29 March 2011

TRANSCRIPT OF THE HON. TONY ABBOTT MHR

Subjects: Labor’s mining tax; Julia Gillard’s carbon tax, Newspoll.

 E&OE……………………….…………………………………………………………………

LYNDAL CURTIS:

Tony Abbott, welcome to News 24.

TONY ABBOTT:

Thanks for having me Lyndal.

LYNDAL CURTIS:

Do you believe company tax should be cut?

TONY ABBOTT:

I think the Government should keep its promises. Now, the Government went to the last
election promising a one per cent company tax cut. They should deliver. If they don’t deliver
it will be yet another broken promise from this Government.

LYNDAL CURTIS:

The Government is going to separate the mining tax legislation from the company tax cut
legislation. When the company tax cut legislation goes into parliament will you back it?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, you know, the mining tax has been changed four times already. We haven’t actually
seen the latest iteration. We’ll make a final decision when we see the Government’s
legislation but no one should be fooled by this choreographed fight between the Government
and the Greens. They’re partners in government, they’re close political allies. I think the
Government has a problem. It’s running out of money. I think it would actually suit the
Government to renege on the tax cuts and use the Greens as an excuse.

LYNDAL CURTIS:

But the tax cut legislation will be separate. If there’s legislation before the parliament to cut
company tax from 30 per cent to 29 per cent, given you have spoken often about the need for
tax cuts, would you back that bill?

TONY ABBOTT:
Well again, I’m not going to answer a hypothetical question but I am going to state a very
clear principle. First, the Government should keep its commitments and, second, we support
company tax cuts. We took a policy to the election, a 1.5 per cent company tax cut. The
difference between us and the Government is that we were going to fund the tax cut properly
through savings. They were going to fund a tax cut through raising other taxes which means
that the whole thing was basically a fiddle.

LYNDAL CURTIS:

So if the Government puts in legislation to meet its promise of cutting the company tax by
one per cent you would support it?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, I’m not going to answer a hypothetical question from a Government which can’t get its
story straight but...

LYNDAL CURTIS:

But that would be the Government meeting its commitment, wouldn’t it?

TONY ABBOTT:

...but we are not going to let the Government off the hook and we’re not going to allow them
to get out of delivering what they’ve promised because of this choreographed fight with the
Greens.

LYNDAL CURTIS:

So, it could well be that the Government gets the mining tax legislation through with the
support of the Greens but is looking to you to support its company tax cut.

TONY ABBOTT:

Quite possibly and, as I said, in principle we strongly support company tax cuts, we strongly
support governments not telling fibs and we wanted to deliver this tax cut, so I think I’ve said
absolutely everything that needs to be said here, Lyndal.

LYNDAL CURTIS:

If we could get onto another tax, the carbon tax, do you still believe that it was a factor in the
New South Wales election?

TONY ABBOTT:

Oh, plainly it was. Nathan Rees says it was, Joe Tripodi says it was, Richard Torbay says it
was. The Prime Minister is in denial and, look, let her stay in denial. I’m in a sense politically
happy to see her in denial because it will do her no end of political harm.

LYNDAL CURTIS:
The New South Wales Labor Party in the Newspoll ratings going back to April was rating the
primary vote lower than that which it got on election night. In that case, doesn’t that show
that the carbon tax either didn’t have an impact in the election or the New South Wales Labor
party got suddenly more popular, enough to absorb that?

TONY ABBOTT:

Look, there was always going to be some slight comeback from those extraordinary Newspoll
lows but the fact is Barry O’Farrell put the carbon tax front and centre of his campaign. He
put it front and centre of his campaign and we saw the bizarre situation for Labor of the
former Premier campaigning on reducing power bills just as the current Prime Minister is
campaigning to increase power bills, and I think this was indicative of the utter shambles that
Sussex Street Labor federally and in Canberra has become.

