are already being considered, what more could a summit do?
RUDD: What we need is a national political and policy consensus on the way to go. I said before all options should be on the table for them to be properly considered. Once evaluated then decisions need to be made. I haven’t reached this decision to call for a national water summit lightly. The National Water Initiative was established some three years ago, a lot of money was put behind it, an entire piece of machinery was put around it called the National Water Commission but it’s not working. It’s not delivering the results that the country needs and expects from the national political process. It’s time therefore to put the partisan politics to one side, to stop the blame game between the Commonwealth and the States, to come up with a new national solution as a matter of national emergency. I’ve said before, the time may well have come to establish a National War Cabinet on water.
JOURNALIST: So you’re equating this to a warlike situation?
RUDD: When I travel around the country each city you go to is experiencing its own water emergency, its own water crisis and you don’t need to be an expert in the field to conclude from each day’s reporting from each capital city in the country what’s going on across the nation. When you travel in regional and rural Australia much of the picture is the same, it’s time for national action. It requires national leadership, and I’m prepared to offer Mr Howard complete bipartisan support if he would pull together a National Water Summit so that we can put aside our differences to reach a common national solution.
JOURNALIST: Isn’t this a bit unrealistic in an election year when water is a key election issue?
RUDD: Well Mr Howard and I can only speak of the national politics of this. State politicians, State Premiers and State Leaders of the Opposition can sort out their own arrangements. What I’m talking about is how we arrive at our best solutions as a nation. National leadership from time to time requires putting the partisan divide to one side. Often this occurs in times of national security crisis and with our current water crisis it begins to fall into that category.
JOURNALIST: Have you spoken to any of the State leaders about whether they would be willing to be involved in a National Water Summit?
RUDD: I’ve spoken to a number of the State leaders about this and they are supportive of the proposal, I haven’t spoken to all of them but I believe that they would bring a constructive approach to this. As I said before in my remarks it’s not just for State Premiers and Chief Ministers, it would also be for State Leaders of the Opposition.
JOURNALIST: Have you already considered what ideas you would like to put forward at this summit?
RUDD: I would like to get the machinery right first so that we can put the politics to one side and then everyone should feel free to put some proposals forward. You see none of the solutions are easy. I’ve been in public administration for a long time, off and on for twenty years or so at one level of government or the other and you know when you’re up against a policy challenge. This is bigger than most. None of the solutions are easy and a lot of them are very expensive. No one’s got a monopoly of wisdom, and it’s time we had a national consensus on something which is emerging as a long term threat to our national security.
JOURNALIST: Would you like to see more widespread water recycling?
RUDD: On the question of individual policy options I think they should all be on the table, and specifically on water recycling I am not sufficiently briefed on the arguments for and against in terms of the economics and in terms of the environmental implications to have a firm position but I want that debated.
JOURNALIST: Is this the most significant issue you’ve come across in your twenty years or so in politics?
RUDD: When you look at the broader question of climate change it is huge, when you look at our national water crisis it is huge. All I’m saying is this is a big one. Normally people are sceptical about summits but when they get to be big questions like this, big questions facing the nation, not just now for the next six months but for the next six years, for the next long period of time. It’s time we took national action.
JOURNALIST: Would you expect each State to uphold the same water saving measures?
RUDD: That’s a question for individual State Premiers and Chief Ministers. Everyone at the end of the day will row their own race once you’ve had such a summit. All I’m saying is this requires national leadership, national financial resources, national pooling of policy talent and ability to come up with the real solutions that count. I don’t think anyone in Australia is interested in any pre-election fixes from anybody which are simply short term. They want some long term solutions for this because it is affecting every household in the country.
JOURNALIST: Can I just ask you about housing? The HIA and Commonwealth Bank survey says that we are facing a housing affordability crisis in Australia. Is that a worry to you?
RUDD: Yes we’ve had of course a series of interest rate rises which has placed a burden on everyone who has a mortgage, on first home buyers in particular. The HIA data as I understand it and as I’ve been briefed says that we have a particular problem when it comes to first home buyers as well. I think we’ve got to look as a nation for how we can assist first home buyers in dealing with this real crisis in terms of the cost of living. They’ve already had an impact in terms of the price of petrol; we’ve had cost of living increases when it comes to the price of fresh food off the back of the drought about which we’ve just been speaking. But also when you have rising interest rates there is an impact more broadly and significantly on the family budget.
