Doorstop Interview - 29th October 2007
RUDD: Climate change is a challenge for the nation, it’s a challenge for the planet, it’s a challenge for the Great Barrier Reef as well. The Great Barrier Reef is Australia’s greatest natural asset and we have a responsibility to the next generation of Australians to do whatever we can to properly preserve Australia’s greatest asset.
Climate change is already having its impact on the Reef – we see this in various scientific reports. When you’ve got temperatures rising, water temperatures rising, we’ve already had, in recent years, eight examples of coral bleaching. So climate change of itself, through sea temperatures rising has an effect on this great asset.
There’s another effect, another challenge, another threat to the Great Barrier Reef as well, and that comes from nutrient run-off and sediment run-off as well. This also is of a critical nature when it comes to the quality of water in the areas surrounding the Reef itself and it effects, therefore, the long-term prospect of Reef eco-systems.
Back in 2002, Mr Howard agreed to a 10 year plan with the Queensland Premier at the time on how to best deal with this problem of nutrient run-off. In 2003, Mr Howard committed himself to significant funding, reported to be in the tune of $300 million, to put muscle behind the program of how you work with local farming communities and others to control nutrient run-off into these waters. Since that time, four or five years now, there has been no significant delivery of funding from Mr Howard’s Government. We had a promise back in 2002, an agreement signed back in 2002, an undertaking for extra money in 2003, reported to be $300 million, and since then virtually nothing has flowed.
It’s time for new leadership when it comes to protecting assets like the Great Barrier Reef and you can only do that if you have a long-term plan backed by financial resources. So today we’re announcing a $200 million plan to protect the Great Barrier Reef.
The core part of this $200 million plan is a $146 million agreement which we would then have with the landholders and land-users, farmers in the area through their peak bodies to provide grants, matching grants, dollar for dollar, to encourage farmers to adopt new farming practices which reduce nutrient run-off and sediment run-off. This is the critical challenge for the long-term ecosystems of the Reef.
This is a significant amount of money. We need to do it, many farmers, independently and individually, are acting and doing the right thing. There has been considerable consultation between us and farming groups nationally on this. We believe this is a right, correct step forward when it comes to handling the overall challenge of preserving this great asset.
I’m advised Mr Howard today has also been talking about, again, why he refuses to ratify the Kyoto Protocol despite what Mr Turnbull is reported to have said in Cabinet only six weeks ago and despite what the rest of the developed world has been doing over many years now. Remember, of the 170 odd states which signed the Kyoto Protocol only three developed countries, three countries, have not proceeded to ratification – Australia, the United States and Kazakhstan.
Mr Howard has a responsibility to act when it comes to international cooperation on climate change. This is a challenge which goes beyond national boundaries, it’s a challenge which goes beyond our particular point in time, in looking after the interests of the next generation of Australians.
If we are to get countries like China and India to accept global targets themselves then developed countries must act first. As I said in the debate the other night, the Chinese constantly say the reasons why they don’t accept targets right now is because major developed economies, like Australia and the United States, have refused to accept them themselves.
Australia must show leadership. Australia should use its influence with the United States to get the United States onto the Kyoto program as well. When that happens, China then has no excuse other than to act and that’s why we urge again the Australian Government to act in the national interest and ratify Kyoto. It is stunning after all these years that Mr Howard, anchored in old thinking, anchored in the past, refuses to accept this challenge of the future.
And I’ll happily turn to Pete to supplement my remarks and to Kerry briefly on what we’ve been doing with farmers and then happy to take your questions. Peter…
GARRETT: Thanks Kevin. The Great Barrier Reef is simply our greatest national treasure. Our most important environmental icon and this represents the most substantial commitment of money to address the serious problems that this extraordinary natural area, this extraordinary natural treasure, faces.
We have the largest coral reef system in the world. The largest World Heritage area in the world. A Reef which contributes substantially to local and regional economies, which is responsible for some $6 billion of generated monies, employs tens of thousands of Australians and yet the Reef is in serious jeopardy. It’s clear that the climate change crisis is impacting on the Reef. It’s clear too that sediment and water quality issues are absolutely critical at this point in time and that for eleven and a half years of denial and inaction on climate change, the Howard Government, likewise, on taking real action on the Great Barrier Reef has simply failed to deliver.
