TRANSCRIPT
EO&E………………………………………………………………………………..........
Ray Hadley: Workers in the tourism industry will lose their jobs because of the carbon dioxide tax.
(Interview disrupted because of Parliamentary Division)
Ray Hadley: As I said the Federal Shadow Regional Development and Tourism Minister, Bob Baldwin, had to go to a division in the House, I think he’s back, it’s over, he’s back. Hey listen, Bob, in light of what happened yesterday it’s very important that you go.
Bob Baldwin: Well yesterday the Government just simply lost control of the House. It’s up to the Government to deliver the support and the numbers to the Speaker and they failed. They failed because the Prime Minister would not answer questions being put to her.
Ray Hadley: Are you offended by Rob Oakshott supporting you?
Bob Baldwin: Rob is my neighbour to the north. He and I have very different opinions on a lot of things and Rob makes his own decisions.
Ray Hadley: What were you doing to cause that warning?
Bob Baldwin: What happened was, one of the questions that had been put to the Prime Minister by Warren Truss, he pointed out, with quotes from the premiers, and the Northern Territory Chief Minister, that they did not support the introduction of a carbon tax or they had fears of it. The question was to the Prime Minister, please tell us one Labor premier that supports your introduction of the carbon tax. She went on with comments about anyone else and the House was starting to demand that she just name one. The Speaker then warned everyone, it was a general warning, not just to the Opposition but to the Government as well. She went back on again naming everyone else and I said, just name one premier. The Speaker thought that was unruly and he named me and the Government, by convention, got up and moved a motion. And amazingly, they lost the motion. Everyone seems to think it’s the Speaker, it’s actually the Government that lost, the vote on the floor.
Ray Hadley: But it embarrassed the Speaker, yeah?
Bob Baldwin: Look, Harry’s a good bloke. I think he’s actually doing a fair and reasonable job.
Ray Hadley: I think you’re right.
Bob Baldwin: Remember, after the election period, it was the Coalition that were pushing to put Harry back in as Speaker, not the Labor Government.
Ray Hadley: Alright, now back to the reason we wanted to talk to you.
Bob Baldwin: Tourism!
Ray Hadley: Tourism, now, when you were unavailable, because you had to go into that other business, [I said] Qantas is number 22 when it comes to the top 50 polluters, Virgin Australia is 42…
Bob Baldwin: And they carry 91 per cent of the tourists around Australia
Ray Hadley: …and then I read all the others in the list. At the moment, it’s affordable in most cases for people to have these holidays internally because they have a pricing structure that invites more people to participate in air travel, than could previously.
Bob Baldwin: That’s partly true Ray. The biggest problem we have at the moment is with our dollar being so high, and you’ve seen all the ads to go to Fiji, to go to Bali, all these overseas destinations, it’s going to have an impact on our tourism industry. Now, on page four of this report by the Tourism & Transport Forum, it says what this will do it will drive outbound tourism at the expense of domestic tourism. What we’re going to see as the outcome of this tax is more people going offshore, not just because of our dollar, but because they’ll be paying taxes in Australia on tourism that they won’t be paying. In other words, to travel from Sydney to Port Macquarie, one of your favourite places…
Ray Hadley: Yes
Bob Baldwin: …you will pay the carbon tax. To fly from Sydney to Port Vila you won’t.
Ray Hadley: Is that right?
Bob Baldwin: That’s right. International aviation is going to be exempt. One of the other misleading facts the Prime Minister puts out there is that we are climate change deniers. Remember, the Coalition’s position on achieving the outcome is exactly the same as what Labor has put forward. We just believe there are different ways of achieving it. Ian Kiernan, a bloke I have a lot of time for, who started the Clean Up Australia campaign – why did that work? Because he educated people and he took them on the journey with him. He encouraged people to get involved and there was no tax.
Ray Hadley: Well, let me give you an example on a smaller scale. When I was a kid I lived in the western suburbs of Sydney.
Bob Baldwin: So did I. I’m a Bankstown boy.
Ray Hadley: Well I lived at Dundas. You know where I’m talking about. I had cousins that lived at Primrose Avenue in Rydalmere on the banks of the Parramatta River. You couldn’t get within 100 metres of the Parramatta River for the stench.
Bob Baldwin: That’s correct.
Ray Hadley: Dead birds on the foreshore.
Bob Baldwin: It was the same in the Georges River.
Ray Hadley: No hope of fishing. So anyway, things changed. We decided we could improve the way we dealt with our water courses. Now, if you go over the Silverwater Bridge, I’m not encouraging people go swimming there because there is mangroves and the like, but because of changes that were made it’s a different proposition on that land. It’s recovered. The foreshore has recovered. We knew we were doing the wrong thing and now we’re doing the right thing. That industry along the banks there, up around Clyde and other areas, they don’t pump the sort of effluent into the water they used to. To the extent you can now go fishing in that area. Yes it cost some money, but it wasn’t an impost on the entire community.
Bob Baldwin: The biggest change, Ray, is going to be educating people so that you can make a difference. I’ve said it in the Parliament and I say it in the community - I’ve got teenage children the same as you, they will lecture me all day long about saving the planet and carbon tax, but like most kids will they turn off the computers? Will they turn off the TV? Will they turn off the bedroom lights? Will they turn off the bathroom heater lamp?
Ray Hadley: No.
Bob Baldwin: No. So what’s happening is the rhetoric doesn’t match the action. What we need to do is get the rubber hitting the road to educate individual people so that they can make a difference. We can reduce our consumption, we can change our habits. Now one of the easy things, and I just heard you talking about the Smeg dishwashers, great product, is energy efficiency. If products were mandated to have a certain level of energy efficiency that would start to address part of the problem. Those who can least afford it usually buy what’s most affordable in appliances. The cheaper appliances are usually the most energy deficient. So what’s happening here is you’re going to have a situation, it doesn’t matter if it’s former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd or Prime Minister Gillard, where all of these sectors are going to be exempt or compensated, that will only leave a small sector paying for it. And they’re going to pay massively. If putting up the price of electricity was going to save the planet, I’m sure it’d been saved three times over with the price increases in electricity in New South Wales over the last four or five years. Where I’m concerned, going back to tourism…
Ray Hadley: Where we started.
Bob Baldwin: …one of the greatest hits to this is going to be in regional Australia. They will be the most impacted by this tax on the tourism industry. Why? You’ve either got to drive in there or you’ve got to fly in there. The cost of electricity is generally more expensive, therefore there will be more impact. They will pay tax if they drive to Port Macquarie from Sydney but they won’t pay it if they fly to Port Vila.
Ray Hadley: Just let me play you this before you go, my colleague, Ross Greenwood, on 2GB last night, played this, the Governor of New Jersey, a fellow called Chris Christie, in relation to a thing, he calls it ReGGI, it’s called Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. It’s a cap and trade scheme supposedly designed to fight global warming. Have a listen to what he said to Ross Greenwood.
(Governor Christie Grabs)
It does nothing more than increase electricity charges, increase charges to citizens, taxing businesses and there is no discernable or measurable difference or impact on the environment.
Bob Baldwin: I couldn’t say it better myself. If the Prime Minister genuinely wanted to make a difference, we don’t have to wait for a new tax to come in. What we’ve got to do is educate individuals that they can make a difference by reducing their energy consumption by changing their habits. You don’t need a tax to do that Ray.
Ray Hadley: Let me know how you go getting the kids to turn those lights off, I’d love to know.
Bob Baldwin: If I do we’ll make a drink out of it.
