JIM CHALMERS MP
SHADOW TREASURER
MEMBER FOR RANKIN

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC BRISBANE DRIVE
MONDAY, 18 OCTOBER 2021

SUBJECTS: Scott Morrison waiting for George Christensen and Barnaby Joyce to write his climate and energy policy; Queenslanders don’t have to choose between Gladstone and Glasgow; Action on cleaner and cheaper energy means more jobs and opportunities for our regions; Business Council of Australia and climate change; Nationals say cost of mortgages should go up as price of inaction on climate.

STEVE AUSTIN, HOST: Jim Chalmers, I haven't heard if the vote actually got up this afternoon, but I assume you lost the vote to legislate zero emissions by 2050?

JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: That's right Steve, the Government voted against net-zero by 2050 and that's because they haven't got a little permission slip yet from George Christensen and Barnaby Joyce that says that they can do that. So we've got this unedifying spectacle of a Prime Minister and a cabinet, who say that they want to go down that path and take that policy to Glasgow, but the National Party's holding them to ransom. Not even the whole National Party, the fringe elements of it.

So that's what we saw play out in the parliament today, which is disgraceful frankly, when you think about eight years of inaction here, which has cost our economy, costs jobs and opportunities. The big employers in this country have released detailed modelling that shows if we do something meaningful here to get that cleaner and cheaper energy, that means more jobs and more opportunities in more parts of Australia, including regional Queensland. So it beggars belief really that after this long Prime Minister Morrison's still waiting for that little permission slip from George Christensen.

AUSTIN: What difference would it make if the target was legislated, as opposed to just aimed for?

CHALMERS: Obviously it gives it more rigour, it gives it more prominence, it makes it something that the nation's parliament agreed on. We've had for a decade or more now this sort of back and forth political argy-bargy about steps which other countries have made bipartisan. We want this target to be bipartisan, we want it legislated, we want it locked in. And more than that, we want the Government to take to Glasgow some meaningful interim targets. I mean the thing that gets lost in all of this, net-zero by 2050 is important but don't forget the Government's still got the interim targets - the 26% to 28% reduction targets, that Tony Abbott had - and he's the guy that said, and I'm quoting here, that climate change was “absolute crap”. Nothing has been updated in all of that time and as the BCA and others have pointed out, in that time jobs and opportunities have gone begging.

AUSTIN: At 2050 though, it's still ten years before China says they'll do the same thing.

CHALMERS: All the countries with which we compare ourselves Steve, they've taken this step and they've done more than this. Think about even countries like the UK, governed by a Conservative administration, they've been doing something about climate change, and energy, and emissions, that's been bipartisan for some time. You mentioned the Queen before, we are being left isolated in the world and isolated at home, because Scott Morrison's got this ideological view, this politically divisive view, about climate change and emissions.

AUSTIN: He doesn't necessarily. His problem is that he's in coalition with the Nationals and they're not on board. That's not ideological, that's numbers.

CHALMERS: Well it's both Steve, right? For eight years, he says that electric vehicles will end the weekend. It was ridiculous when he said it, it looks even more ridiculous now. He's the one that said that big batteries are about as useful as big prawns or big bananas. He's got a long record here, he's got a lots of form when it comes to being divisive and obstructing action on climate change and cleaner and cheaper energy. But you're right, now he's letting the fringe elements of the National Party write his climate change policy.

So he's sitting there, he's not even in the room where his climate change policy is being decided, and he's the one that's gotta front up to Glasgow in a few weeks time and pretend he believes in this stuff. No matter what the political fix is at the end of the day, I don't think people trust him on climate change because they know he can't get his head around the opportunities here in the economy, and his heart's not in it.

AUSTIN: At Question Time today he made the point that at the last federal election you guys went to the election with a 45% target and lost. He went with this target and won. Doesn't that mean he's got a mandate on his current target?

CHALMERS: By that argument then he can't shift over on targets now, which is obviously ridiculous with the weight of evidence about the economic opportunities here and the employment opportunities here. The BCA, they also had a view about our climate policies at the last election, and in the last few weeks they've released material that shows that they were wrong to have that position. I respect them for coming to a different view, because they've come to the view that the peak organisations, the states and territories of both political persuasions, the countries with which we compare ourselves, everybody seems to understand - except for elements of the Morrison Government - that if you do something about cleaner and cheaper energy you get more jobs and more opportunities. And not grabbing those opportunities, letting those opportunities go begging, means that we are selling ourselves, and our kids, and our future, short.

AUSTIN: Well the Business Council of Australia has been all over the place though, haven't they? They only shifted their position when they realised there was potential for Australia to be subject to European Union and US tariffs on our goods and products, because we hadn't agreed to a net-zero target. In other words, it's a last minute panicked shit isn't it?

CHALMERS: You'll have to ask them about their motivations, but I think it's something more meaningful and more important than that. That may have been part of it, I don't know.

AUSTIN: Do you think that Australia will be subject to tariffs on our goods if we don't agree to a net-zero target?

CHALMERS: Yeah, there's a risk there, definitely. But not just that, I mean there's a risk to the way that people see investing in Australia. The National Party say well so be it if our mortgages cost more because we can't access funds, then so be it. We have a different view to that. We want people to invest with confidence in a country that knows that it can do something in a practical and pragmatic way to get energy costs down, to get cleaner energy into the system, and create new opportunities. But the BCA, I think they should be commended for shifting over. They did a heap of work, a heap of modelling by KPMG, their credible modelling that said that we can have hundreds of billions of dollars in new economic activity and hundreds of thousands of new jobs created, with benefits flowing especially to the regions if we take meaningful action here. That's what we've been saying all along and we think it's great that they agree with us.

AUSTIN: My guest is Labor's Jim Chalmers. He's the Shadow Treasury Spokesperson and the Labor Member for Rankin on the Southside of Brisbane. Last week I spoke to you, you were very adamant that current Prime Minister Scott Morrison should attend. He's now made it clear that he would, but we've since learnt that Chinese President Xi Jinping is not going. Russian President Vladimir Putin is not going. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is not going. Japan's Prime Minister is not going. Why is it so important that Scott Morrison go and those other ones don't?

CHALMERS: Because we always have more to gain than most countries when it comes to engaging with the world. We've got a lot of ground to make up here, when it comes to getting our emissions down. The world has been critical of us failing to act, the last eight years or so of this Government. And so we've got a job to do. But my view is, people see doing the right thing by the environment, doing the right thing by the economy, as two different things – they’re the same. And people think doing the right thing in Glasgow is at odds with doing the right thing in Gladstone. I don't think we have to choose between Glasgow and Gladstone. That's the most obvious conclusion to draw from the BCA report, and other credible reports, which say we can be part of a global movement to cleaner and cheaper energy in a way that benefits our workers, and benefits our industries, and benefits our regions. We just have to be practical and pragmatic about it. I believe Australians are in that frame of mind, they deserve a Government which is too.

AUSTIN: I'll leave it there, Jim Chalmers. Thanks very much.

CHALMERS: Thanks very much, Steve.

AUSTIN: Jim Chalmers is the Shadow Treasury Spokesperson for federal Labor.

ENDS