Today, Rudd Labor delivers on our most important natural asset. Today, Rudd Labor makes the most significant commitment ever to ensuring that we address the problems that the Great Barrier Reef faces.
In particular, I want to outline $12 million for Healthy Reef partnerships. $22 million – water quality and monitoring. $10 million for the Great Barrier Reef water quality research and development program, including producing a report card on the quality of the Reef, and $10 million towards land and sea country indigenous involvement in protecting the Reef.
At the end of the day this generation owes it to coming generations to show that it was prepared to step up and make the commitments necessary to protect a natural and international treasure of the order of the Great Barrier Reef. This is a strong and profound commitment. It’s based on working voluntarily with land groups, with farmers organisations, with natural resource management agencies – it’s based on assisting these communities here drive solutions on ground and into the marine environment which will see us really take much better care of this absolutely beautiful and priceless asset.
The Howard Government has had notice in the climate change report that there are six icon sites in Australia that are especially vulnerable to climate change. The Great Barrier Reef is not only the first of those sites, it is the most important. Today, Rudd Labor steps up for the Great Barrier Reef.
RUDD: And Kerry, on the work of farmers.
O’BRIEN: Thanks Kevin and can I say that Kevin and Peter’s office, and mine have been working extensively on this package for some time and I’ve been talking to the farm organisations affected by this. They’ve been waiting patiently for the Howard Government to deliver on it’s longstanding promise to actually put some dollars up to assist them to do the work that they want to do. This funding, particularly $146 million is about practical projects on the ground delivered in partnership with industry groups. We’ve been working with the Queensland Farmers Federation, with Agforce, with Canegrowers, with Growcom, with Cotton Growers Australia. They’re all well behind this, we can expect cooperation from the farming community, and as I say, they have been waiting patiently for the Howard Government to deliver on their promise of funds which, to date, have not been forthcoming.
JOURNALIST: So Mr Rudd you’re like (inaudible) you would sign up to an international agreement even if developing countries did not?
RUDD: We believe that leadership must come first from the developed economies, including Australia and the United States, and then countries and economies like China have nowhere to go. Remember their stated public reason for not accepting targets is that major emitters, globally, like the United States and Australia per capita, have not accepted targets themselves.
It’s exactly what I said in the debate the other night. It’s our position and I would challenge Mr Howard to become a leader, not just a follower, when it comes to this great challenge for our economy and our environment on climate change. Ratification of Kyoto and accepting targets is a key step in this direction. Mr Turnbull has indicated through his reported remarks over the weekend where he stands on those two things, we have Mr Howard again this morning, it seems, heading in precisely the reverse direction.
JOURNALIST: How do you know developing countries would follow? Wouldn’t they just say, fine, we’ll leave that to you we’ll just carry on the way we have been?
RUDD: If you follow the debate in China itself, including in part in the lead-up to the 17th Party Congress, this has been an active debate within China. China itself released a very significant discussion paper on greenhouse gas emissions earlier this year and the debate is alive in that country. In my own discussions with various members of the Chinese leadership, this has moved from the margins to the centre. China is driven, also, to act in its national interest in terms of action on climate change.
Remember the overall logic of the Stern Report: a failure to react on climate change means ultimately you are doing great damage to the economy and the Chinese have increasingly moved to that position; but the Chinese equally say that on targets they have an out, so long as major developed economies like Australia and the United States remain outside the system.
The challenge is this: one, ratify Kyoto, two, accept targets and three, then leverage the Chinese and the others into accepting targets and that is the way in which it can work. Mr Howard’s way, over the last x years has failed to deliver any outcomes.
JOURNALIST: Mr Rudd…inaudible.
RUDD: One here and then there.
JOURNALISTP: Queensland farmers will continue to use fertilisers, is it the case that the sugar industry can co-exist with the Reef or do you think that, inevitably, one is going to have to give way?
RUDD: I think, having grown up in a sugar belt myself in South East Queensland, I’m a big supporter of the industry. I believe that with proper modern scientific practices you can reduce, significantly, nutrient run-off into sensitive waters like this. A number of farmers are working individually in that direction. With matching grants, Kerry’s discussions and our discussions with the farm organisations, indicate that this is the pathway forward.
It’s not been done properly up until now – remember it’s been four or five years since the delivery of funding was indicated by Mr Howard but, a bit like interest rates, that commitment went out the back door and we actually haven’t seen the colour of their money.
