Senator Fiona Nash

Sky News Lunchtime Agenda

15/03/2011

Presenter: Ashliegh Gillon

Senator Fiona Nash & Deborah O’Neill

[E&OE]

[12:46]

Ashliegh Gillon: To our panel of politicians, joining me this afternoon from Canberra Nationals Senator Fiona Nash and here with me the Labor MP Deb O’Neill. Good afternoon to both of you. Let’s look at how the earthquake has been handled by the Australian Government; we saw Kevin Rudd criticised on the weekend for demanding an urgent on the nuclear situation in Japan; some people thought it was a bit insensitive to do that so quickly, with such an urgency. How do you think Kevin Rudd is going in this new role considering the no-fly zone issue we heard a lot about last week. Is he going rogue or is that not the case?

Deborah O’Neill: Look, I think the Labor party is blessed with talent in the front bench and I thin Kevin Rudd is a great asset, not only to our party but to our country, and in terms of his role as foreign minister I think he is doing an outstanding job. I’m sure that history will look back and see he has made, he is currently making and will continue to make an outstanding contribution to our place on the international stage. To take particularly a look at what is happening in Japan it is absolutely overwhelming the pictures we are seeing and our compassion for our fellow human beings in Japan. I live in a seat that is bordered by the water and to see the power of those waves, we all feel so much for the Japanese people, their families searching for they have loved and I’m sure that the foreign minister, Kevin Rudd, would have had exactly the same reaction as any other Australian, but in the role that he has, he has a particular responsibility to make sure that Australians who are there are safe, those who are already there, and also we have sent seventy-two fine Australians from new South Wales in fact over there to assist and I don’t think they have got much of a break from New Zealand, but having the capacity to send seventy-two people to that sort of a region means we are doing the right thing and of course they wont be able to help if we don’t look after them so I think it was well within the right, within the role, for the Foreign Minister to make sure we have reassurances about the safety of the place we are sending Australians too.

Ashliegh Gillon: Fiona Nash would you scribble over that, so many Australians in Japan, was Kevin Rudd right to request that information so urgently over the weekend, isn’t that what any Coalition foreign minister would do as well?

Fiona Nash: Well he certainly believed that that was the right course of action, there is a little inconsistency, I guess, showing up between the foreign minister and the Prime Minister but the focus absolutely has to be the safety of Australians in Japan and doing what we can to make sure we can assist.

Ashliegh Gillon: Deb, in recent time we have heard people like Bob Hawke, Anna Bligh, Martin Ferguson, raising the proposition that Australia look at Nuclear energy, in fact they wanted it raised at the next labor party conference in December, do you think will go ahead any more or is this just cancelled out any appetite there might have been in the labor party to look at this and to get this as an issue back on the agenda

Deborah O’Neill: I think the prime minister on Q&A last night made it very clear what our current position currently is and I cannot see that changing any time in the near future and while we do need to be open minded a bit conversations we have I think this incident that has happened in Japan reminds us that this is not a simple technology and there are consequences when it fails and issues such as this tragedy unfold and lets face it, Australia has incredible opportunities for renewable energies particularly geothermal which we really only beginning to just tap into the potential of that I think that obviously energy is an important conversation we need to have.

Ashliegh Gillon: Fiona Nash, What do you make of this Tony Abbott says the coalition has no policy to promote the use of Nuclear power in Australia, we have though seen that Julia Bishop has contradicted hiu saying it should be considered here, has your view on this changed at all in recent days watching this drama unfold in Japan?

Fiona Nash: Well I don’t know if Julie Bishop is actually contradicted Tony Abbott, he is right in saying that we don’t have a policy to promote Nuclear energy, but even notwithstanding the current tragedy in Japan, I think it is important that we do consider the possibility of nuclear energy into the future, now when I say consider I mean have a debate and have a discussion around it. We have something like 442 nuclear power plants around the world, with another 65 under construction; I just think it’s quite irresponsible to sit the debate to one side. And we do need to consider it and we need to thoughtfully and sensibly have a debate about whether or not it is a possibility for an energy source into the future.

Ashliegh Gillon: Okay well the other big issue of course; dominating domestic politics is the carbon tax. Last night Julia Gillard used pretty frank language she acknowledged she had backed away from her pledge not to introduce a carbon tax, we saw the Neilson poll, Deb that showed today that 1 in 3 voters support the governments plan for a carbon tax. 35% of those back the plan over 50% oppose it. Are you worried that Labor might be struggling to sell this plan effectively? We are just seeing a rehash of the debate in 2008 over the ETS which was criticised in terms of the way Kevin Rudd sold that plan

Deborah O’Neill: I think again the prime minister made very clear yesterday that she committed to moving ahead with making sure we end up with a clean energy economy. Leadership has great responsibility with it and measured debate moving it forward and engaging the Australian people on the journey is something that the Prime Minister is committed to and I certainly support her in that.

Ashliegh Gillon: It’s not working yet is it? You’re not winning debate at the moment

Deborah O’Neill: Well we need to make sure we bring everybody along with using this. Obviously the climate committee are actually speaking with key stakeholders in the community, scientists, and the industry to make sure that all the best information is gathered together, and we don’t need to rush this, we need to take it carefully and deliberately. There is a date, 1^st July 2012 to which we are steadily moving and I think this hastening the debate is just another attempt to increase fear in the community and I don’t know, the prime minister won’t go there. This is too important an issue to allow fear and alarm to interrupt careful, considered conversation as we move towards making sure we get the polluters to pay, the polluters have to pay, and we cannot continue to have the pollution to go into our atmosphere and impact on the future of our Kids.

Ashliegh Gillon: Fiona Nash, we heard Nick Minchin’s views last week on the nation, the world, he thinks, is cooling not warming. Yesterday, Tony Abbott had this to say about climate change, have a listen.

Ashliegh Gillon: Fiona Nash, do you agree that the jury is still out on the science behind climate change?

Fiona Nash: Well I think everybody realises that there are different scientific views when it comes to global warming. What the coalition has been united about is making sure that we have the clean sustainable environment into the future and that why we have the direct action plan with incentives to make sure that we have the clean environment into the future., It is interesting, Deb just mentioned the clean Energy economy the government keeps talking about moving towards which is a little hypocritical given they are about to impose an excise on LPG, but people out in the community are seeing very clearly what the government is putting forward with this carbon tax, they know that it is going to increase their electricity prices, around $300 a year, they know it is going to increase the price of fuel from at least around 6 ½ cents a litre but what they do recognise is that this whacking great tax that is going to be imposed on the Australian tax when we emit only 1.4% of the worlds emissions and the rest of the world isn’t doing anything, it isn’t going to make the slightest bit of difference to the climate, that’s what they’re so very concerned about, having to bare this huge tax that the prime minister promised she would give them and then still have absolutely no change in the climate.

Ashliegh Gillon: Of course, we don’t actually know what the carbon price is, we don’t know the compensation packages yet, so it’s very difficult to know exactly what the price impact will be on Australian families. Deb O’Neill, I’m sure you would like to expand on that point, but we are out of time

Deborah O’Neill: Absolutely, we have had a lot of misinformation there and that’s part of the problem I’m afraid.

Ashliegh Gillon: Look, I’m sure we’ll have this debate again on this program; it is of course it is the issue dominating politics at the moment. Deb O’Neill, Fiona Nash Thankyou both for your insights this afternoon.

[ENDS]