SUBJECTS: Super trawler, Queensland State Budget, Financial literacy.
A podcast and mp3 download of this interview is available on the ABC website.
STEVE AUSTIN:
It's the middle of the 13th sitting week of 2012 for our Federal Parliamentarians and they are up to their eyeballs in super trawlers, asylum seekers, data retention and more. Bernie Ripoll, Federal Labor Member for Oxley and Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer is in our Parliament House studio. Bernie, good morning to you.
BERNIE RIPOLL:
Good morning Steve.
STEVE AUSTIN:
You're off mic there Bernie, so just bear that in mind. And, Steve Ciobo. Federal LNP Member for Moncrieff. Steve Ciobo, good morning to you as well.
STEVE CIOBO:
Good morning Bernie, ah good morning Steve and good morning Bernie.
STEVE AUSTIN:
Steve Ciobo you are nice and strong on mic and Bernie you are a bit weak so you might want to come a bit closer Bernie.
BERNIE RIPOLL:
How's that?
STEVE AUSTIN:
And Steve Ciobo might want to go back a little bit. And just see if you hit a phone in the studio. I am getting a phone line. Is there a phone in your studio in Parliament House gentlemen?
STEVE CIOBO:
OK.
STEVE AUSTIN:
Well done. You could be a switch board operator for the ABC.
BERNIE RIPOLL:
We are running the tardis
STEVE CIOBO:
We've got post-political lives ahead of us.
STEVE AUSTIN:
There you go. Now Bernie, let me start with you. The news of the super trawler today is that Tony Burke, the Federal Environment Minister, is going to introduce legislation into Parliament that will effectively ban it. Just explain how we arrived at this point when earlier on, about a week ago, he was saying he didn't have the power to ban it. Something's changed and it looks like simple public pressure from Green groups.
BERNIE RIPOLL:
No, well what's changed is the Minister didn't have the powers to actually prevent the super trawler from fishing in Australian waters and therefore the Minister has moved. He is moving legislation to give him extra powers under the EPBC Act and that's to make sure that…We've got concerns as does the community, as does rec fishermen, as does environmentalists, conservationists. In fact everybody has concerns about this. We just don't know enough about this super trawler and the impact it will have particularly on by-catch - dolphins, seals, sea birds, a whole range of you know sensitive marine creatures in our environment. We didn't have the power to prevent the fishing taking place by the super trawler because the company that owns it already had a licence to fish and a quota. So we have taken the extra step and we are not banning it. What we are doing is a two year study to monitor the impact and understand better the damage that could be done. I think the reality here is though that it's the first time probably in Australian history maybe where rec fishers, the community (particularly in Tasmania), government, everybody is on the same side and saying: we are worried about this and we don't want this to go ahead.
STEVE AUSTIN:
Now, your advisor, the people that look at the science, the evidence, the Australian Fisheries Management Authority said: yeah, we can come in, go ahead there is no problem. And for their sins they are now being reviewed. What did they do wrong? They simply looked at the evidence.
BERNIE RIPOLL:
Well, they haven't done anything wrong. Look, I think there is some genuine concern out in the community. It's concern from rec fishers, it's concern from conservationists, from government as well. Government is concerned. In fact I think everybody is worried because we've never had a super trawler. Anything of the size of this. This is a floating fish factory that could literally wipe out a whole region. Not just the fish stock but of by-catch. That's the concern. On the current evidence that we have there's just not enough information. We're saying we need to do a better study. We can't afford to get it wrong. That's it, we just can't afford to get this wrong. We've got really pristine waters and great fisheries. If we get it wrong it's very hard to go back and fix it.
STEVE AUSTIN:
But the scientists in the department, the regulatory agency, looked at the evidence and said: yeah, it's ok.