JOURNALIST: Mr Rudd you say that we should do anything to save the Great Barrier Reef. Now scientists say that a two degree rise in temperature later this century will do very significant damage to the Reef and to stop that we must reduce global emissions by 30 per cent by 2020. So why won’t you commit to a 2020 target based on the science rather than waiting for your economic report mid-next year?
RUDD: Well, based on the science, we’ve accepted the recommendation that reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 60 per cent by 2050 against 2000 levels is the necessary step in the right direction. Mr Howard says that’s economically irresponsible. Mr Turnbull, I note, says that that is something which the science dictates, either between 50 and 60 if I correctly report Mr Turnbull’s reported remarks. On the interim targets, which is the thrust of your question, I have said consistently since commissioning Ross Garnaut’s work that we will frame our interim targets once the Garnaut Report is delivered.
Professor Garnaut, is looking at a whole range of factors which would underpin a decision about interim targets. We believe interim targets are necessary, but we’re also conscious of the fact that we need a wide research basis on how to frame those targets against the unfolding architecture of the emissions trading regime and that, therefore, needs to be done in tandem. That’s the brief we’ve given to Professor Garnaut. It’s a report which has been reinforced by secretarial services and research services provided by the State and Territory governments, Mr Howard’s Government has not been doing any such work and we, therefore, have set him a timeline of reporting by June next year and this was something we commissioned much earlier this year and I think it’s a responsible course of action.
JOURNALIST: Is throwing money at farmers the answer? Wouldn’t it be better, perhaps, to use regulation or stopping them using different types of fertilisers? Those sorts of things.
RUDD: Well, we believe and I’ll defer to Kerry on the question of fertilisers, we believe that the best farming practices across the rural community in Australia are delivered by good science and the incentives provided by grants, in particular matching grant. The disappointing thing is that we had, we thought, the heads of an agreement back in 2002 and here we are five years later and there’s been no flow-through of those grants to farming organisations or to individual farmers. Matching grants is, we think, the necessary incentive, to lift farm practices to get the right sort of outcome. If you want to add to that Kerry…
O’BRIEN: I think the important thing is, you will see this afternoon, the sort of work that some farmers have been able to do to mitigate the impact of sediment of nutrients and of chemicals on the waterways and, therefore, the Great Barrier Reef. You will see that this afternoon, you will see what could have been done if this investment had made sooner.
JOURNALIST: Should Kevin Reynolds be kicked out of the ALP? Also he’s made a series of threats, perhaps, to withdraw CFMEU funding from the ALP – what do you think of that?
RUDD: Oh, it’s just a matter for him. It’s normal huff and puff and bluster, I’m getting a bit used to that from Mr Reynolds, I’m sure there’ll be a lot more of it.
JOURNALIST: So he shouldn’t be kicked out?
JOURNALIST: Is his Labor Party membership safe though?
RUDD: Sorry.
JOURNALIST: Is his Labor Party membership safe?
RUDD: Listen, the benchmark I’ve set is violence, threats of violence and that’s why action has been taken in relation to a couple of individuals. As I said, I expect full huff, puff, bluster and the rest from Mr Reynolds in the days ahead, that’s just what you kind of expect.
JOURNALIST: You said the Government was rumoured to have offered $300 million to save the Reef, why are you only putting up $200 million?
RUDD: We’ve been through this in great detail, in analysing what is the best package now. $146 million worth of matching grants and then you’ve got other sub-programs here which go to the research side and the monitoring side. We think we’ve got the balance right. The reported amount of $300 million, we’ve never actually been able to confirm from an authoritative statement by Government but there was a report in the media at that time that that’s what they were intending or planning to give.
JOURNALIST: Mr Rudd, is any of this funding new or are you just taking it from a National Heritage Trust?
RUDD: Well when it comes to the National Heritage Trust, it provides a quantum of funding for use for natural heritage purposes and here you have a specific dedication of those funds to the purpose, but it hasn’t been so allocated before – that’s the problem. We’re saying this is a national priority, it’s an urgent national priority. Let me go to the economics of this, which I didn’t touch on in my remarks before. We all understand being out here in a beautiful place like this, the importance of preserving it. But you know something? Nationwide this is a $6 billion business. Nationwide, this is 67,000 jobs – direct jobs. When you come to this region of Far North Queensland, you have something in the order of $2.3 billion worth of economic activity proceeding from the Reef, you have something in the order of 30,000 plus jobs, direct and indirect, hanging off this, therefore we need to act and we’re putting forward a concrete plan, with a concrete dedication of funds which has long been called for by farming groups to assist. Of course, dealing with this globally requires parallel action on climate change which we’ve been speaking on as well.
