TRANSCRIPT: TV INTERVIEW - ABC NEWS 24 - THURSDAY, 16 JANUARY 2020

E&OE TRANSCRIPT 
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
ABC NEWS 24
THURSDAY, 16 JANUARY 2020

SUBJECT: Sports rorts, climate change, bushfires.

MADELEINE MORRIS: Labor has slammed the Government's internal debate on
climate change while calling for a single point of contact for bushfire victims to seek assistance. Manager of Opposition Business and former Environment Minister Tony Burke joins us to talk about this. Good morning, Mr Burke.

TONY BURKE: Good morning.

MORRIS: We’ll get to bushfires in a moment. First of all, let me take you to the big story of the day: the audit office finding $100 million from the sports grant scheme was biased in its selection and then Sports Minister Bridget McKenzie intervened to favour electorates the Coalition wanted to win in that last election. What should happen now?

BURKE: Well, you won't find a more explosive report from the Auditor-General's office than this one. This is a minister who clearly has to be stood down. Clearly. There is not a future for a minister who's done something like this. There's endless precedence of ministers standing down for much less. You start with her approving grants which, initially, around 40 per cent of them had been found to not be appropriate to be funded. As we got closer to the election, for rounds two and three, the figure got to around 70 or 71 per cent of the grants she was approving had been found should not be funded. And beyond that, there wasn't even clear legal authority that the minister had the right to make any of these decisions at all.

MORRIS: What do you understand of that, Mr Burke? What are the details on that? Where could that issue be with the legal authority?

BURKE: Sports Australia were of the view that it was their decision. The Department of Health, which was the department in charge, the administering department, their view was the same and they said, if the minister wanted to make the decision the minister would have to get fresh legal advice. The minister chose to not get fresh legal advice. They chose to not find out whether or not there was any possibility that they might legally be allowed to do it. They just went and did it anyway, when the only advice in front of them was that this was not lawful. Now, the thing we've got to remember here is this just doesn't say something about Bridget McKenzie as the minister at the time. This says everything about Scott Morrison. I don't think anyone doubts for a minute that she was doing exactly what Scott Morrison wants, because this bloke views taxpayers' money as his personal marketing fund and that's how it was being used. And around Australia, there are sporting projects in community after community that were found to be eligible that never got a dollar because Scott Morrison thought this money was his to throw around for his political ends.

MORRIS: The minister has pointed out that all of the projects which actually got the funding were eligible for the funding. Are you suggesting that they should pay it back and the money should go to some of those other projects?

BURKE: Look, the first thing is they were not found to have as much merit as the ones that were chosen by Sports Australia. Sports Australia said whether or not they were legally eligible, they didn't make the cut. They weren't as good as the projects that missed out. But secondly - this is the most explosive thing in the report, and I can't recall seeing a finding like this in an Auditor-General's report before - there's no legal opinion in front of the Government, referred to in that report, that says the minister even had the legal authority to make the decision. It wasn't even her money to misappropriate. And they did anyway. This says everything about Scott Morrison.

MORRIS: I'll move you on to the day's other big story which is, of course, the bushfires. Labor has come out swinging about the Government's internal debates about climate change. What is Labor's policy at the moment on emissions?

BURKE: Our policy has always been acting on climate change. Always.

MORRIS: Specifically what is your policy on emissions? Because you took a policy to the election, which was shouted down and there's been plenty of internal debate this Labor about that.

BURKE: Sorry, we lost the election. Our next chance to implement Labor policy is in 2.5 years' time. We can't wait for that. There is a Government that won the election right now that, for a decade, has been incapable of acting on climate change and they need to act on climate change now. People are breathing in the impacts of inaction on climate change.

MORRIS: Can you put a figure on that then, Mr Burke? What specifically - when it comes to emissions reductions, are there specific targets you would like the government to move towards?

BURKE: First of all, when Scott Morrison says they will meet and beat their current targets, that can't be through an accounting trick. It can't be through effectively getting your shopper dockets from one store and turning them up and trying to redeem them at another because that's what this Kyoto credits trick is all about. They have to do better than is happening and, at the moment, we all know, we are on track to not meet those targets.

MORRIS: Put a figure on it. What would Labor like to see?

BURKE: You have got me as the Industrial Relations spokesperson.

MORRIS: You are also Manager of Opposition Business and also a former Environment Minister so it is a reasonable question to ask because it is the big question of the moment. As you've said, they want to meet and beat them but if there is an alternative number that Labor would like to see, can you give us that number?

BURKE: No, no, and at the moment - our job is to hold them to account. We did not win the election. They are the Government and they are making a claim which is not true, and that's what I'm calling to account right now, as is our job as the opposition. Now, they're saying they're going to meet and beat the targets. What I'm saying is they're not. They're not. They're using an accounting trick to claim it. The only reason we had one quarter that was better than some of the previous quarters is because of the drought, which a Government can hardly take credit for. People need to see action on climate change, and this is a Government that while the rest of Australia is living the impacts of inaction on climate change, they still want to have an argument about whether or not it's even happening.

MORRIS: Well, the Science Minister has said she wants the discussion to move beyond that – but beyond that, the PM has said the Government's plan, as you've said, is to meet and beat emissions targets without upping taxes, putting up electricity prices and without, in his words, pulling the rug out from regional communities that depend on fossil fuels for their livelihoods. Can that happen? Can those targets be beaten and met without doing any of those things?

BURKE: You lose more jobs by not acting. You lose jobs by not acting. The other thing to remember: it was only just over a year ago, a couple of years ago, that you had people on this program - Scott Morrison, Josh Frydenberg – coming in and saying "Unless the National Energy Guarantee was implemented, then electricity prices would go up". Then internally they abandoned their own policy. They abandoned their own policy, even though they acknowledged that if they implemented it, it would reduce emissions and, if they implemented it, it would put downward pressure on electricity prices, and if they implemented it, it would open a line for investment which would create jobs. All the things that you've described, they've already had a policy that would do those things and they ditched it because of the dinosaurs in their own party who want to argue against the science - they're running a similar argument to the anti-vaxxers. They don't care what the science says, they just come down that they know better than everybody else and they're running policies that are dangerous.

MORRIS: Just finally Mr Burke Labor has said it wants a single point of contact for all bushfire victims. What sort of form do you envisage that would take?

BURKE: What it means is that for each of the bushfire victims, they keep going back to the same person in the department. When you've lost everything, there's a series of different Government services you need to be able to interact with. You shouldn't be getting back on hold every time to a different Government number trying to start again, or each time you call, having a different person who doesn't know your circumstance trying to call up a file and work it out from scratch. If you can keep going back to the same case manager, at a time where a whole series of Australians are dealing with the worst of all worlds, at least make their dealings with Government far more efficient, far more decent and respectful and that would make a difference.

MORRIS: Tony Burke, we have to leave it there, thank you very much for your time this morning.

BURKE: Great to be with you.
 
ENDS