BERNIE RIPOLL:
Well, as I said. There is just not enough information because we've never had a super trawler of this size. This is a massive floating factory. It can literally stay out at sea for indefinite periods of time. It has a net which is of phenomenal size. Bigger than anything we've had in our waters in the past. And we just don't have enough information. It's new and we all need to have a closer look at this. Look, if it didn't matter in the sense of any concerns from anyone, you'd probably tick it off and say: there's no great concerns here because we don't expect it to do a great deal of damage. But the potential here for something going wrong, the potential for damage is high. People who are the, well the community for a start, not just talking about one or two people or some small campaign, we're talking about tens of thousands of ordinary people are worried. Government is worried and rec fishers are worried, conservationists are worried and we agree with them. We are worried as well. We just don't have enough evidence, we don't have enough information so we are going to seek more out.
STEVE AUSTIN:
Steve Ciobo.
STEVE CIOBO:
Steve, this is the ultimate example of the victory of ignorance and rhetoric and fear mongering over common sense and good policy. What's happened? Is that in the last two weeks, the Labor Party and in particular the Minister Tony Burke, have bowed to pressure from green groups and from organisations like GetUp! which have been out there pedalling miss-trues and half-trues in a pathetic attempt to bully their way on this particular issue. Now let's be clear about one really pertinent fact Steve. And that is that the allowable catch - that is the volume of fish that the so-called super trawler was allowed to catch - was exactly the same quota as existed previously. So all that's going to happen now is they're going to replace this one trawler with three, four or five smaller trawlers. The by-catch in fact - it's predicted from three or four or five smaller trawlers - will actually be larger than from this one so-called super trawler which has worlds-best practice when it comes to allowing release shoots and gates and all these kinds of things for so-called by-catch - things like seals and dolphins to escape. So, what we are now going to see, is that after seven years of investment by a company, seven years of cooperating with Government authorities, to get an outcome that was going to be good for the environment, good for the fishermen, good for investment. This Government in a massive knee-jerk reaction has walk away from them, have escalated once again sovereign risk and I heard this morning the head of the fisheries in Tasmania saying: you know what, this just reinforces that no-one can take any investment risk with this Government because they will pull the rug out from underneath their feet.
STEVE AUSTIN:
Bernie Ripoll.
BERNIE RIPOLL:
Well, that's just a response from the opposition. I mean they are opposed to everything (inaudible)
STEVE AUSTIN:
Let me ask you. It's probably true that three smaller trawlers…Well, what will happen now is that smaller trawlers that are less obvious in size will now do the job that the large one would have done.
BERNIE RIPOLL:
Well, what's obvious is just simply this. This is a new parameter, this is new type of activity and there are real genuine concerns. We just don't have the information. I mean we could just let it go through. Let it go through the keeper. Let's see what happens. But the risks are too high. We've got…
STEVE AUSTIN:
Bernie, wouldn't the Australian Fisheries Management Authority have said to you, to the Minister: Minister, we don't have enough information to make a decision, we can't advise you if they didn't have enough information?
BERNIE RIPOLL:
Well, that's what's come out. The information that we've got there is that it's not enough to satisfy us and to satisfy everybody else that this is safe. The by-catch potential on this - and we don't know because it hasn't happened before - I mean, it's hard to have evidence on something when you haven't actually studied it specifically or you haven't actually had this exercise happen.
STEVE CIOBO:
Well Bernie, that's just plain wrong. The Australian Fisheries Management Authority, an independent body,
BERNIE RIPOLL:
Well, how many other super trawlers are there?
STEVE CIOBO:
No no, the Australian Fisheries Management Authority, an independent body, is satisfied that this meets all safeguards and in fact will be at least as good as if not better than current practice. So to claim that they are requiring more information is incorrect. The only person requiring more information is your Minister and he's only decided that in the last two weeks because he's come under pressure from GetUp!.
BERNIE RIPOLL:
I think the greatest thing this demonstrates that when it comes to the environment, when it comes to our fisheries, when it comes to working with the community, you've got a Government that actually does consult, participate, listen to the community, work with and do the proper examinations and studies and do things in a proper way and you've got others who just say well, we'll just ram through no matter what. We don't do that. We've consulted all the way through. Not just in this area but in other areas. How many other super trawlers are there running around the place? Certainly in our waters, there are none. This is the first. Let's get it right. If all is good, then it's just a period of delay and that'll be fine. The company can still fish, it can still trawl, it can still have its quota, it can still do all of those things, but we are concerned as are a whole range of other people. It's not just about what one body of evidence says, there's other bodies and there's other people who have different views. And we ought to do it properly. I'd rather err on the side of caution when it comes to this, rather than err the side, you know, let it be, let's see what happens, this is not the way you run an economy and it's not the way you run fisheries, it's not the way you run the environment.
