SUBJECTS: FuelWatch, ACCC, NSW Liberal Party, Bill Henson paintings
LEIGH SALES:
Chris Bowen, as we've heard earlier this evening, Laurie Oakes revealed that four Government departments opposed the FuelWatch policy on the grounds that it could increase petrol prices. How can the Rudd Government justify going ahead with this policy, given the weight of that advice?
CHRIS BOWEN:
Governments always receive different advice and what this shows, Leigh, is that we applied some rigour. The ACCC made its case to the Government. I made my case to the Cabinet for this policy proposal. And these concerns were dealt with. The concerns of the department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and the other departments were dealt with through that process. They were put to the ACCC and the ACCC answered those concerns to the satisfaction of the Cabinet. You know, the chairman of the ACCC. Graeme Samuel, personally briefed the expenditure review committee of the Cabinet with the petrol Commissioner and with Professor Steven King, who is an ACCC Commissioner and a well respected competition expert in Australia and all these were concerns were put to them and put to me and they were all answered to the satisfaction of the Cabinet. Now, some of these concerns when you look through the briefing notes are about earlier work, the earlier report in saying more work needs to be done. And when the further work that the ACCC had done was put to the Cabinet, the Cabinet accepted the ACCC's advice as the watchdog for consumers that this was not only a desirable reform but a necessary reform.
LEIGH SALES:
Chris Bowen these weren't just any four departments. We're talk about Prime Minister and Cabinet, Finance, Resource and Energy, and Industry. We are in the heavy weight division there and surely their combined expertise outweighs the ACCC
CHRIS BOWEN:
Well put that against the very strong advice of the ACCC and can I say the ACCC is the only organisation that has done independent modelling. And not only had have they done independent modelling, they then put that modelling through a rigorous process which was explained to the Cabinet. When the Cabinet heard that evidence from the ACCC, and from myself, they accepted the advice of the ACCC on balance. Now, we take advice from departments but at the end of the day we're the ones elected to make decisions. We were elected by the Australian people to make a difference, not to follow bureaucratic advice on every occasion but to make a difference and to make the big, tough, policy decision. We took a decision to back the view of the regulator, to back if view of the people who stand up for consumers and to take into account the experience in WA. We have a real live model here. This FuelWatch system has been operating for eight years in WA. Introduced by a Liberal Government, supported by a Labor Government. We went through all the evidence, all the modelling, all the indications as to how it would work and, on balance, the Cabinet strongly came to the view that this was, as I say, not only desirable but necessary.
LEIGH SALES:
Tony Abbott what do you make of Labor's decisions to accept the views of the ACCC over those of the four Government departments?
TONY ABBOTT:
The only published ACCC advice does not support FuelWatch. So we've had a lot of fibs from the Assistant Treasurer this evening. If there's other advice, it ought to be published and then people can make a judgment. But the ACCC advice that we have, that Malcolm Turnbull had in the Parliament today, does not support FuelWatch. PM & C does not support FuelWatch. Finance doesn't support FuelWatch. Industry doesn't support FuelWatch around Martin Ferguson doesn't support FuelWatch and I think there's quite a few other Cabinet Ministers who agree with Martin.
LEIGH SALES:
Mr Abbot can you imagine pressure the Howard Government would have come under from Labor had you received this sort of advice and ignored it?
TONY ABBOTT:
The Howard government came under a lot of pressure from Labor because we allegedly couldn't get petrol prices down. And Kevin Rudd said he would get petrol prices down, plainly that was a fib. Petrol prices increased by 12 cents a litre between polling day and Budget night. They've gone up substantially again since then and today in Perth the highest Perth – Perth had that highest petrol price of any metropolitan area in Australia, notwithstanding FuelWatch.
LEIGH SALES:
Chris Bowen what do you say to Tony Abbott's point about the ACCC not being fully on board with FuelWatch?
CHRIS BOWEN:
No, I can assure you and the ACCC can assure you that they strongly believe that FuelWatch is a necessary reform. Now, the ACCC provided that advice to Government. I spoke to the ACCC chairman tonight, and he asked, given the public interest in this matter whether it would be appropriate to release the ACCC's conclusions and the methodology they used and I said on behalf of the Government that's fine and it up to him how he handles it from here. He will release that methodology and those conclusions in a spirit of openness and so people can see why the Cabinet and the expenditure review committee when weigh up all the evidence decided that, on balance, this was the right proposal
LEIGH SALES:
So we can expect to see that material tomorrow?
CHRIS BOWEN:
I've told the chairman it's fine to release the methodology and conclusions and I expect he will.
