E&OE….
Topics: Iraq, Home Insulation Programme compensation, Renewable Energy Target
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
And joining us in our Sydney studio from what looked to be a rather energetic question time on TV, is Greg Hunt.
He is the Environment Minister, a member of Tony Abbott’s frontbench, of course. Greg Hunt, good afternoon.
GREG HUNT:
And good afternoon, Raf and Mark, but I have to say I think we are in Canberra at this moment.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
I’m sorry. You – I don’t really manage to keep track of the things that are coming out of my mouth. Mark Dreyfus, though, I can say that without stuttering, and I can also say he’s the Shadow Attorney-General, part of Bill Shorten’s team.
Mark, good afternoon.
MARK DREYFUS:
Thanks for having me, Raf. Afternoon, Greg.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
Look, I want to get onto inquiries into other Governments and the results of previous inquiries into things like the Pink Batts.
But a little bit of breaking news this afternoon with the Prime Minister saying that our refuelling planes – I think there’s two of them involved – are already involved in operations in the skies above Iraq.
Greg Hunt, if I can start with you, this really is the beginning of Australia’s direct involvement in the military effort, isn’t it?
GREG HUNT:
Look, it is what it is, and there is a refuelling program which has begun. We have not engaged in combat. The Prime Minister made that announcement today, and I can say that the Cabinet has not made a consideration or any final decision in relation to …
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
But they’re not going to not get their …
GREG HUNT:
… formal combat and formal airstrikes.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
They wouldn’t not get their service medal, would they? I mean, refuelling’s a crucial part of air operations, isn’t it? Just because you’re not flinging bombs down, you don’t tell that air crew they’re not an important part of the effort. I just wonder why the linguistic distinctions…
GREG HUNT:
No, no, no. I’m not in any way downplaying the risks, the importance of what these air crew are involved in is very, very significant. At the moment, we have a Wedgetail Early Warning and Control aircraft and a KC-30 refueller that are engaged in support operations. Future decisions will be considered in the coming days. But let’s…
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
Why so coy, Greg? I can’t – I can’t imagine the Cabinet or the Prime Minister saying, “Hmm, actually, we sent them there, but we’re not going to deploy them”.
GREG HUNT:
Look, I think it’s just very important to be precise with the Australian people, and also – obviously, obviously our forces are there as part of an international coalition, but each decision will be taken step by step.
And we are in the best traditions of the Parliament, consulting with the Opposition as we go, and, to be fair to them, they have been very constructive and supportive on this issue, because the big thing at stake here is not just Australian security, which is paramount, but also genocide, whether it’s of Shia, fellow Sunni, Yazidis or Christians. There is a – just a brutal attack, which is leading to the sort of tragic …
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
Okay.
GREG HUNT:
… treatment of children and women and general civilians. So this is a moment in history where we say not just as the west, but as people from all around the world, there’s genocide, there is sexual slavery.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
Look, I do want to get onto Mark Dreyfus …
GREG HUNT:
We can’t sit on the sidelines.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
… in a moment, but you have brought up the reasons for being involved. I think nearly 200,000 people have been killed in Syria, and that hasn’t raised any need for military action by Australia.
That’s a lot of people in a very short time, far worse than the sort of killing in something like the civil wars in the Balkans. Why was military intervention not needed there?
GREG HUNT:
Well, there was an enormous debate at the time, and the question was always whether we make the situation better or worse. In that situation, the judgment was we could only worsen it, and I would understand if people said and come to the conclusion there should have been earlier intervention, but I would certainly say that the case for intervention against a genocidal, brutal group, which is just extraordinary, is well made, and I think the…
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
The Assad regime have been fairly…
GREG HUNT:
…I think that this is a case for action.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
Look, I might pick up that in a moment. I do want to bring Mark Dreyfus into the conversation, our Shadow Attorney-General. Mark Dreyfus, I suppose the speculation is – and the Government’s been very careful about saying that we don’t have a military role in Syria.
Is that where the Government and the Opposition might part ways if there is some sort of military – Australian military involvement in Syria?
MARK DREYFUS:
We’ve taken this one step at a time, Raf. We’ve said that there need to be principles that underpin what our Government is doing and the deployment of forces and there need to be clear objectives, and so far we have supported the essentially humanitarian mission that’s been undertaken, which has included food drops.
