Mark Butler, TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW WITH ABC WEEKEND BREAKFAST

Date:  06 July 2014

HOST: I’m joined now by Shadow Minister for Climate Change Mark Butler in Adelaide. Welcome to Weekend Breakfast. Can I ask you first, why does Labor continue to support a price on carbon?

SHADOW MINISTER FOR CLIMATE CHANGE MARK BUTLER: Well we were very clear with the Australian people at the last election campaign that we agreed with the abolition of the carbon tax and I think that’s broadly agreed in the Parliament. The question is what replaces it and we said to the Australian people we thought the best, the most efficient and effective way to bring down carbon pollution, was an emissions trading scheme; a scheme that puts a legal cap on carbon pollution that reduces over time and then lets business work out the cheapest and most effective way to operate. And that’s the scheme we’ll be arguing for in the Senate over the next couple of weeks.

HOST: So you support Clive Palmer’s position?

BUTLER: Well we haven’t yet seen the detail of Clive Palmer’s position. It’s clear with his press conference with Al Gore that there’s a level of support in the Palmer Party for the principle of an ETS at least, but we are the Party that will bring amendments to the Senate in the next fortnight that actually put in place an emissions trading scheme now.

HOST: The Independent Senator Nick Xenaphon argued that Palmer’s position was a real red herring in that it had this notional position of an ETS, but really it might with the main aim to have no position, no policy, on carbon pricing and therefore actually Direct Action would be a better position.

BUTLER: Well we haven’t yet seen the detail of Clive Palmer’s position. It does seem clear that his position would not see there be an ETS now or in the very near future. In that sense it’s very different to the Labor Party position, but we want to have a look at the detail before we make any pronouncements about it. We do have a clear view though that Direct Action is not the most effective way to deal with carbon pollution. It has no legal cap, or strict discipline on the amount of carbon pollution Australia produces and it just simply doles out billions of dollars of tax payers’ money to big polluters.

HOST: So would you have an ETS then with a fixed price? Would that be the key difference?

BUTLER: No, an ETS by its nature has a market price, a price determined by business who works out the most efficient and effective way to operate. We were advised by Treasury when we were in Government and put this position to the Australian people that that would see a reduction in price of about three quarters from the current carbon tax and we still think that this is the most effective way to deal with carbon pollution for Australia.

HOST: So you’re not concerned in any way that actually after this move to repeal the carbon tax, and the Government appears to have the numbers in the new Senate, that if you push too hard against Direct Action that there might actually be no policy at all in this area?

BUTLER: Well we’ll deal with that when we come to it. At the moment the position before the Labor Party and all of the other Senators for the next fortnight is to argue the case for the best replacement policy for the carbon tax and we will be arguing the position, first of all, we think is the best policy for Australia and secondly, is the policy we took to the Australian people during the election campaign.

HOST: You’ll be arguing that into nothing. I mean, do you have any support out there do you think to argue for a different type of system to take over from Direct Action?

BUTLER: Well it’s clear that Tony Abbott is pushing ahead with his Direct Action policy but what we’ve seen over the last couple of week is more and more organisations, more and more people, come out and support the idea of an ETS. We only saw over the last few days the Business Council and Australia’s Industry Group come out and support the idea of an emissions trading scheme. So now what we have is a position where the Prime Minister Tony Abbott is probably the only significant player in this debate who does not support the principle of an emissions trading scheme.

HOST: Mark Butler, is the Labor Party united behind this notion of an ETS. Is there not still part of the party that believes in the way things were before last year’s election?

BUTLER: No, I think we’re very united about this. There was a very strong discussion within the Party before the election campaign about the best policy for Labor, the best policy for the Australian community and we took the view that an ETS as quickly as possible was the best policy. It’s a scheme that operates in some of our oldest trading partners like the UK and Germany and France and many parts of North America, but importantly is a policy that is starting to roll out in our own region in places like China and in the next six months in South Korea, our third largest export partner. So there is a very, very strong, united view in Labor that an ETS is the most effective way, is the right policy for Australia and that’s the policy we’ll be arguing in the Senate over the next fortnight.

HOST: Now you speak about… I was reading back through some of your most recent comments that there is a...Australians, you know, support action on climate change in one shape or another, but how did we lose the debate? How did it go from the ‘greatest moral challenge of a generation’ to this sort of situation now where in many ways it’s sort of a political insiders’ debate? How do you want to get this debate front and centre of our political chat?

BUTLER: Well, I think you might take the view, and people might take the view, that questions about a policy response – whether we should have an emissions trading scheme or Direct Action  for example, might be an insiders’ debate I think you described it as, but I think Australians still very broadly are concerned about climate change and do want their political leaders to formulate an effective, an efficient response to it. The survey work that, for example CSIRO does, shows there is still very strong views about climate change within the Australian community, particularly as we experience the sort of weather we have over the last 15 months or so with two very brutal summers. So, I don’t think it’s a question that Australian people have lost focus on climate change, what we need to do is develop more confidence, I guess, in the community that the Australian Parliament is taking that challenge seriously. And that’s why I think we’ll be sticking with our policy, the policy we took to the election, the policy of an emissions trading scheme.

HOST: Ok. And just finally, what is the Government’s (sic) most important as it stands at the moment? Is it as you’ve described, this ETS or is it blocking or arguing against some of the key parts of the Budget that remain highly contentious?

BUTLER: Look, the medium and long term challenge of climate change is very, very significant but there’s no question I don’t think that across Australia, the things that Australian households are focused on are the cuts in the Budget. The changes to Medicare, every time you go to the doctor; the changes to pension arrangements, to family payments, the sort of fees that young Australians getting a start in life and going to university might be facing in the future, these are certainly the things that Australian community members are talking to me about and my other colleagues in the Labor Party and that’s why Bill Shorten and Tanya Plibersek have focused so squarely on this awful Budget. That doesn’t mean we won’t continue to make the case for policy challenges like climate change as well.

HOST: Ok, but at the moment it’s a distant second from what you’ve just outlined?

BUTLER: Well, Australian households are very focused on this Budget and expect the Labor Party to take the fight up to the Australian Government about that Budget.

HOST: Ok, Mark Butler, in Adelaide, thank you very much for your time.

BUTLER: Thanks Eliza.