JOINT DOORSTOP INTERVIEW
WITH SENATOR CONCETTA FIERRAVANTI-WELLS,
SHADOW MINISTER FOR AGEING, SHADOW MINISTER FOR MENTAL HEALTH
SYDNEY

Subjects: Julia Gillard’s carbon tax; Murray-Darling Basin; MYEFO; more NBN waste.

E&OE……………………….……………………………………………………………

TONY ABBOTT:

It’s great to be here at Ajax Foundry. Thank you to the McKelvey family, particularly Peter who is with me right now for making Connie Fierravanti-Wells, the Senator for this part of Sydney and me so welcome. This is a dynamic Australian manufacturing business that exports all around the world, which is going to find its commercial life more difficult because of the carbon tax. This foundry has an electricity bill of about $1 million a year. The carbon tax will add $100,000 a year to this foundry's bill, just like that. That's going to make it that much harder for this foundry to compete with overseas foundries in China and Indonesia and elsewhere. Australian manufacturing can survive. It can even flourish, but it won’t flourish, it might not even survive if it keeps getting fitted up with additional burdens from the Government. It is not just businesses like this which are going to suffer because of the carbon tax, but households are going to suffer. Australian families are doing it tough right now. They don't deserve another hit on their cost of living from this toxic tax. So, I say to the Prime Minister, if you're fair dinkum about the forgotten families of Western Sydney, if you are fair dinkum about the forgotten small businesses of Western Sydney, you will drop this tax.

Now, I'm going to ask Connie to say a few words and then I’m going to ask Peter to say a few words and then there are couple of issues I want to talk about and then we'll go to some questions. So Connie, over to you and then Peter.

CONCETTA FIERRAVANTI-WELLS:

Thank you very much Tony, and, as Tony said, fitting up businesses with the additional impost of a carbon tax will not only affect businesses like Ajax, but in and around this area of Reid there are other businesses. One has to look around at the different small industries in this area that will be impacted and of course they will then be affected and their viability and their ability to compete on the international market will be affected. As Peter was telling us earlier, they have competed and competed very well internationally, but the carbon tax will be a big blow to them and for industries such as Ajax, which are not big emitters, but do use a lot of electricity they will be severely impacted and, as a consequence, the cost of their products will be impacted and therefore their viability and competitiveness will be affected.

PETER MCKELVEY:

We are a small family foundry in western Sydney that’s trying hard. We spent a lot of money in this plant over the last 15 years to make ourselves more competitive in the global market and we are basically succeeding with that. But this carbon tax will definitely hurt us. We are very passionate here. With the fathers and the cousins and that here, we are very, very passionate.

TONY ABBOTT:

Just on a couple of other subjects. Obviously, the Government is releasing the mid-year economic outlook statement. This really does amount to a crisis mini-budget from a Government which has got itself into all sorts of fiscal trouble because it can't help wasting money. Yes, there will no doubt be some spending cuts of some significance in this statement. They would not be so necessary but for the fact that this is a Government which is addicted to wasteful spending. We learn today that spending on the National Broadband Network is going to be $50 billion plus. This is something that the Coalition has been expecting and predicting for quite some time. The fact is you can't trust this Labor Government with this kind of infrastructure spending without waste and more waste. This is going to be one of the all time great white elephants and if the Government wasn't so set on this kind of spending there wouldn't be the necessity or the same necessity for the kind of spending cuts that we're going to see in the crisis mini-budget later this week.

Also, the Government is carefully choreographing the national conference next weekend. If the national conference doesn't give the Labor Party back to the people, take it out of the hands of the faceless men, well it's really just a waste of time. Kevin Rudd has belled the cat. If the national conference is just another exercise in stage management, if it is about as genuine as world championship wrestling, the people will see through this and they’ll understand that whatever the Prime Minister says, the faceless men are still in charge.

Finally, we've seen today the release of yet another Murray-Darling Basin document. This is a Government which has been sitting on its hands for four years. The Howard Government allocated almost $6 billion for water saving infrastructure; less than $300 million of that money has been spent. We wouldn't have the kind of problems that we do if this had been a government that actually got things done. But it doesn't and this latest report basically raises more questions than it answers.

QUESTION:

With regards to the Murray-Darling, the chairman of the Authority says that those parts could be reduced over time, possibly hundreds of gigalitres a year. Does that give you any reassurance?

TONY ABBOTT:

The problem is that there is no certainty in this report. Basically what this report shows is that for many, many years to come there will be this pall of uncertainty hanging over the Murray-Darling Basin. That means that businesses won’t know what water supplies they’ll have. Farmers won’t know what their future allocations will be. With this kind of uncertainty we have little investment; we have little reassurance for the residents. This is just more bad news from a Government which has shown no real commitment to regional Australia.

QUESTION:

What’s the alternative?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, the alternative was the plan that the Howard Government put in place. The plan that, as I said a moment ago, allocated $6 billion almost for water saving infrastructure, allocated over $3 billion for strategic, intelligent buybacks that didn’t leave irrigators in the lurch – that’s what should have been done and this Government has comprehensively mishandled the whole Murray-Darling situation.

QUESTION:

What do you think about the Prime Minister’s proposal to offer parents incentives to keep children in school until year 12?

TONY ABBOTT:

They’ve got to be the right incentives to the right young people and you’ve got to worry with this Government that everything they touch seems to turn bad. They’ve got the Midas touch in reverse. They’ve proved it time and time again and I just fear that this latest measure will go the way of all of Labor’s other measures – not a bad idea in principle, but terribly badly executed in practice.

QUESTION:

Can you clarify what you mean by the right kids?

TONY ABBOTT:

Well, it’s important that some kids stay at school and go onto university. It’s also important that other kids get a good technical education.

QUESTION:

I think… Does the programme offer that in regards to offering things like TAFE and VET courses and money to stay there and learn hospitality and mechanics and word work?

TONY ABBOTT:

That’s assuming that all schools have got the capacity to run school based apprenticeships and I’d be very far from confident, particularly under this Government, that that’s the case.

QUESTION:

Wayne Swan says he is still determined to produce a surplus next year. Given that the figures that we saw today are saying $7 billion from the European financial crisis has been ripped from government revenue, is it possible?

TONY ABBOTT:

This is a Government which is always blaming someone else. It’s not Europe’s fault that Wayne Swan has a problem. It’s his fault and Julia Gillard’s fault because they haven’t been able to rein in the waste. If the Government wasn’t spending so much on things like the National Broadband Network, we wouldn’t be in this predicament but it’s typical of this Government that they should be blaming someone else for their own mistakes.

QUESTION:

Oh just one more question Tony, when will we see the Coalition’s idea for budget cuts?

TONY ABBOTT:

In good time before the next election you’ll have a comprehensive fiscal statement. It will outline all of our savings, all of our spending and you’ll have it in good time before the next election.

Thank you.