STEVE AUSTIN:
You're not trying to look more green than the Greens, Bernie Ripoll…
BERNIE RIPOLL:
Never, never so.
STEVE AUSTIN:
…to try and distance yourself, to try and capture a bit of their Green vote as it were.
BERNIE RIPOLL:
No, there is trying to look green. I don't want to look green on any of this stuff. I just think we do have really great fisheries, we really do have great environments, we've got a great industry and everyone knows when it comes to fishing, it's a delicate balance between what you do on just quotas and catches and how you control and manage that, on by-catch particularly when it comes to dolphins and seals and a whole range of other marine life, on how you deal with the Great Barrier Reef. You know, let's look at the other side of the ledge. I mean, if we're going have a chop at us on this, let's have a look at the other side of the ledge where literally the LNP Government particularly in Queensland couldn't give a stuff about the Great Barrier Reef or any of our other…Well it's true
STEVE CIOBO:
I mean this is…
BERNIE RIPOLL:
You know, if you gave them free reign they'd just start drilling straight through the middle of it. Let the big ships right through the centre of it and if somebody crashes into the Great Barrier Reef it spills oil…
STEVE CIOBO:
Bernie, you sound hysterical.
BERNIE RIPOLL:
I didn't think I was.
STEVE CIOBO:
You know, you've been waffling for five minutes about how we've gotta get this right…
BERNIE RIPOLL:
Your turn to waffle, go for it.
STEVE CIOBO:
Well, I'll just make a pertinent point. You never even answered the question about the fact that the actual quota of catch will remain exactly the same.
BERNIE RIPOLL:
No, I agree with you. No no, I did answer that. Yeah, absolutely.
STEVE CIOBO:
So the quota stays the same. (inaudible) So it's now going to be caught by three, four, five trawlers instead of one. We've got great fisheries, which you yourself said, because they are managed independently based on science that's regulated and managed by the Fisheries Management Authority who have said that this is in fact is world's best practice and probably is a better environmental outcome. And instead you are just saying: ah no, well we've got GetUp! there, they're pressuring us, so you know, we've gotta make sure we look at this. Seven years you guys have been doing this. Seven years.
BERNIE RIPOLL:
And you are 100 per cent right. 100 per cent right.
STEVE CIOBO:
And to claim that there is no issue here, that this is good policy is absurd.
BERNIE RIPOLL:
No, Steve is 100 per cent right. We have managed it well. We have got pristine environments. The way that it's currently being done does work and that's why we've got pristine environments. And we're concerned that if we change that to an unknown, to a super trawler type basis - a new policy, a new area that we haven't done in the past - that we could upset that very pristine environment that Steve you so eloquently made.
STEVE AUSTIN:
This is 612 ABC Brisbane. ABC Digital. Inside Canberra this morning from our Parliament House tardis with Bernie Ripoll. Bernie is the Federal Labor Member for Oxley and Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer Wayne Swan. Steve Ciobo is the Federal Member for Moncrieff. Steve Ciobo is an LNP Member. My name is Steve Austin. It's 20 minutes past nine.
Gentleman, you would have heard a bit about the Queensland State Budget yesterday. One of the things that relates to the Federal arena is the news that the Government here in Queensland is going to take more royalties, or a greater slice of the royalties from coal mines and coal mines only but only when it gets above $100 a tonne. Let me ask you Bernie is this likely to put pressure on Wayne Swan to decrease the GST distribution to Queensland as a result?