Practical measures to consider would be better targeting the first home ownership scheme, also other practical proposals which the Shadow Minister for Housing Tanya Plibersek will be putting forward later today.
JOURNALIST: The Chinese have decided to test anti-satellite weaponry. Do you have concerns about that?
RUDD: On the question of the reports of this Chinese missile firing against a satellite in space, we, together with the Australian Government will be expressing our concerns to the Chinese. Firstly, about the accuracy of this report and secondly, about what is signifies in terms of China’s future strategic behaviour. Ballistic missile targeting of satellites in space, is in my view inherently destabilising in the strategic order. But I would rather establish the facts first about what has precisely occurred given that there has been no official comment yet either from the Chinese Government.
JOURNALIST: Is it a bit hypocritical for the US to come out and attack it though given that they have conducted such tests in the past?
RUDD: There were tests conducted of this nature in the 1980s both by the Soviet Union and by the United States. Tests of this nature can be destabilising of the strategic order. And tests conducted in the past were of that type as well. If that is what has occurred again on this occasion then it will be similarly destabilising. In the past Labor has warned about the problems which can arise from various proposals concerning new strategic orders arising from ballistic missile defence systems and consequential behaviour by other nuclear weapon states. I am not making any particular comments today on the operation and the unfolding implementation of the US national missile defence system and what relevance it may have to events recently in China. I’m waiting to be briefed on the detail of what has happened in China.
JOURNALIST: You were in the papers today talking about the protection of the Kokoda track. What sparked your decision to campaign on that?
RUDD: Well I walked Kokoda last year myself and it’s a fantastic part of Papua New Guinea. It has huge resonance with Australia’s veteran’s community and their sons and their daughters. There are thousands of Australians who walk that track each year but as you walk the track you actually discover that there are threats to it. Threats to its long term environmental sustainability, threats also from alternative land use proposals, be it mining or be it logging.
I spoke on Friday with the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, Sir Michael Somare, about this and put to him the proposal that we would as an incoming government want to support their listing of the Kokoda track with UNESCO for the purposes of world heritage listing and becoming a world heritage site. Our argument is that would provide the best long term protection for this site, a site which is really important to all Australians and a site which is really important to local people in Papua New Guinea and Sir Michael Somare indicated to me his support for our position.
JOURNALIST: So this came to you as you were walking the track, or has this come to you since?
RUDD: Well you have a long time to think when you’re walking the Kokoda track, it’s nine or ten days, and let me tell you the television services are not great in that part of the world, in fact you can’t even pick up radio, and no AAP reports either, so you think about what you might do when you finish it. Protecting this track is worthwhile, and protecting it with solid measures. There are other proposals which have been put about by the veteran’s community in Australia, for example the establishment of a National Memorial Park around the track. Those proposals have been advanced by others. I think the best long term protection for it lies with UNESCO which is set up for these purposes. Papua New Guinea at present does not have any site which is world heritage listed, Australia has some 16 sites. It would also be very good for PNG tourism.
JOURNALIST: Do you think this would be successful (inaudible) with UNESCO?
RUDD: This is a very competitive process with UNESCO. One of the practical measures we can assist the PNG Government with is this – the technical process of putting together an actual submission to UNESCO given the range of technical, environmental and consultancy reports which are necessary to support an application. The resources involved in that are huge and we could provide technical assistance to the PNG Government to get that done. That is one the things I also spoke to Sir Michael about.
As a footnote on what I’ve just said. It is remarkable that as of today there is still a ban on ministerial contact on the part of Australian Government Ministers with their PNG counterparts. This is something which Foreign Minister Downer instituted some time ago. It is still operational. On something as simple as what I am talking about which is how do we get world heritage listing protection for the Kokoda Track there is no ministerial level dialogue occurring at present between Australia and Papua New Guinea. That’s been the case for many months. In itself it is ridiculous. It is doubly ridiculous when you can’t advance proposals like the one I have been speaking about today.
And it’s time it stopped.