EO&E………………………………………………………………………………..........
David Oldfield: Shadow Minister for Regional Development and Tourism, Bob Baldwin, says Australia’s top 50 polluters, as they’re being called, will bear the brunt of Ms Gillard’s new tax. Qantas is of course on that list, as is Virgin, the airlines they’ll all be caused matters of great difficulty and cost, all of which will be passed on, all of which will lead to job cuts. Bob is on the line. Bob, how are you going?
Bob Baldwin: Good morning, David. I have to forewarn you we will be going to a division very shortly.
David Oldfield: You’ve got to rush of and vote?
Bob Baldwin: It hasn’t got to that stage. What you said is absolutely true. The top 50 polluters – Qantas come in at number 22, Virgin number 42, and for tourism they carry 91% of the tourists around Australia. There was a report put out this week by the Tourism Transport Forum, it’s a fairly broad ranging report. They say they will support a carbon tax because they feel it is inevitable. But this support is subject to certain exemptions and compensatory asks. What it will lead to according to their report is that some 6,400 people in the tourism industry will lose their jobs.
David Oldfield: And let’s highlight here Bob, that this is a huge number of people, but it’s the tip of the iceberg. It’s just another example of an industry going to suffer.
Bob Baldwin: Well David what makes it even worse is that most of those jobs will be in regional and rural areas. The report on page 4 also highlights that outbound tourism is expected to grow significantly because of the carbon tax. Because there is no carbon tax in other countries it will be cheaper for Australians to go overseas for a holiday than locally. If you fly from Sydney to Port Macquarie you will pay carbon tax. If you fly from Sydney to Port Vila you won’t pay carbon tax. If you stay in a hotel in Coffs Harbour you will pay carbon tax. If you stay in a hotel in…
David Oldfield: Anywhere outside Australia
Bob Baldwin: …this is the point we are trying to make. It will make tourism more expensive. In fact, it will put about a $600 million imposition on the tourism and travel industry and that’s if petrol is out of it. If petrol in cars is included it will be $865 million in additional costs to our tourism industry. An industry that’s already doing it tough because of the high dollar because of the natural disasters that have occurred bringing this tax in at a time when our industry is still on its knees is short of political craziness.
David Oldfield: Bringing this tax in at any time - it doesn’t matter when it is ‘cause it is madness. It will do nothing to improve the environment whatsoever. We talk about whether petrol is going to be involved. If petrol’s not going to be involved it’s only going to be for the first 12 months. It will be involved it’s just a question of when.
Bob Baldwin: Well David you and I have a long history of being involved in the environment through the diving industry. It goes back what 30 years?
David Oldfield: I knew you when you were a young man.
Bob Baldwin: You were a young man too at that stage David. Be that as it may, we understand what’s important for the environment, sustainability for our environment. David, if putting up the price of electricity or putting up the price of petrol was going to save our planet then under the price increases of electricity over the past four to five years, surely that would have saved the planet three times over. What you’ve got to do, follow the lead of the man I have a great deal of respect for, Ian Kiernan, with his clean up Australia campaign. You’ve got to educate the people, you’ve got to show them that you can individually make a difference, if they do that there will be benefits. Just by putting punitive measures in place will not address the issue. I’ll give you an example. As you know I have three teenage children. Wonderful children. They understand about the environment and they will lecture me about saving the planet. But can I get them to turn off their bedroom light? Their computer? Their televisions? The bathroom heater lights in the middle of summer? The answer is no. The rhetoric doesn’t match the actions.
David Oldfield: Well said Bob. Bottom line – jobs to leave Australia, jobs to be lost by Australians. It will be bad for the economy, more cost for everyone. You have to ask who benefits and it’s not even the environment because the amount of carbon dioxide, even if you believe it’s causing the problem, we produce is so [inaudible] in the scheme of things, as was said by Mr Flannery a few weeks ago, Bob, if Australia stopped all of its emissions today we may not see any change in global temperature for 1,000 years.
Bob Baldwin: Well David you and I have been diving the barrier reef, I’ve dived it on and off for 40 years, good times come and good times go. I’ve seen the effects of the crown of thorn starfish and the devestation that provided up there. People said it would never recover. Guess what? It did. I’ve seen the coral bleeching and I’ve seen the recovery. Now things are cyclic. Climate change is real. If it wasn’t real you wouldn’t have gas, you wouldn’t have oil, you wouldn’t have coal. Whether man adds to it or not, that’s the arguable point. We should give the planet the benefit of the doubt. The way we should address it is by individual efforts, by adjusting our patterns ourselves and the way in which you do that is by education.
David Oldfield: Bob, appreciate your time.
Bob Baldwin: Thank you very much David.