BERNIE RIPOLL:
That's a big call to make any assumption out of what the Queensland State Budget outcome will be in terms of what they decide to do to royalties and mines. This is an argument that Campbell Newman and the LNP in Queensland need to have with the mining industry, the mining sector and the workers in those mines. This is not Federal Government policy. We will operate our policy in the way that we structured our MRRT based on super profits. The whole point was about that as mining became super profitable you would take a fairer share of those profits to return them to the Australian people who are the rightful owners of the resource. That is a very different system to a royalty which is just based on quantity. It's on tonnage. You know, for every tonne you pull out you pay a certain amount.
STEVE AUSTIN:
But Bernie, Labor abandoned the super profits plan and then went down the MRRT. This is arguably the Kevin Rudd tax in a declining market somewhat for mines it would have actually been better because it would have only taxed the profits.
BERNIE RIPOLL:
Well this is clearly Campbell Newman's policy and tax, not ours. This is an argument between Clive Palmer and Campbell Newman. An argument between the mining sector in Queensland and the State Government. This is not Federal Government policy. This is not anything that we've done. Our policy is intact. We'll continue down the path that we've taken.
STEVE AUSTIN:
It might help if I, let me just play briefly a grab from Tim Nicholls the Treasurer on this. It might put some flesh on the bone as it were.
Tim Nicholls playback: I would be extraordinarily disappointed if Wayne Swan - a Queenslander, the Federal Treasurer - decided to penalise his own State by withdrawing payments and particularly I'd be disappointed given that Queensland, like Western Australia, is the powerhouse of the nation. Our growth rate is expected to be four per cent and it's underpinning Mr Swan's very surplus.
STEVE AUSTIN:
Now, we know what happened in WA when the Premier there took a greater cut of the royalties from their resource projects. Wayne Swan responded very strongly. This does look like it will force Wayne Swan or the Federal Government to examine the GST distribution to Queensland Bernie.
BERNIE RIPOLL:
Well, again, nothing is changed and this is a matter for the Treasurer but I just don't want to sort of just flick or pass it back to him when you're asking me the question. But nothing has changed. You can sabre-rattle all you like on these issue on a whole heap of stuff and say all sorts of outrageous statements but in the end nothing has happened, nothing is changed from a Federal perspective. We haven't made any announcements or statements and I don't expect there to be any.
STEVE CIOBO:
Well I am delighted that Bernie said that Wayne Swan is simply sabre-rattling.
BERNIE RIPOLL:
Sorry Campbell Newman that was.
STEVE AUSTIN:
I think he was refereeing to Tim Nicholls.
BERNIE RIPOLL:
Yeah, sorry yeah just in case you got that right.
STEVE CIOBO:
So, therefore the threat that Wayne Swan holds over the head of reducing funding to Queensland at the very time when that's the last thing that they should be doing still holds true and I mean I simply agree with Tim Nicholls of course. That's the very worst thing that we could expect from this Federal Labor Government. But mind you they're consistently making poor decisions like that so they possibly will look at reducing funding to Queensland.
STEVE AUSTIN:
Steve Ciobo, looks like the LNP in Queensland is deliberately picking a fight with the Federal Government on this particular issue.
STEVE CIOBO:
I think that's with all due respect Steve a little cynical to say. I mean, what's actually going on here is that you have the Queensland State Government - the Campbell Government - that has inherited a massive deficit and a massive level of public debt from 20 years nearly of the former Labor Government in Queensland. They are desperately doing what they can to get the state back on track. I mean, don't forget at a Federal level, Federal Labor has put us $145 billion in debt. At a state level we're on track to reach $85 billion of public debt. So, you know, I applaud the very hard and tough decisions that Campbell and Tim Nicholls are taking because they are absolutely decisions that must be taken to keep our state on track. I mean, does anyone really think that Tim and Campbell sit around patting themselves on the back at the fact that they are able to reduce the public service and to increase taxes. I mean, nobody wants that. But unfortunately that's the medicine that needs to be taken when the music stops. And the music has stopped in Queensland because the former Labor Government destroyed the state's finances.