LYNDAL CURTIS:

If we could go to your policy on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, your communications

TONY ABBOTT:

No, we will be sensibly using relatively modest amounts of tax payers’ money to actually
reduce emissions, that’s what we’ll be doing. We will be going to the market and we will be
choosing from the various proposals that are put to us those which we think are the most
sensible and cost effective ones.

LYNDAL CURTIS:

But can you use tax payers’ money for this and not for other purposes without causing pain in
some areas, without taking the money from something that some people like?

TONY ABBOTT:

And we identified $50 billion worth of cuts and savings at the election and so our Direct
Action policy, which is fully supported by every single member of the shadow cabinet as
you’d expect, our Direct Action policy is fully funded from savings. So we can do what we
think is necessary without any cost to consumers and without any additional burden to tax
payers.

LYNDAL CURTIS:

But it will cost the taxpayers something?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, inevitably government doesn’t spend money that doesn’t come from somewhere, and
we are spending money, but there’s a world of difference between us spending about a billion
dollars a year from the budget and the Government’s proposal which just to start involves an
$11 billion a year hit on business and consumers.

LYNDAL CURTIS:

You’ve spoken often about electricity price rises and the price rises that might happen under
a carbon tax. Will your direct action policy put downward pressure on electricity prices?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, it certainly won’t put any upward pressure on electricity prices.

LYNDAL CURTIS:

Electricity prices have risen quite a lot over the last few years without a carbon price. Do you
think those rises have been reasonable?

TONY ABBOTT:

I think that at least some of those rises have been due to the state Labor Governments failure
to invest and the state Labor Government’s gauging usurious dividends from the utilities,
effectively they’ve imposed a tax on the utilities. Now, I think that’s wrong and it shouldn’t
have been done and I’m pretty confident that over time that will change, at least in the states
where we are going to have better management.

LYNDAL CURTIS:

Now, we are coming up to a parliamentary break. Newspoll shows that, as unpopular as the
Government is and the Prime Minister is, that unpopularity isn’t translating into higher
satisfaction ratings for you. Indeed your satisfaction rating in Newspoll has been sliding since
November and your dissatisfaction rating has been rising since December. Will you be
recalibrating your performance, having a look at what you do during the break?

TONY ABBOTT:

I will still be me, Lyndal, if that’s what you are asking and during the break I will be doing
again something that I have done I think for the last 13 or 14 years now. I’ll be on the annual
Pollie Pedal fundraising bike ride. This year, as for the last few years, we’ll be raising money
for indigenous health scholarships at Sydney University. It’s a very good cause and it also
gives me and some of my colleagues the chance to be in the sort of regional areas that don’t
normally get visits from senior politicians. So for me it’s going to be very much business as
usual and, look, I make no apologies for standing up for the Australian families who have
been forgotten by this Prime Minister.

LYNDAL CURTIS:

Do you risk though being seen as too negative because I think the only policy proposal
you’ve put forward, the only positive one in the last few weeks has been on the question of
the Northern Territory intervention. Do you think there is any validity to the criticism that
you have one speed?
TONY ABBOTT:

Look, I think that you are always going to get spin from the Labor Party. I think that’s part of
their problem. I think if the Labor Party and the Prime Minister in particular spent less time
spinning and more time actually listening to the Australian public, they wouldn’t be in the
diabolical position that they are in which unfortunately is the problem that you get when the
New South Wales disease goes to Canberra.

LYNDAL CURTIS:

And finally, talking of another leader, the Australian cricket captain, Ricky Ponting has
announced he is stepping down from this role. Do you think he held on too long or do you
think he has gone too early?

TONY ABBOTT:

I think Ricky has been a really outstanding skipper of Australia and for most of his time at the
helm we were fabulously successful. So, look, I think really all I can do is congratulate him
on a great innings, wish him well for the future.

LYNDAL CURTIS:

Tony Abbott, thank you very much for joining us today.

TONY ABBOTT:

Thanks so much Lyndal.

[ends]