JOURNALIST: On interest rates, the Prime Minister says that when talking about 30 year lows, he was referring to the standard variable rate, which I think is about 8.3, do you buy that argument?
RUDD: Well Mr Howard changes his tune every day on what his pre-election commitment was on interest rates. Last time he said that when he promised to keep interest rates at record lows, that wasn’t his promise, it was just the Liberal Party’s and it only lasted two days. Then he was confronted with this other problem, which is that he did himself commit, out of his own mouth, to keeping interest rates at 30 year lows, I don’t recall him adding the bit that you’ve just referred to. So Mr Howard went to the last election falsely promising the Australian people that he would keep interest rates at their then level. That the guts of it. That’s what he wanted to convey, that’s what he wanted to communicate bec ause he was running a very negative campaign against the Labor Party at the time on interest rates. Therefore, Mr Howard cannot be trusted in his promises on interest rates. That’s what comes out of his most recent to-ing and fro-ing about what he said prior to the last election.
JOURNALIST: You’re looking pretty good in the Galaxy poll today in a number of seats, you must be felling pretty confident and please don’t mention climbing Mt Everest.
JOURNALIST: Swimming to the outer reef
RUDD: I’ll just answer that question. This is like running a marathon. It is, I mean seriously. I actually watch a lot of Olympic marathon races, I do, I mean I actually sit there and watch bec ause I’m staggered by how these people survive and can I say an election is like that. How many times have you seen someone who’s overtaken in the last period of time and I think we are in a very hard race and I’ll say it again. We’ve only won twice from Opposition since the war. We’ve got to win 16 seats across the country. This is really hard going and we have a long way to go. They say a week is a long time in politics, four weeks is an eternity and a lot, a lot, can happen. Mr Howard’s single strategy for this election campaign is this. A rolling negative fear campaign in everything they say and do, without any positive plan for the nation’s future. The reason Mr Howard is doing that is that he’s very good at negative fear campaigns; he’s used them in the past and he’s got away with it. He’s very effective at it and therefore when I say, this will become a very tight race, that’s the reason. Mr Howard is very good at negative fear campaign.
JOURNALIST: On that issue of long campaigns, would you give a commitment in government that you would end the convention that allows the taxpayer, or forces the taxpayer to pick up the bill until both sides l aunch their national campaigns?
RUDD: Can I just actually take that on notice. I’m not actually familiar with the details of the arrangements, I’d rather come back to you with a substantive answer. What I can give you an absolute commitment on, the absolute farce that we have at present, whereby the Government of the day, picks and chooses what the election date is. That’s just wrong, it’s crazy, you’ve just got to get past that and that’s why I’ve indicated that we need to change Australia’s laws so that there is a fixed 4 year term and that’s what we need to see in the future. That way, I think we cut out so much of the nonsense. On the substantive question you raise about funding arrangements during campaigns, I will come back to you.
JOURNALIST: Are the Liberals running scared? We’re seeing some reports today that possibly some of the senior insiders are urging the Prime Minister to change his tactics?
RUDD: How Mr Howard and the Liberals run their tactics is one thing, but my challenge to Mr Howard and Mr Costello is to be fair dinkum on interest rates. My challenge to Mr Howard and Mr Costello is not to repeat the promises that they made prior to the last election. Promises which they knew couldn’t be kept and my challenge to Mr Costello who Mr Howard said is going to hand the prime ministership to, is to publicly repudiate Mr Howard’s position on interest rates. You see, the challenge for Mr Costello is this. In the last election when he was Treasurer, when he heard Mr Howard say he’s going to keep interest rates at record lows, Mr Costello knew that promise was false. But where did Mr Costello go? Did he put up his hand and say – you can’t say that. My challenge to Mr Costello today, if he wants to be the next Prime Minister of Australia handed the job by Mr Howard, without facing the people. Mr Costello has to repudiate Mr Howard’s position on interest rates. In the book on Mr Howard, Mr Costello has already said that Mr Howard’s got a bad record on interest rates. Well here’s the clear cut challenge. Can Mr Costello - who wants to take over the prime ministership from Mr Howard – and that is repudiate these undeliverable promises, which they have made in the past on keeping interest rates at record lows.
