TANYA PLIBERSEK MP
SHADOW MINISTER FOR EDUCATION
SHADOW MINISTER FOR WOMEN
MEMBER FOR SYDNEY
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
4BC DRIVE WITH SCOTT EMERSON
WEDNESDAY, 20 OCTOBER 2021
SUBJECTS: Clive Plamer’s superyacht; climate change targets; immigration program post pandemic.
SCOTT EMERSON, HOST: The Shadow Minister for Education and Shadow Minister for Women is Tanya Plibersek. She joins as always each week. How are you, Tanya?
TANYA PLIBERSEK, SHADOW MINISTER FOR EDUCATION, SHADOW MINISTER FOR WOMEN: I'm good Emmo. How are you?
EMERSON: Well, I'm looking at some photos of Clive Palmer's new yacht - $40 million, it's on the Brisbane River here at the moment. It only hosts twelve passengers. Twelve!
PLIBERSEK: I think the big struggle would be finding eleven other people who want to go sailing with him.
EMERSON: See, you're cruel too. He used to be a colleague of yours in Federal Parliament. He used to be there.
PLIBERSEK: Yeah, look, it looks like a very nice boat. I don't know what the proper terminology is for these things. You get in trouble though, don't you if you say-
EMERSON: Superyachts. Anyway, look, he can spend his money how he likes.
PLIBERSEK: Yep.
EMERSON: I wouldn't do it, but I'll probably haven't got $40 million to spend anyhow. Let’s talk about where the Libs and Nats are on net zero emissions. I see that Barnaby Joyce has come out and said, 'we'll make the decision tomorrow. We'll tell the [Prime Minister] what our views are of it'. But I thought Barnaby Joyce said, it didn't really matter, what the Nats said now, because he accepted that Scott Morrison had a mandate to go to Glasgow and announce net zero emissions by 2050.
PLIBERSEK: Oh, look, they're all over the place, and the problem with this is - this is the government that been in power for almost a decade, they've had 21 energy policies. They're talking about whether they can land the 22nd one before the Prime Minister goes to Glasgow. All of this uncertainty is a jobs killer. It was the National Farmers' Federation President Fiona Simpson that said that this uncertainty is a jobs killer. And what's bizarre about this is the Nationals are saying, 'we're all for the farmers and we're all for the bush', National Farmers' Federation support this, the miners - BHP, Rio Tinto, they support zero net emissions. The Business Council of Australia supports it, big companies like Qantas support it, the states and territories support it, the meat and livestock corporations support it, Australian pork supports it, the people that Nationals are pretending to worry about, they know that cheaper energy means more jobs. We’ve got one in four Australian homes that have solar panels on the roof. It's not because they're all crazy greenies. It's because they have worked out that it brings down the cost of their electricity and that's why business want this as well. They see the jobs that come with this investment.
EMERSON: Well, let's look at this through the prism of a federal election here. So, all right, Scott Morrison goes to Glasgow, he goes to the climate summit next month and he says, 'under the Coalition, net zero emissions by 2050', which is exactly what Labor has already committed to previously. But what about 2030? He says he's not going to change his policy on 2030. What is Labor going to do about 2030? You've been very quiet on that, when you get to tell us what Labor will commit to from 2030.
PLIBERSEK: Well, we're not the government. I mean, the government-
EMERSON: I know, but you've got an election coming up. People want to know what you've got to say.
PLIBERSEK: And we will be very clear is ahead of the election on what any interim targets are going to be, but the government's going off to Glasgow. We're going to see what the world is doing at Glasgow and then Australia has to have a discussion about how we get to 2050. You're not going to do all of the effort at the last minute. If we do that, we know that the cost of change goes up if you leave it to the last minute, that's just common sense.
EMERSON: But I've heard Labor say - I've heard Anthony Albanese say that the Coalition should be more ambitious in terms of its 2030 targets. At the moment, it's at 26 per cent. All right, then, well, that's fine for him to say that, but he's not telling what Labor's policy will be. Surely he should just be able to come out and say, 'all right, we're going to go for 40 per cent'?
PLIBERSEK: He has said that the government should be more ambitious. I've said that too, and we've been saying that for some time-
EMERSON: But you're not telling us what your number should be, yourself. Why doesn't Labor come out now and say it?
PLIBERSEK: Because we're just about to see a huge international conference in Glasgow where other countries will set their targets, as well. We'll be able to see what the government does, see what the other countries do, and we will make all of our commitments clear well before the election.
EMERSON: All right. Now I saw there's a push on for to bring up immigration levels again post the pandemic. Obviously, during Covid, we've seen immigration basically cut to zero, has Labor said what it thinks the annual immigration intake should be post the pandemic.
PLIBERSEK: Well, we've said the priority first of all should be training Australians to do these jobs, and the sad fact is because of cuts to unis, cuts to TAFE, cuts to apprenticeships, cuts to traineeships - that there are a bunch of skills shortages right across the country. Employers are screaming out for people to do those jobs, but of course, we should be training Australians and giving them the first go - and the fair go - at those job vacancies. And the other thing we say is that instead of having the huge numbers of short-term migrants to Australia, which even the Reserve Bank has agreed is pushing down Australian workers' wages, when we do have people coming to Australia, we want them to come to settle here, to become Australian citizens, to come and stay permanently. The Liberals have had the exact opposite approach. They've cut funding to teach and train and educate Australians to do these jobs, and they've said, okay, we'll bring in short-term migrants. We'll make sure that we keep this pressure on Australian wages. Consequently, we haven't seen a wage increase for plenty of Australian workers for years. We've seen about eight years of stagnant wages in Australia now.
EMERSON: All right, Tanya Plibersek. Sorry, I have to cut you short today, we'll catch you again next week.
PLIBERSEK: No worries, always good to talk to you.
ENDS
