E&OE….
Topics: Recycling, climate change, Tony Abbott, election timing, Senate reform, Australian Building and Construction Commission
TOM ELLIOTT:
Greg Hunt, good afternoon.
GREG HUNT:
And good afternoon Tom.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Now first, are you surprised as I was today to find out that a cardboard coffee cup is actually not recyclable?
GREG HUNT:
Yes I am, and I can guarantee you I will launch an official ministerial investigation. I'll get a response. It sounds to me as if someone somewhere is being over-zealous.
I know the arguments about some things are slightly harder to recycle than others. But frankly, we recycle plastics, we recycle papers – I am sure that this is a case of somebody getting a little bit carried away.
But I will actually get a proper response from the Department to find out who's doing it, why, and next time we speak I'll have an answer and some very clear advice that this may be a little over-zealous.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Well that'd be great. But I mean, I'll hazard a guess – do you drink coffee Mr Hunt?
GREG HUNT:
I do.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Okay, so you know, if you finished a takeaway cup of coffee and you had a recycling bin nearby, you'd probably chuck it in that wouldn't you?
GREG HUNT:
I have, and I actually seek them out.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Ah right, well of course you do. They're probably drawn to you because you're in charge of all of them.
GREG HUNT:
Yes, there's a magnetic attraction between the two of us.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Now, a few general political questions – actually, no firstly, just on climate change.
I spoke to the leader of the Greens, Richard Di Natale, about a week ago and he has said a number of times that climate change is the major issue on which the upcoming election will be fought – the major issue. Do you agree?
GREG HUNT:
Look, I think it's an important issue but I think the single biggest issue in the next election will be about jobs, managing the economy to give people an economic future, making sure that we're balancing the budget and not blowing the future for the kids.
And all of this allows us to do a lot more on climate change. But if you blow the budget, if you don't have jobs for people, the country simply can't make the necessary investments.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Okay, now speaking of the election, now what do you really want? It seems to me the choices are this: either you put the Australian Building and Construction Commission legislation, the anti-union stuff, to the Senate, and if it's not back you have a double dissolution election and you clean out all those pesky crossbench Senators.
Or, they change their minds, they vote through and we have an election at the normal time. What do you actually want to see happen?
GREG HUNT:
Look, the preference, as I've said previously – and to be fair you have asked this in advance of the events of this week – the preference is always to get our legislation passed through the Senate in the ordinary course of events and to have an election in the ordinary course of events, as would normally be the case.
But what we have said is the Building and Construction Commission is about getting rid of thuggery and standover tactics and lawlessness in the work site.
Somebody as prestigious and lettered as Robert Gottliebsen has said it would probably save between 20 and 30 per cent of the cost of many building projects – so it is immensely important.
So we want that legislation, and if the Senate won't pass it then the very provision which the constitutional founders put in place, the deadlock provision, would come into being and we'd have a double dissolution.
TOM ELLIOTT:
But aren't you really doing that because a double dissolution election might have a bit of a clean out of the Senate, and then you could get rid of people like Glenn Lazarus and Jacqui Lambie and Ricky Muir who are proving a bit difficult? Isn't that what's really going on here?
GREG HUNT:
No, the priority, and I can tell you this absolutely, the priority is to get the legislation passed.
And there are two ways home on this: the Senate passing it – and obviously they have a lot more incentive to do that now because they have seen that the Government was capable of bringing about Senate reform, that the Prime Minister himself took the lead and championed Senate reform.
And then as a consequence of that, this issue is able to be put – of ending lawlessness and reducing the cost of building and being more productive in the cities in a way which says, well, we would like this passed through the ordinary course of events, but if you don't do it then there is a risk that the people will vote to end the rabble that sometimes occurs in the Senate, and which we saw in full force last week.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Okay, now can I ask you another question? This is a technical question about how the Senate works, but I've been asked it, Ross Stevenson on our Breakfast show has been asked it, and we really don't know the answer.
In normal Senate elections half the Senate is voted on at each election, and so the other half stays in.
So the Senators who have been in for the longest put themselves up for re-election, and then the next election it's the other mob. But in a double dissolution election the whole Senate gets voted on.
So after this election, when we have our next federal election say in, I don't know, 2019, which half of the Senate comes up for re-election? How do you decide if they've all just been re-elected at the same time in 2016?
GREG HUNT:
So what is likely to happen, and the Senate oddly enough gets to decide this themselves – there are no, to the best of my knowledge, constitutional or legislative rules, the Senate itself determines it.
But the likely outcome is that they will say which six Senators got the highest number of votes, they're the ones that run for six years, and those from seven to 12 will be the ones that will run for three years.
TOM ELLIOTT:
So the unpopular ones.
All right, now, the former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, he has come out in the last 24 hours and said that the Turnbull Government of which you are a part is largely going to be campaigning on the achievements of the Abbott Government, the previous Government, of which you were also a part.
Is that statement true?
GREG HUNT:
Look, the correct answer here is that there's both continuity and change – that there's an underlying Government and Coalition, but each leader puts a different stamp on things.
So let me give you examples from my own portfolio.
In the clean air and climate change space we have continued the Emissions Reduction Fund, the Renewable Energy Target reforms, and what's called the safeguards.
They came from the previous Government and I'm really, really proud of what we achieved with those, they're good reforms.
And then under Malcolm Turnbull, though, we've added three big, significant reforms as well in relation to ozone protection, energy efficiency and vehicle emissions, as well as creating an Office of Climate Change and Renewables Innovation – and I can say that there is more to come on renewables very shortly.
So each puts their own stamp on, and some things are continued exactly as I’ve set out, but I can in my own portfolio point to the significant additional changes, very significant, which Malcolm Turnbull has put in place.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Would you prefer it if Tony Abbott just kept quiet and stopped commenting on these sorts of things?
GREG HUNT:
Look, I certainly am not going to give somebody as senior as the former Prime Minister advice through the public processes. I respect the question, but I hope you respect the answer.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Final question. Were you surprised yesterday when the federal budget was brought forward a week?
GREG HUNT:
Look, the topic had been canvassed widely in the media…
TOM ELLIOTT:
Scott Morrison was very surprised.
GREG HUNT:
…but the Prime Minister made the decision on Sunday, late on Sunday, and then the Cabinet was informed immediately beforehand, as has been disclosed publicly, and that's when I found out about the final decision.
TOM ELLIOTT:
So Scott Morrison's surprise yesterday was genuine?
GREG HUNT:
Look, the Prime Minister called a Cabinet meeting, so we did it through a teleconference, informed us of this, and whilst the issue had been discussed publicly as to whether or not there could be a double dissolution and whether or not there could be an early budget, he took that decision and we were informed, as I should say is entirely the right process, before it was announced publicly.
TOM ELLIOTT:
So it was a captain's call?
GREG HUNT:
No, it was the Prime Minister's call in the sense that that is absolutely, fundamentally the leadership that should be shown by a Prime Minister.
And going back to the basics here, what it's saying is that at the end of the day this is about removing union thuggery, the absolutely worst thuggery from work sites, making those work sites safe and free and democratic and reducing the cost of building and construction, which flows right through the economy and right through the ability to do new projects, to remove hesitation and to create jobs. It's really fundamentally important stuff in a modern democracy.
TOM ELLIOTT:
Greg Hunt, thank you for your time.
(ENDS)