E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
SKY AM AGENDA
TUESDAY 19 OCTOBER, 2021
 
SUBJECTS: Coalition’s Squid Game on climate action; Labor’s climate policy
 
LAURA JAYES, HOST: Welcome back to the program, Scott Morrison is expected to push Liberals and Nationals to find an agreement on an emissions roadmap in this meeting this morning. The Nationals yet to declare if they are on board with the plan. Joining me now is Labor MP Bill Shorten. Bill Shorten. Good to see you. How do you see this anguish in the Government at the moment between the Nationals and the Liberal Party room? It's essentially over a plan that you arguably lost the last election over, that they're now on board with.
 
BILL SHORTEN, MEMBER FOR MARIBYRNONG: Well, history waits for no one, certainly not the Morrison Government. Australia is now well behind many other parts of the world on taking meaningful action on climate. Now I am watching the Liberal Party and the National Party act like an episode of contestants of the Squid Game. It's remarkable. I just wish that the Government hadn't spent so much time campaigning against sensible changes, which now they've got to try and sell the Nationals on. Anyway, you know, I just want to see action on climate, and I think the vast majority of the Australian people just want to get on with it now.
 
JAYES: But, you know, it's still not easy and it comes down to the detail. I mean, the target is perhaps the easy part, agreeing to that. But is it the detail that you can sit here and say, perhaps if you gave more detail, explain to the Australian public how they'd get there, it would have been easier? Is that the advice and the problems that we're seeing once again play out this time in a different political party?
 
SHORTEN: Well, I accept that what people want to know when you're proposing change is where do they fit in? And whilst the universe doesn't grant reruns, I would certainly emphasise the jobs aspect of taking action on climate change. You know, large companies and the world economies moving towards massive investment in renewable energy. And I don't want Australian blue-collar workers to miss out on the renewable energy jobs. I mean, the fact of the matter is that Mr Morrison, at the last election, came out against electric vehicles. Like, here's a classic example we did provide some detail. I wanted to put up national charging stations, battery stations, on our national highways, and I said that by 2030 I predicted that half of our new cars at least would be electric vehicles. Now, Joe Biden said exactly the same policy two years after we did, and that's a very detailed policy. But at the time of the last election, Mr Morrison acted like a bit of a boofhead, frankly, and just said, Oh, well, that's the end of the weekend. I mean, that's rubbish. And I think now, Mr Morrison, he’s sort of wedged himself, hasn't he? He's bleeding votes on the right to people he's told for years, you didn't need to do anything on climate. But in what I term are the Liberals teal seats, blue-green seats in the metropolitan centres of Australia, he's bleeding votes on the left.
 
JAYES: I mean, but also the Nationals and the regions are asking where their jobs are going to be coming from in the next 10, 20 years, 30 years. Isn't it fair enough, because these regional towns, they operate around an industry, the Prime Minister, from what I understand, has not provided this detail to the Nationals? What would you say? Have you, in the intervening couple of years thought about what that detail should be? What would you say to the regions? What would the plan be?
 
SHORTEN: Well, Chris Bowen and the Labor leadership will be revealing more of our policies closer to the election. But once upon a time when I was a union organiser, I used to visit a lot of regional towns. The food industry is massive in regional towns. Portland smelter’s still got a bright future. Some of the cement furnaces have got strong futures. Gladstone's got the opportunity to become the hydrogen capital of the world. The Latrobe Valley, which has been battling for years before this debate about climate change, from the privatisation of the SEC onwards by Premier Kennett in the 1990s, offshore from the Latrobe Valley as some of the best possible wind power sites for offshore wind generation. And that could power a lot of the Latrobe Valley and indeed the whole of Victoria. So, I think the priority of explaining where the jobs will come from in the future is the right detail. But I just want to say that the Government's been scaring a lot of people for a long time. And now the base of the people in the country who have been voting for the Government on the basis that they wouldn't do anything on climate change, they're confused because Mr Morrison has seemingly changed direction. But in the cities as well, I mean, this is sort of almost a Tampa matter, except for the Liberals in that both wings of their base have different views, and Mr Morrison's got to try and bring people with him. And that's not – consensus building is not always his skill, is it? I mean, just look at the National Cabinet.
 
JAYES: Well, look at Labor as well. You've got to build consensus within your own side of politics as well. It hasn't always been Kumbaya there. You know, you're competing between the centre and the left, who probably want to go a little bit further. So, what should Labor do here? Should it offer bipartisanship on this headline target and offer a different path towards getting it? I mean, there would be a temptation, surely by some to want to go just a little bit better with whatever the Prime Minister comes up with.
 
SHORTEN: Well, I would never give Mr Morrison a blank cheque, but what you would do, and Labor's said this to be fair, zero net emissions by 2050. And historically Labor's always been prepared to try and work with the Government. But the problem at the moment is the Government's one giant vacuum. We don't know what they think. And at the moment, some in the Nationals are holding the whole Government and indeed the nation to ransom. I think the sweet spot in the climate debate, and I’ve given it a lot of thought since the last election, it's explaining where the jobs come from. How does it help the cost of living? I mean, the reality is anyone who was driving on country roads last weekend will have seen the price of petrol was very high. Over time, electric vehicles will bring down the cost of petrol because it's just a lot cheaper form of driving cars. So, I think you need to explain the benefits of climate change in the context of the living room and the kitchens, of people's jobs and cost of living. And that's where I think we can build a unity in this nation, which unfortunately has been weaponised by the extremes.
 
JAYES: It certainly has. Bill Shorten, we will have to leave it there because we've got Darren Chester standing by who's got to get to a meeting. So, thanks so much for that.
 
 
ENDS