E&OE….
Topics: Newspoll, Leadership, Great Barrier Reef, Budget
MARK PARTON:
Greg Hunt is the Federal Environment Minister and he’s probably been going over these Newspoll figures. I don’t know if he cares or he doesn’t. G’day Greg
GREG HUNT:
Good morning. How are you?
MARK PARTON:
Not bad. I said earlier that the pugilist Tony Abbott who spent some time on the canvas keeps on getting up and now the figures have turned around. He’s hung on in there.
GREG HUNT:
I think two things come out of this and the first is when things are not as good, I’m conservative with you, when they’re better. I’ll also be conservative. But the points are he’s the guy for the long-term and I remember frankly, a year ago he said if we’re going to make the savings which will help put the Budget on a sustainable course so as we’re not borrowing from and stealing from our children and our grandchildren, there will be some unpopularity, we all have to be prepared for that and the Cabinet committed to that and so he’s kept on and what’s coming out now is that we’re making real progress on the intergenerational task.
No, it’s not over, there is more to do, but we can make huge progress so as we don’t leave our children and grandchildren a massive decrease in quality of life and that’s a deeply responsible thing and people are understanding that. Secondly, I think they understand that Bill Shorten has no answers…
MARK PARTON:
Well you see I think…
GREG HUNT:
…his approach is to spend more.
MARK PARTON:
And I reckon that’s what it gets down to because I think that there is a deep dislike from many Australians for Tony Abbott. I think there’s a lot of Australians who just don’t like the bloke, for whatever reason, for the way that he goes about his business, just for a number of reasons. But I think when it comes down to it, they look across the other side and they say oh it’s that bloke, it’s Bill Shorten if we vote this mob out. That then when they have a good, cold, hard look at it they just – they’re frightened of the prospect of Bill Shorten being Prime Minister.
GREG HUNT:
Well look, I obviously respectfully disagree on the Prime Minister and what I pick up is a growing respect in terms of his resilience and his personal decency and the sense that the great task of leaving a better future for children and grandchildren is always difficult. But in terms of Bill Shorten, here’s a guy who is blocking his own savings, you know, $5 billion of his own savings that they took to their last Budget in Government and you’ve got to – it feels as if what’s he stand for?
What, apart from himself and apart from knifing other people, what does he stand for and we know that he wants to increase electricity prices, we know that he wants to increase gas prices – that’s their carbon tax proposal. Those things have to go up under their carbon tax. Maybe it’s time that they start to put out what they’re going to do on that front, as well as other things.
MARK PARTON:
Yeah, good luck, good luck with that. We were going to put aside a whole segment for policies from the Labor team but there wouldn’t be much…
GREG HUNT:
No takers?
MARK PARTON:
…there wouldn’t be much in it! It’s interesting because I still believe, as I stated, a deep dislike from many in the community for the Prime Minister, but I think a lot of it is misplaced and a lot of it’s based on the crap that gets dished out online and some things that are said that aren’t quite true.
And for argument’s sake, whenever it comes to talk of the environment, there are always those on the Left who bring out that statement about climate change being absolute crap, which goes back – it’s a historic statement that was made now and they don’t look at, for argument’s sake, what you guys are spending on Great Barrier Reef. I know that there was an announcement on this in recent days. Tell me more.
GREG HUNT:
So we went up to the Reef. The PM has made this a personal cause in the same way that I think that John Howard really owned the transformation of the Murray-Darling Basin. I know that from talking with Tony Abbott that he is absolutely passionate about improving the quality of the Reef – an area the size of Germany. We have done things which nobody had ever done before.
We’ve ended five massive proposals we inherited for dredge disposal in the Marine Park. We’ve just put in place, in the last week, the ban on capital dredge disposal in the Marine Park – something that was unthinkable and unimaginable under Labor and which we’ve done. And now he’s just committed another $100 million to cleaning up water quality in the Reef, dealing with run-off from farms by providing incentives for farmers, improving water quality.
And this is on top of an existing $2 billion between the Commonwealth and Queensland over the next decade. So it’s become a real personal cause and passion and he and I have talked about it a lot and the fact that he was willing to give his time, support the changes in our legal regime and then support the Government providing this funding is a tremendous sign of deep, strong, personal commitment on the environment.
MARK PARTON:
How much tension is there, genuinely, between Joe Hockey and Julie Bishop?
GREG HUNT:
There’s not. It’s one of these great confected games that Joe jokes about the ERC, Julie responds in the same way. It’s a little bit like boot camp. None of us enjoy going before what’s called the Expenditure Review Committee of Cabinet. It’s about making sure that we end the waste that we inherited, that we ensure that the finances for our children and grandchildren are sustainable, so as we’re not borrowing from them.
But the alternative is what we inherited which was a binge mentality rather than a fitness mentality and the country’s got to be fit and it’s such a great country that the private sector’s doing its bit, the public’s doing their bit, the problem was that the Government of Australia wasn’t doing its bit.
It was literally leaving a massive loan to be paid off in future generations and that’s not what a great generation does and we want to be a great generation and that’s what these savings are about. It’s about making sure that in the future our children and our grandchildren don’t inherit a Greek debt situation.
MARK PARTON:
Greg thanks for coming on this morning.
GREG HUNT:
Thanks mate.
(ENDS)