LEIGH SALES:
This is the second leak in two days that's been highly damaging to the Rudd Government. You don't normally see this start to happen except when people are feeling under a lot of pressure. Is Kevin Rudd's leadership style already irking people so much that they're beginning to leak against him?
CHRIS BOWEN:
I think that’s a very long bow to draw, Leigh.
LEIGH SALES:
Well how do you explain what's going on?
CHRIS BOWEN:
That’s for others to comment on: We get on with the policy job. Government is challenging. Now, you compare our approach to previous government's approach. They introduced a $10 billion water plan and didn't even bother to take it to Cabinet, let alone getting coordinating advice from Government departments. They didn't bother the to take their $10 billion water plan to Cabinet and I suspect if their petrol plan for a 5 cent a litre tax cut was given departments to comment on that would make for interesting reading too. Internal Government advice is always better kept behind closed doors because that's how Cabinet works. Cabinet needs fearless and frank advice and that's how the Cabinet system works. It's always unfortunate when documents come into the public like this. It happened under previous Government and it has happened with this Government and it happens.
LEIGH SALES:
Chris Bowen would you accept the last couple of days have been the worst of the Rudd Government's term in office so far?
CHRIS BOWEN:
We’re getting on with the job and it's not easy. I said when we announced FuelWatch that it would be controversial, that it would attract criticism from some quarters and it was a bold step. Alternatively we could have sat on our hands and done nothing and said sorry, fuel prices are going up because world oil prices are going up and there's nothing we can do to introduce more transparency and competition into the market. That's not the approach we took. Sometimes when you take the tough decisions and say this is going to be a bit controversial but is worth doing, you lose a bit of skin on the way. Government is about taking tough decisions and getting on with the job and at the end of the day that's what the Australian people expect.
LEIGH SALES:
Tony Abbott, the converse for the Government is obviously it's been a good week for the Opposition. Why has it taken Brendan Nelson six months to land a blow on the Government?
TONY ABBOTT:
Government hasn't actually done anything until Budget night. Basically all it was just symbols without substance till Budget night. They've now made a few decision and they've been bad decisions. The message out of the Budget was don't bother to earn more than $150,000 a year and what we've seen over petrol prices is not something that will bring prices down, just something that will add more bureaucracy to the job that petrol retailers already have to do. Once they started taking decisions they were bad decisions and obviously Oppositions flourish when the Government is making mistakes.
LEIGH SALES:
Both your teams are trying to cut the cost of petrol in Australia. However politically unpopular, isn't it time instead to try to get the public to actually reduce petrol consumption?
TONY ABBOTT:
That’s a fair point. But Kevin Rudd ran around the country incessantly before the election saying that petrol prices were too high. John Howard had failed, he could bring them down. Now the public expect him to deliver. If he doesn't deliver, either he was lying before the election or he is incompetent in office. Now, the point we've made repeatedly is that governments can't control the international price of oil. If the ACCC is doing its job there is no conspiracy in this country amongst the oil retailers. The only way Government can reduce the price is to cut the tax. That's why we say cut the tax by 5 cents a litre.
LEIGH SALES:
Chris Bowen there’s predictions that the world's oil will run out in 30 to 40 years. Shouldn't the Government be now making tough decisions to wean the public off its oil dependency.
CHRIS BOWEN:
Alternative fuels have to be part of the answer, that's right. That's why we have a hybrid car package, for example. These are international developments - there's international technological developments and we can punch a bit above our weight in terms of developing those alternative fuels. Let me deal with what Tony Abbott said, I can't let that go past. He knows he is not quite being straight. We said before the election and after the election the biggest impact on Australian petrol prices is world oil prices. But what we can do is give the ACCC some teeth and back them in, back the people's regulator, back the people standing up for consumers give them increased power, introduce more competition and transparency into the petrol market. Will that make a difference? It will help at the margins, that’s what we’ve always said Downward pressure. But the biggest impact is world oil prices.
LEIGH SALES:
I don’t recall that at the election campaign, saying we will help working families at the margin. You were giving the impression that you were going to make a big difference in peoples every day cost of living.