JOURNALIST: Has the Federal Labor Party put any pressure on the Northern Territory Government to tell Marion Scrymgour to take back some of her comments on the Northern Territory intervention?
RUDD: I’m unaware of any such communication. I was asked a question the other day about what I thought about her remarks, I was very blunt in my response. I said I defended the intervention. I continue to defend the intervention. I know it’s controversial. Why she has made statements of a different type today, I do not know.
JOURNALIST: NSW Indigenous Minister Linda Burney, came out in my newspaper today also saying that she backs Marion’s comments, and she wanted the Labor leadership to listen to a variety of voices on Aboriginal affairs, not just Mal Brough and Noel Pearson. What’s your view on that?
RUDD: Well can I say prior to the debate on the Northern Territory intervention I draw all your attention and Ms Burney’s attention to the speech that I gave on the 40th Anniversary of the ’67 Referendum – that’s before any of this blew up. Before any report on the state of abuse of children in the Northern Territory. In that I committed a future Labor Government to closing the gap and that’s in terms of not just literacy and numeracy, between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians but also on the whole question of this yawning chasm of different life expectancies. Seventeen years across the span of a person’s life, I’m advised and for kids under the age of 5, three times more likely for a child to die if you grow up in an indigenous community as opposed to a non-indigenous community. What you have detailed in that speech is a program of some $260 million dollars plus, which details a series of health programs, education programs and other programs to close that gap, within a fixed time frame. So I’d say therein, lies our core view of our responsibility and our commitment to indigenous Australia. Our line before any of this debate about the Northern Territory came up. Why did we take that position of support on the Northern Territory intervention? If you read ‘Little Children are Sacred’ and look at the reports of the abuse of children, you’ve got to look at an extraordinary action to try and turn that around. I know it’s controversial. I know it’s not perfect but we believe, given what’s in that report, we had no alternative but to act.
JOURNALIST: On Kyoto, a number of countries, developed countries, are not going to make their target, and Canada has effectively pulled out of its target. Should someone like Canada and those other countries, be penalised in the next commitment period?
RUDD: Every country needs to accept and shoulder its national and therefore international responsibilities. On the question of the Canadian commitment, I will look at the detail about their target and where they are likely to reach. But you know, if you’ve got two advanced economies like the United States and Australia remaining outside the system and saying it’s all your problem and not ours, it actually fundamentally undermines the fabric of global cooperation. You see, when we talk about global climate change, by definition we’re dealing with a global problem. We are therefore looking at global mechanisms to fix it. Therefore, whatever the imperfections of the Kyoto protocol and the Kyoto process it is the only show in town to deal with this. Therefore, we’ve got to make it work, that’s the challenge here and I cannot understand Mr Howard being so anchored in the past, so lost in old thinking that he can’t grasp that reality. Even Mr Turnbull seems to get some of it. My challenge to Mr Costello, the person who wants to become Prime Minister, is where does Mr Costello stand on the debate which occurred in the Cabinet six weeks ago on these matters? I’ll just take one more.
JOURNALIST: Has Mr Turnbull turned out to be one of your best assets in the climate debate, considering what’s happened in past days? Or do you think he’s just trying to save his own skin?
RUDD: On the question of Mr Turnbull’s motivation, it’s a question best put to him. In terms of political impact, that’s for others to judge. But if Mr Turnbull and Mr Costello, who likes to paint a picture of himself as more progressive on the climate change question, were actually serious about it. What have they been doing for the last x years? Mr Costello has been Treasurer for 11 years. There was a submission to Cabinet in 2003 to establish a National Emissions Trading Regime. Where did Mr Costello go on that? We know from Ken Henry, the Secretary of the Department of Treasury that he has long argued that the Treasury, and therefore the Treasurer and the Government should have been much more active on emissions trading much earlier. When it comes to Mr Turnbull, if Mr Turnbull really believed this is a matter of national import and not just political management for himself or for others, then surely the honourable thing to have done six weeks ago would have been to resign. Other than that it’s political posturing.