TRANSCRIPT OF THE HON. TONY ABBOTT MHR

E&OE……………………….……………………………………………………………

It’s good to be here at Gibbens Industries in West Gosford. I want to thank the Gibbens family and their staff for making me and Connie Fierravanti-Wells so welcome. This is a remarkable factory here in West Gosford. Who would have thought that this small factory in West Gosford would be making some five per cent of all the world’s aerosol springs? Now, we can do this. We can compete on global markets because we have a highly creative, highly adaptable workforce and we have intelligent entrepreneurs who are always looking for new opportunities.

Unfortunately under the Gillard Government the opportunities for this kind of innovation are getting less, not more. We have a government which is making life more difficult for struggling Australian manufacturers, with additional taxes and with additional regulations. We’ve got the Prime Minister who is addressing the Labor Party conference as we speak actually boasting about introducing a carbon tax, actually boasting about a fundamental breach of faith with the Australian people, about a fundamental assault on the competitiveness of Australian manufacturing industry, a fundamental assault on Australians’ cost of living and on Australians’ job security.

She’s at the conference at the moment. Unless the conference comes up with meaningful solutions to the problems of Australian families, the cost of living pressures that Australian families are under, unless it comes up with meaningful answers on border protection, unless it finally addresses the problems of a Labor Party which is controlled by the faceless men, it will be entirely pointless.

Then of course we’ve got the Finance Minister admitting today just a couple of days after the government reasserted its claims that there will be a surplus, the Finance Minister is admitting that it’s never going to be achieved. If there is no surplus what that means is that the national debt just goes up and up and up. Every year we fail to get a surplus just means that Commonwealth debt mounts ever higher and that means a higher interest bill, it means greater burdens on Australian families. It means higher taxes, it means higher borrowing, it means higher interest rates and all of this is bad news for the forgotten families of Australia.

I’m just going to ask Connie to say a few words about this great local business and then I’ll take some questions. 2

Thank you Tony and can I just add my thanks to the Gibbens family, to Greg, to Matthew and to Scott and to the 50 or so staff here who’ve made us very, very welcome. As Tony said, a little factory here; it’s not just the springs that they’re making. There are components made here for mattresses, for a whole range of different things and this is a fourth generation business that will, as a consequence of the introduction of the carbon tax feel the effects of that. The suppliers to Gibbens industries will certainly feel that on a day-to-day basis and I think that it’s so important on the Central Coast to have manufacturing like Gibbens Industries, and the carbon tax and the consequences that it will bring for this area will be hard felt.

Ok, any questions?

Mr Abbott, what Julia Gillard was actually boasting about what creating clean energy jobs and she was talking about ensuring our future. Don’t you see that as important for an industry like this?

You don’t ensure Australia’s economic future by loading up our businesses with unnecessary costs. As long as the carbon tax is in place, Australian industries will never be on a level playing field with their international competitors. It’s absolutely obvious that the Chinese aren’t going to have a carbon tax, the Indians aren’t going to have a carbon tax and as President Obama made crystal clear just a couple of weeks ago in this country, the Americans are never going to have a carbon tax. Now, if they’re not going to have a carbon tax why should we penalise ourselves with an unnecessary carbon tax, a bad tax based on a lie?

What about her boasting though that creating new jobs around clean energy?

Well the only jobs that she’s creating at the moment are jobs for bureaucrats in the Department of Climate Change.

On another matter, Mr Abbott, do you continue to stand by your costings for the last election given the breach of professional standards findings against two accountants that carried out those costings?

Yes I do. I’m very proud of the fact that Joe Hockey and Andrew Robb and the Coalition more generally were able to come up with $50 billion worth of serious savings. It shows that it is possible to reduce government waste, it is possible to reduce the size of government while maintaining people’s standards of living. We did it before, we can do it again.

How embarrassing is this given that they were found to be in breach of their professional standards? 3

That’s a matter between the individuals concerned and the relevant professional body.

So you’d continue this process? You’d do it again?

What we will do is make sure that all of our figures are credible, unlike the figures that the government produces which are being revised from month to month.

What do you think of Julia Gillard’s call for the ALP to be finding 8,000 new members each year?

It would help if Julia Gillard told the truth. Why would anyone want to join a party led by someone who says one thing before the election to win votes and does the opposite after the election to hold office? Why would anyone want to join a party where Senator Bob Brown is basically in charge? If you want to join a party of the left, you might as well join the Greens because the Greens are the ones who are really running things.

Have you never actually changed what you’ve said before an election to what you’ve said after an election?

What I have not done and will never do is go as a party leader to an election promising one thing to win votes and doing the opposite to hold my job. Now, this is a fundamental betrayal of the Australian electorate and of the democratic process by our prime minister and the great carbon tax lie is something that will haunt this Prime Minister to her political grave.

Will you give a conscience vote on gay marriage?

We have a clear position on that subject. We’ve had a clear position since 2004 when the Marriage Act was changed by the Coalition with the full support of the Labor Party. Now if a proposal comes up before the parliament we will deal with it in the normal way but at the moment it’s really an academic question.

You’ve talked to the workers here today. What are their main concerns about their jobs under a carbon tax? 4

I think they’re all pretty proud of the work they do. I think they’re all very pleased to be part of a dynamic Australian manufacturing business but I think they’re concerned about the fact that we live in an uncertain world. They’re very conscious of the fact that the economic climate is difficult and perhaps getting dangerous and they want to make sure that we don’t add to the difficulties and burdens of manufacturing in this country. Let’s not make a difficult situation dangerous by loading ourselves up with unnecessary new taxes. There is never a good time to introduce a bad tax but this is the worst possible time to introduce a bad tax based on a lie given the gathering international economic storm.

Why do you think that industrial disputes are at a record high at the moment?

I think that there is no doubt that the new industrial relations climate created by the Gillard Government has contributed to this. We’ve got a flexibility problem, we’ve got a productivity problem, we’ve got a militancy problem and that’s why it’s important that the Coalition address these as we will in good time before the election with a strong and effective policy that will be based on solving problems, not ideology.

So can you give any indication as to what you think needs to happen to improve that?

Well we have to solve problems and, as I said, we’ve got a flexibility problem, we’ve got a productivity problem, we’ve got a militancy problem, and these are the issues that our policy will be addressing.

The Central Coast Business Chamber itself has come out and said several small businesses here on the Central Coast will close under the tax, yet we’ve got the Members for Robertson and Dobell both supporting it. What do you think are the implications of that?

I think that the local Labor members are badly letting down their electorates. If they were listening to their electorates and not just parroting the propaganda of the Prime Minister they would be speaking out against the carbon tax. Now, I’m not asking them necessarily to risk expulsion from the Labor Party by publicly criticising the carbon tax but why aren’t they at the conference now, saying to delegates, ‘look, if we’re fair dinkum about representing the workers of Australia let’s not risk putting the workers out of jobs by pushing this carbon tax forward’.