It has included arming the Peshmergas, the Kurdish forces, and we’ve supported the deployment, the pre-deployment, of an Australian military force to the United Arab Emirates. Today, the Prime Minister announced that two of the planes, the supply – the refuelling plane and the Wedgetail, the radar aircraft are to be deployed in support roles, but as yet, we’ve heard nothing further about the deployment of the fighter aircraft, and in relation to Syria, there’s been devastation in Syria over the last three years.
Almost half of the Syrian population has been displaced, and what we’re calling on the Government to do is to increase urgently Australia’s aid contribution to the humanitarian relief effort in relation to Syrians, including refugees from Syria who are now in Jordan and in Lebanon and in Iraq. We don’t support Australian military involvement in Syria…
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
You think you – there…
MARK DREYFUS:
… because we haven’t …
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
Aren’t we going to have the same problem we had? I think there are significantly problems still – Pakistan’s almost falling over. One of the reasons that state is in such a precarious position is the West went into Afghanistan and there was not a full engagement with Pakistan, so the enemy just hopped over a border that they completely ignored.
How do we know we’re not going to face the same problem? If Labor’s supporting a military intervention in Iraq, it’s logical to support one next door, isn’t it?
MARK DREYFUS:
I don’t think it necessarily follows. We have not…
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
But that’s their base.
MARK DREYFUS:
We have not yet seen clear evidence that an Australian military involvement would successfully provide relief to the humanitarian crisis that’s occurring in both countries, and that’s why we’ve said we need to increase our aid contribution.
It’s for the Government to explain what principles are being brought to bear and what objectives are to be served. We – I think everybody in Australia knows what a disaster committing Australian forces in 2003 to Iraq was, and that’s because we went in without principles and without a clear statement of objectives, and the objectives, such as they were, continued to shift, which is why we’ve got this fear of mission creep. That’s the term that’s often used.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
So you’re confident …
MARK DREYFUS:
I don’t think anyone thinks that the commitment of Australian forces in 2003 to Iraq, which was based on a lie, has produced good outcomes for the people of Iraq, and that’s what we need to happen…
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
But how do you know it’s going to be different this time? You’re confident – I mean, the Iraqi Army don’t have a defence minister. They don’t have an interior minister. Ninety thousand soldiers are estimated to have left that army.
That doesn’t sound like the ideal government to lead the land forces that Australia will need if our air strikes are to be effective. You’re confident that the stuff on the ground’s going to back up what we do in the air?
MARK DREYFUS:
Well, that’s why we’ve said we don’t support the deployment of Australian ground combat units to engage directly in fighting ISIL, that our operations should be confined to Iraq and that…
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
I’m asking about your confidence in Iraq’s army.
MARK DREYFUS:
And we are supporting the government of Iraq, but the involvement should continue only until the government’s in a position to take full responsibility for the security of their people, and I’d go further and say, as Tanya Plibersek and Bill Shorten have outlined, we’ve got a fourth principle which is that if the Iraqi government and its forces engage in unacceptable conduct or adopt unacceptable policies, Australia should withdraw its support straight away.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
Okay. Look, I do want to get on to something that is very pertinent to Greg Hunt’s portfolio, and I know the Minister wants to speak about the significant compensation that will come to people who lost family in the Pink Batts Inquiry, but I wanted to broaden this a little bit. The Senate is now going to examine the actions of the current Newman Government in Queensland.
And if I can start with you, Greg Hunt, aren’t we going to end up just gluing up the gears of Government? We’re going to have the Senate investigating Prime Ministers and Governments, and didn’t you start this trend with the Pink Batts Inquiry and the inquiry looking into Julia Gillard’s past?
GREG HUNT:
Well, the first thing there is that these things should be done very sparingly. In the case of what the ALP and the Greens and the crossbench supported in the Senate last night, that seems like it’s got no trigger. It’s got no basis. It’s just political vengeance, and why the ALP would support something like that is beyond me.
The Greens initially supported a motion which would inquire into both the Newman and the Bligh Governments. The ALP said yes to the Newman but not to the Bligh Government – a little bit strange. Then the Greens have changed their position and focused just on the Newman Government, so it’s without a basic trigger or formal failing or something catastrophic, and as a principle, the Federal Government and the Federal Parliament doing that about the State seems very odd.
In terms of the Home Insulation Programme, this was just a national catastrophe with four tragedies, four terrible tragedies, and having dealt with so many of the families for so long, they were the ones who were seeking, yearning for, asking for the additional questions and the small businesses.
