E&OE….
Topics: Climate change, Bjorn Lomborg, Emissions Reduction Fund, ANZAC Day
ANDREW BOLT:
Joining me is Environment Minister Greg Hunt. Greg…
GREG HUNT:
Well, good morning, Andrew.
ANDREW BOLT:
Good morning to you. That was a good start, wasn’t it? Before I get onto that, Tim Flannery, head of the Climate Council. As I said before the break, he predicted that even the rain that falls isn’t going to fill our dams and river systems. Now, after the NSW floods, more floods, are you surprised the ABC still treats this man as a guru?
GREG HUNT:
Well, let’s put it this way, everybody’s entitled to their opinion, but what’s absolutely clear is that because of the views of certain people literally billions of dollars was wasted on desalination plants in Melbourne, in Sydney, on the Gold Coast…
ANDREW BOLT:
And Adelaide…
GREG HUNT:
And Adelaide. All of which were put in by Labor governments. Wasted infrastructure which could have been spent on roads, which could have been spent on hospitals, which could have been spent on schools, and none of them, none of those, are operating. And so those governments need to explain – whoever is left from them – why they spent that money, how it was wasted and whether or not they’ll apologise for a massive multibillion-dollar waste of public money.
ANDREW BOLT:
Greg, I’m entirely with you, but the whole point is that they were built on the presumption of the global warming cutting the rain, that, you know, the rains would never again fill the dams. Are you saying, then, that they fell for exaggerated claims? That global warming hasn’t worked out as was predicted?
GREG HUNT:
Well, what is absolutely clear is that the people who designed and built them, State Labor governments overwhelmingly, got it wrong in terms of the need for that public infrastructure.
ANDREW BOLT:
No, no, no. But they were following the advice of the alarmists.
GREG HUNT:
Let’s not go back to this old debate between you and I. You and I have been debating this for years. I do accept the science, but I reckon that these people…
ANDREW BOLT:
Yeah, but that was the argument of these governments. They accepted the science of people like Flannery.
GREG HUNT:
But they wouldn’t build new dams. They wouldn’t do practical things. We’re very supportive of new dams. This idea that was run around here in Victoria that dams don’t catch water was one of the most absurd and ludicrous public policy ideas I’ve ever heard of. What we’ve seen this week…
ANDREW BOLT:
Yeah, but they went for the best advice, like you said, and they didn’t question it and the point is the rains returned.
GREG HUNT:
A good outcome for Australia, that you can reduce emissions – you and I disagree on, that but we can agree on two other things – that you can have very good economic policy in terms of improved energy efficiency, which means you get more for less, which is what will come in the next auction.
You can have improved farm productivity and improved local environment outcomes in terms of better soil and less methane from landfills. We know that in Cranbourne there was a landfill methane disaster a few short years ago.
So, practical, local, environmental outcomes and productivity, as well as emissions. We can agree on two out of three of those. What we can also agree on is that electricity doesn’t have to go up, and Bill Shorten ought to ditch his plan for a massive new electricity and gas tax, and that’s what I’m calling on him to do today.
ANDREW BOLT:
Finally, we’re back on the same song there. But, listen, Flannery this week also attacked your Government, right, for giving $1million a year for a new global warming think-tank at the University of Western Australia that will star Danish Professor Bjorn Lomborg. Now, Lomborg doesn’t doubt that man is warming the planet.
GREG HUNT:
Correct.
ANDREW BOLT:
But he does say it’s not smart to spend billions of dollars on schemes that don’t actually make any difference, real difference to the temperatures. Why should Lomborg be funded?
GREG HUNT:
Well, Lomborg is actually an economist of international renown and this isn’t a global warming think-tank as the left portray it. It’s actually an economic analysis unit and think-tank. He brings together…
ANDREW BOLT:
Of global warming.
GREG HUNT:
No, no. He’s looking at aid, he’s looking at all sorts of economic cost-benefit analyses. The cost benefit approach is often derided by some of those who are deeply engaged in a political campaign rather than in getting the best bang for your buck.
ANDREW BOLT:
Spot on. Can I just give viewers an example of exactly what you’ve just said? This is his argument about cost benefit analysis as applied to global warming. He’s saying about money wasted on schemes that won’t make much difference. He’s talking here about countries trying to meet their Kyoto targets of emissions cuts.