CHRIS BOWEN:
What we said was the biggest impact was worlds oil prices, we said there are no magic bullet, no - no magic solutions, no silver bullets, I remember using those words myself in the election campaign, I remember hearing the Prime Minister the then leader of the Opposition use them in the lead up to the election. We took a different approach to the previous Government. The previous Government said we will keep interest rates at record lows and they can try to duck and weave around it. We said we don't think you've ever been better off. We don't think Australian working families have been better off. We recognise you're doing it tough and that Government has a limited range of things they can do but we will do them. We will introduce more transparency and we will do things like free up the foreign investment laws so we can get more competition and diversity in the grocery market for example. A modest measure, one the previous Government was asked to do and refused to do. These aren't things that in and of themselves will bring down grocery or petrol prices by a huge amount but altogether when you look at all the pro- competition and pro- transparency measures the Government is taking, including FuelWatch, then you will find some downward pressure.
LEIGH SALES:
Let’s, let Tony Abbott jump in there and have a response.
TONY ABBOTT:
Thanks, its nice to get a word in!
FuelWatch isn’t about transparency and competition, it's just bureaucracy. This idea that every petrol station has got to make contact with some super regulator, super bureaucrat every day and they can actually be fined for reducing their price for God's sake, I mean, it's a nonsense. It won't work. It hasn't worked in Perth and it won't work nationally.
LEIGH SALES:
Tony Abbott we had news that the NSW leadership machine has pretty much resigned en masse. This comes on top of the controversy in Victoria, and Queensland and of course your issues federally. Is the Liberal Party at a cross-roads in Australia?
TONY ABBOTT:
We’re obviously going through some pretty tough time s. Politics is a pretty tough business. I am disappointed that Geoff and two of his colleagues have chosen to resign. But, look, that's their call. No-one is a conscript in this business. Everyone is a volunteer. The important thing is that the work of party reform will continue and under Barry O'Farrell both the so-called left wing and the so-called right wing are working pretty well together to advance the cause of party reform and I expect that will continue.
LEIGH SALES:
The election of the Rudd Government surely shows that the public is looking for a Government position somewhere in the middle yet as you point out the NSW division of the Liberal Party has been driven by the tension between left and the right. How will you get back into Government 23 you allow the party machinery to be hijacked by one side of the other?
TONY ABBOTT:
Factionalism is much less pronounced inside the Liberal Party or the Labor Party.
LEIGH SALES:
I don’t want to talk about the Labor Party I want to talk about the Liberal Party.
TONY ABBOTT:
Fair point. Factionalism is not of itself the death of a political party, as Labor proves. The important thing is that the different groups and teams can work constructively together. And I think one of Barry O'Farrell's achievements as the State leader has been to make that happen. They are talking to each other. And there is going to be a reform package come forward here in NSW. But it will come forward because it's being talked through and just about everyone will agree on it, it won't be something that is imposed from the top.
LEIGH SALES:
Before you both go I would like to turn briefly to the controversy surrounding the Bill Henson exhibition. Malcolm Turnbull said today that we shouldn't have policemen invading art galleries and it's important to safeguard our culture of artistic freedom. What is your view, Tony Abbott?
TONY ABBOTT:
I would be the last person to take issue with my colleague. I guess, my problem here is the double standard. I mean, if I had on my computer the kind of images that were in that gallery, I'd be interviewed by the police and quite possibly face charges. Now, if it's pornography on my computer, why isn't it pornography in the gallery? That's the question that I ask. If it's not pornography in the gallery, it's not pornography on my computer pornography?
LEIGH SALES:
Do you think its pornography?
TONY ABBOTT:
I haven’t seen them to be honest so I don't really know. But from what I've heard they seem like pretty confronting images. Now, I am just not sure that we really need that kind of thing to further freedom of expression, to further the creative impulse. Shocking people is all very well. But I don't think we need to be shocked by everything. I think some things are off limits.
LEIGH SALES:
Chris Bowen who do you line up with – Malcolm Turnbull or Tony Abbott?
CHRIS BOWEN:
I’m with Tony Abbott on this one. This is a vexed issue but I have to say the courts are the appropriate place to sort this out and I don't think we should second guess the police. I, like Tony, haven't seen the pictures. I've only seen the media interpretations of the pictures and they do disturb me. The courts are an appropriate place for these issues to be determined, but I don't think we should be criticising the police for taking action and I agree with Tony, these sorts of images by what we've seen on the television portrayal of them would be a very concerning if they were found on somebody's computer and that should be worked through in the courts.
LEIGH SALES:
Who would have ended the interview with both of you in furious agreement.
TONY ABBOTT:
Maybe Chris is a closet conservative after all! Like Kevin!
CHRIS BOWEN:
I’m not going to suggest that Tony is a closet member of the ALP. Nobody would believe me if I said that
TONY ABBOTT:
The DLP perhaps?
CHRIS BOWEN:
Maybe
LEIGH SALES:
Chris Bowen, Tony Abbott Thanks