As the lawyers for the small businesses said to me, they are so thankful that this occurred, because their story, for the first time, was properly told, because none of the inquiries properly dealt with the case of the small businesses. Human suffering, not obviously on the scale of the families that lost their loved ones, but people who were driven to emotional despair, who lost their businesses, in some cases, lost their homes, all on the basis of a promise from a previous Government, maladministration, catastrophic failure and a programme which everybody recognised as collapsed and…
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
How much…
GREG HUNT:
Which now needs redress.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
How much do you think the Government might be paying out?
GREG HUNT:
As you can imagine, I’m not going to speculate on that. I…
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
Even scale? You know, a couple of million? Hundreds of millions?
GREG HUNT:
I am responsible for the discussions with the families, and it’s a very difficult thing to talk about how we assign a value to a loss such as this, and then there’s a very economic consideration to be done in relation to the small businesses.
So we have committed to compensation both for the families and for the adversely affected pre-existing small businesses. I wish we were never in a position that we’d have to face this, but it’s the right thing to correct a previous wrong.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
Mark Dreyfus, is it just rank political opportunism to support a senate inquiry into the current Queensland Coalition Government.
MARK DREYFUS:
The Senate’s a house of review and, in fact, this is an inquiry proposed by Senator Lazarus which is going to look at how the Newman Government’s expended Commonwealth funding and other matters related to Commonwealth responsibilities and I’d remind Greg that in the 2007 election year Liberal National Party Senators established an inquiry into the then Labor Queensland Government and the Traveston Dam.
They didn’t seem then to be concerned that they were looking at matters which were the responsibility of a State Parliament. I think the Senate’s a house of review and if Senators want to conduct inquiries, then if resources are available, Labor won’t oppose them. I’ve got somewhat more concerns about the way in which the Home Insulation Programme Royal Commission was both set up and conducted, but, of course, our thoughts, as always, are with the families of the four young men who died.
And I’ve met those families and discussed it with them on more than one occasion and I hope they feel that there’s been some solace to them in the conduct of this Royal Commission, but we’ve got here something that I think has been – and I’ve said this from the start – a missed opportunity in terms of lasting improvements to workplace safety, avoiding workplace deaths across the country.
Almost 200 people died in their workplaces in Australia last year and if there’s some improvements to workplace safety across the country as a result of this inquiry, it’s a good thing. The initial response from the Prime Minister yesterday was, in fact, setting up a whole lot more inquiries that Minister’s…
GREG HUNT:
No. That’s not correct.
MARK DREYFUS:
… including Greg are going to be carrying out. There was no outcome announced. There was just a naming of a number of Ministers who are going to be now conducting some further inquiries. We still have to wait to see what the final outcome is going to be.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
Okay. A quick response on that, Greg Hunt, if I can. I do need to get to the traffic, but quickly.
GREG HUNT:
Sure. What we’ve been tasked to do – and, in particular, I have responsibility for – is implementing actions in terms of occupational health and safety, working with the States on workplace safety across Australia so that broadening out is exactly what’s occurring.
Secondly, ensuring that we have committed to compensation. It’s a very specific outcome, very rare for a Federal Government and very precise for the families and businesses. And, thirdly, improvements in Government processes to make sure that this doesn’t happen again. We’re moving straight to the action phase.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
We’ll get onto a bit of climate change in a moment. First we want to get a quick traffic update with Chris Miller.
Intermission
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
Just the top two texts on my screen – ‘Hunt’s hypocrisy and crocodile tears highlight the political opportunism of the Federal Government’ and ‘Ask Mark Dreyfus why Bill Shorten timidly follows the Government line on Iraq and terrorist laws’. I will not I’m afraid. I’m going to throw them both a values question.
I want to play a little bit of President Barack Obama speaking last week. You can really interpret this comment saying that climate change trumps all other issues. More important than terrorism, the Ebola, everything else. Have a little listen.
Audio grab
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
So President Barack Obama says climate change will define our lives, I guess, far more than terrorism or any other issue. Greg Hunt, is he right?
GREG HUNT:
Look, I think it’s a significant and a fundamental issue. I’m not going to try to rank Ebola versus climate change versus terrorism and mass human rights abuse. They are all tier one, fundamental international issues…
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
Government’s kind of have to do that though, don’t they?
GREG HUNT:
And we have a duty to deal with all of them.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
Don’t you have a duty – I know they’re hard and, you know, it’s all about better versus best. You do actually have to choose priorities though, don’t you? Between something that’s incredibly important and something that’s even more important?