BERNIE RIPOLL:
Steven, when we talk about getting back on track let's just get right what that actually is in fact. Back on track means less jobs for Queenslanders, back on track means a rising unemployment rate, back on track means less productivity, less economic activity, less mining activity. The potential of major projects in Queensland just pulling out because of what the state Government is doing. If that is back on track I'd prefer to borrow a little bit to build some infrastructure, to keep the economy strong, to keep people working and in jobs. And if it's perhaps a better thing that maybe Government borrow a little bit of money for infrastructure rather than individuals do and have the debt on their head.
STEVE CIOBO:
I am not surprised Bernie that as a Labor man you're prepared to borrow a little bit. Because that's what we see from Labor. Every time you guys are in power you borrow, borrow, borrow. That's for borrowing a little bit. In a state of Queensland where it's on track to be $85 billion in debt. I mean, that is unsustainable. You are talking about a debt profile that starts to reach the proportions of gross state product equivalent to what we've seen in the European States. I mean if that's borrowing a little bit it just reinforces that the Labor Party has simply no idea when it comes to what is a sustainable level of debt fiscally.
STEVE AUSTIN:
This is…Sorry Bernie, go on.
BERNIE RIPOLL:
Look, just simply because. Look that would be the case if it were accurate but it's just not. Debt to GDP in Australia..
STEVE CIOBO:
No no. Queensland. What's GSP?
BERNIE RIPOLL:
Well, I can tell you what it is on a national level.
STEVE CIOBO:
No no, I was talking about Queensland.
BERNIE RIPOLL:
Fine, but it's not much different to what it is at a national level. At a national level we're on single digits. We're on around nine per cent tracking down - nine per cent debt to GDP. The United States I think is on 80 nearly 90 per cent (inaudible) and most of Europe is on 140 per cent. You can't just say as Campbell Newman did that you know Queensland is the next Spain. Well, it's just not the case.
STEVE CIOBO:
Let's be honest. Let's be honest about why public debt at a Federal level is so low. And it has absolutely nothing to do with your Government by the way because your Government has run the four largest deficits in Australia's recent history and bear in mind that it was the former Coalition Government that actually took the $96 billion of debt you left last time. Repaid all $96 billion and left Australia with $50 billion of assets. So you've taken it from $50 billion of assets to now being $145 billion in debt. So don't sit there crowing as if your Government has done any good work on this because you haven't.
BERNIE RIPOLL:
I am glad we at least agree that it is so low.
STEVE AUSTIN:
This is 612 ABC Brisbane. Bernie Ripoll and Steve Ciobo are my guests in Canberra. It's also a 612 ABC Brisbane.
Gentlemen, I am well aware that I tend to sort of, what's the word, throw all the questions at you and I know that we are keen to hear more of what's happening inside Canberra. Bernie Ripoll, what's actually happening inside Canberra? What's on your agenda at the moment please Bernie Ripoll?
BERNIE RIPOLL:
Thanks. Financial literacy is a really big thing. Financial literacy week, MoneySmart.gov.au. It is a first class program from Government to really deal with some of the things that came out of the GFC, particularly just peoples understanding of their own finances, their retirement incomes and what it means to them. So we've got a program from primary school through. We've got a teacher program for financial literacy right through to being able to provide calculators and tools and if you go to the website it's just a phenomenal website. 1.7 million unique hits. And the best part about this site is, it sells you nothing and it's got the credibility of Government. It's about information, it's just a very positive thing. People have been asking for this for a long time. Government is delivering it and we are doing it in cooperation with the financial services sector which has been doing this for a long time. Maybe not sort of getting the ground, the head ground that you might want but certainly now that is happening and I think it's a very positive thing.
STEVE AUSTIN:
I have to wrap it up gentlemen. Thank you very much for your time this morning. Steve Ciobo, Federal LNP Member for Moncrieff. Thank you Steve.
STEVE CIOBO:
Thanks Steve
STEVE AUSTIN:
Bernie Ripoll, Federal Labor Member for Oxley. Bernie, thanks to you as well.
BERNIE RIPOLL:
Thanks Steve
STEVE AUSTIN:
Bernie Ripoll, Federal Labor member for oxley. Bernie, thanks to you as well.
BERNIE RIPOLL:
Thanks Steve.