Excerpt begins
BJORN LOMBORG:
Kyoto, if everyone agreed, would cost about $150 billion a year. Yet it would do very little good. Our models show that it will postpone warming for about six years in 2100. So the guy in Bangladesh who will get flooded in 2100 can wait until 2106, which is a little good, but not very much good.
Excerpt ends
ANDREW BOLT:
Now, Greg, do you follow, accept his argument that we should look at whether a global warming policy, spending millions, billions, whether there’s a value at the end of it in terms of temperature averted?
GREG HUNT:
Well, two things in direct response to that – firstly, Bjorn Lomborg brought together Nobel economic laureates. They ranked 15 approaches to reducing emissions. The bottom three, the bottom three, were all variations of the carbon tax.
ANDREW BOLT:
Spot on. But do you accept his argument that we should look at, for all that money, is it worth the gain in terms of temperature? That’s his argument.
GREG HUNT:
Well, here’s the second point and the answer…
ANDREW BOLT:
You’re spending $600 million on cutting emissions. By my calculations, that will avert the temperature by the end of the century by 0.0005 of a degree at the most. Do you agree with my calculations?
GREG HUNT:
Ok, so the response to that is…
ANDREW BOLT:
Do you agree with that calculation?
GREG HUNT:
Look, I’m not going to try to play that game with you because we’ve been doing this for…
ANDREW BOLT:
It’s not a game.
GREG HUNT:
…three, four, five, six years but the real point, we’ve just reduced emissions at 1.1% of the cost of doing so under the ALP’s carbon tax – 1.1%. So I do care, deeply, passionately, absolutely, about value for money for taxpayers.
ANDREW BOLT:
Yeah, but you can’t tell me – this is the whole point – you say it’s a game…
GREG HUNT:
…not whacking taxpayers with a massive electricity and gas tax.
ANDREW BOLT:
But you can’t tell me, for all that money, whether we make a flicker of difference…
GREG HUNT:
No, I can tell you…
ANDREW BOLT:
…to the world’s temperature.
GREG HUNT:
As a whole, working with other countries, you then achieve an international outcome.
ANDREW BOLT:
That still doesn’t make the temperature change.
GREG HUNT:
No question about that.
ANDREW BOLT:
Listen, ANZAC Day…
GREG HUNT:
We’ll disagree on that, but we’ll agree on it’s 1.1% of the cost. It’s economically, dramatically better, with energy efficiency and farm productivity. And there are great local environment benefits. So you can support it, irrespective of where you stand.
ANDREW BOLT:
It’s better – all I can say is it’s better than Labor’s, but that’s it. ANZAC Day…
GREG HUNT:
You can say dramatically better.
ANDREW BOLT:
Dramatically better. Ok, I’ll do that. Anzac Day – record crowds yesterday, despite all the academics saying we’re over the Anzac fatigue, it’s excluding minorities, etc. What do you put that down to?
GREG HUNT:
Look, Australians have become deeply mature and reverential. There’s a sense that they understand the freedoms we have were won with the greatest price. Yesterday, in towns like Hastings and Dromana, Rosebud, Rye, Sorrento, the numbers were between two and two and a half times what had previously been very high numbers in any event, and that was replicated across the country. You saw veterans, but school kids, primary school and secondary school.
ANDREW BOLT:
Absolutely. But, you know, you say that. I agree. I went too.
GREG HUNT:
Australians get it.
ANDREW BOLT:
Australians get it, but do some academics get it? Do some on the left media get it? The Age yesterday ran an ANZAC Day article, Greg, asking whether Australian soldiers going to Gallipoli were like Australians Muslims going to Syria to fight for the Islamic State, and it said some of the parallels were striking.
GREG HUNT:
Now, this piece was stupid but deeply offensive, and I find it extraordinary that the editors would run junk like that on ANZAC Day. And they ought to explain themselves as to why they would run a piece with zero intellectual merit, which was deeply offensive to the vast bulk of Australians and was frankly a foolish piece, which had no place. Now, it’s a free country. They can write what they want, but they have to have responsibility for what they publish.
ANDREW BOLT:
I think that’s a dangerous sort of analogy. It gives credit to jihadists that I think risks backfiring on us. Greg Hunt, thank you so much for joining me.
GREG HUNT:
Always a pleasure.
(ENDS)