GREG HUNT:
No, this is a false choice and in this situation you can and you should and you must deal with all of them. The idea of saying well we can’t deal with Ebola or we can’t deal with terrorism or we can’t deal with mass human rights abuse because we have to do something else just isn’t right. We can and we must and we should deal with all of them.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
Mark Dreyfus, do you think climate change is the most important issue?
MARK DREYFUS:
I think it is much more important than any of the issues that we are now facing. I think that by the end of this century ISIL will be a distant memory, but my children’s children and Greg’s children’s children and all of the people alive on this planet in 2100 will be facing, very starkly, what are effects of climate change which regrettably the world has already irrevocably committed to even if we were to cut emissions to zero tomorrow and it is, as President Obama said, an absolutely pressing problem.
Regrettably, we’ve got a Government in this country that has no commitment to dealing with the problem and people will look back in years to come and feel shame at the actions of the Abbott Government, just as people in Canada will feel shame at the actions of the Harper Government and all of those other Government’s around the world that are not doing anything like enough. I want to get Australia back to a path of taking action on climate change, working with the rest of the world, because as was made clear last week in New York, many, many countries of the world do take this seriously.
Regrettably, we’ve got a Government which is not taking the problem seriously. We’re presently in the situation where we have no plan to deal with climate change, other than what’s – the Renewable Energy Target, which of course is under attack from this Government.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
Let me ask a quick question on that. Greg Hunt, I’m sure you will want to what Mark Dreyfus said, but do you think you’ll get agreement between yourself and the ALP on the Renewable Energy Target?
GREG HUNT:
Look, I am very hopeful. We have had preliminary discussions today with the ALP. Mark may not have been informed of that, given his previous comments. But it’s been publicised that the Shadow Treasurer, Chris Bowen, Mark Butler, my opposite, and Gary Gray would be meeting with myself and Ian MacFarlane and a representative from the Treasurer.
It’s only preliminary discussions, good faith, a recognition that we’d like to work together – I won’t try to rehearse the details, but there is a sense here of a desire to work in a common way to ensure that there’s a long-term bipartisan outcome on the Renewable Energy Target.
I would give due credit to the ALP today for recognising that there’s a basis for discussion, for coming together and for taking initial steps without either of us having …
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
Okay.
GREG HUNT:
… put down formal positions.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
Mark Dreyfus, just briefly, do you think you could end up agreeing with the Government on the RET – the Renewable Energy Target.
MARK DREYFUS:
It’s desperately urgent that we re-establish a bipartisan position on the RET. We had a bipartisan position on the RET dating from the Howard government early – in fact, 2001 under the Howard Government.
And it’s – the Renewable Energy Target has created thousands of jobs, driven billions of dollars in investment. It’s been under attack by the Abbott Government, regrettably, since the election.
GREG HUNT:
Well this is false.
MARK DREYFUS:
And – well, it’s – you’ve only got to read the Warburton Review commissioned by this Government. The Government actually needs to move away from what it appears many members of the Abbott Government’s Cabinet want, which is destruction of the Renewable Energy Target …
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
Okay.
MARK DREYFUS:
… and get back to bipartisan agreement on it.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
Very quickly, Greg Hunt.
MARK DREYFUS:
Of course, we’ll participate.
GREG HUNT:
Look, we’re working very constructively. The RET is not being abolished. This is a Labor scare. We’re looking for a balanced, sensible middle path. We’ve had a longstanding bipartisan commitment to twenty per cent. We are all working constructively. And I thank those that met with us today.
I wouldn’t try to pre-empt their position. That’s – that’s for them. But this is about finding a balance between long-term stability for the sector. At the moment, there are issues because of the phantom credit scheme which Labor created…
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
Yes. Sure.
GREG HUNT:
… which has created a big problem, and ensuring that we are doing everything we can to minimise the impact on …
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
Okay.
GREG HUNT:
… jobs and electricity prices. And I think we can achieve both.
RAFAEL EPSTEIN:
We’ll see what happens. I thank you both. I know you commit a lot of time to chat to us all very regularly. So thanks to Greg Hunt and to Mark Dreyfus. Gentlemen, enjoy Canberra.
GREG HUNT:
Thanks, Raf.
MARK DREYFUS:
Thank you, Raf. Thank you, Greg.
(ENDS)