TRANSCRIPT: TV INTERVIEW - SKY NEWS - THURSDAY, February 17, 2022

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
SKY NEWS WITH LAURA JAYES
THURSDAY, 17 FEBRUARY 2022

SUBJECTS: Eraring closure; national security.

LAURA JAYES, HOST: Before we get to Dennis Richardson, I want to ask you about this Eraring power station closing, seven years ahead of schedule. What does it say about the future of coal in Australia?

TONY BURKE, MANAGER OF OPPOSITION BUSINESS: Well, first of all Laura, my thoughts go immediately to more than 400 workers. And there has to be an immediate priority to make sure that we have a plan for secure work for them. It's critically important. People can't be left hanging out to dry. These people who when they first started, some people will have been working in that plant for most of their working lives. And so to make sure that there is a plan for secure work for them, is absolutely critical. And a lot of this goes to the fact that the government has failed to plan here. They've engaged in politics. We've always said, these decisions will ultimately be made on a commercial basis, and as cleaner energy has become cheaper energy, we found businesses making those sorts of decisions.

JAYES: Well Labor’s “Powering Australia” modelling assumes that there will be no early coal closures. In this statement, it says “no retirements are assumed to be brought forward”. So does this mess up your plants?

BURKE: It's not my portfolio and we've come straight off the back of that interview, so anything regarding the modelling you'd have to go to Chris Bowen. But let's not forget, the climate policy that has been put forward by Labor has been the most extensively researched and modelled policy by an opposition ever. And you compare that with what the government put out, where they were relying purely on a 2050 target on technology that does not yet exist. That’s what the government did. They effectively made up numbers on guesswork of what they thought might exist in the future that has not yet even been invented.

JAYES: But Labor has been predicting this right? Labor has been predicting that this might be the trajectory - but in your own statements “no assumed closures”. So how can we be confident that Labor can ensure that that hole is filled and residents don't see higher prices?

BURKE: The reality is that cleaner energy is cheaper energy now. The failure of the government to act means that people right now are paying higher energy prices than they otherwise would. It means under the trajectory that we had from the coalition, energy prices will continue to be higher than they were. That doesn't just hit you with your household bills, that also hits you with jobs. Energy prices are the driving force of a whole series of manufacturing jobs. Now in manufacturing, different countries that compete there, either compete on cheaper energy on cheaper wages. Now, Labor's making sure that the pathway goes towards cheaper energy. What the government's doing is, effectively their only plan here is to ignore anything with respect to energy, and to have policies that are designed to deliver cheaper wages. We will never go down that path.

JAYES: Look, I appreciate this is not your portfolio area. But I mean, on the face of it, this is a massive black hole, if you like, that’s going to be left in the industry. Do you anticipate that you're going to have to change some of your plans before the election? If you do we should know about it right?

BURKE: I don't accept the presumption of what you've said. The exact impact of this on the modelling is something that you're not going to get a rapid fire answer from me on Laura.

JAYES: But a power plant closing seven years early. It’s going to have an impact.

BURKE: Yeah and it's happening on the government's watch. It’s happening when the Liberals were claiming that nothing like this would happen. Remember, they don't talk about Liddell anymore. Like the way the government has handled this the whole way through has been negligent. People, because there wasn't a plan are worse off, and they then enter an industrial relations environment as they try to find future work where secure jobs are becoming harder and harder to obtain.

JAYES: I'll try and get Chris Bowen on the program before 11 o'clock. But you were listening to Dennis Richardson. We've seen the debate in Parliament. Is it incumbent on Labor as well to dial this down?

BURKE: Well, sorry, Labor has said the whole way through that national security and the approach in particular to the increasing assertiveness of China is something that should be seen as bipartisan. The entire reason that we are talking about this now is because the Prime Minister has done something unbelievably irresponsible, and something that you would not find any other world leader doing. Now, Australia has a huge strength in the fact that we have bipartisan positions on national security. And we've had, whether it's Mike Burgess, or whether it's Dennis Richardson, or a series of experts including commentators like Paul Kelly, who’ve followed this issue closely for decades, talk about the strength that Australia has. What Mr Morrison is now doing, and I can't think of why anyone in charge of any nation in the world would do this, he is wanting to make Australia look weaker than we are. Now think about that. Simply because it suits his own political purposes, his own game playing, we have the leader of a nation wanting to make his country look weaker. That is horrifically irresponsible. It is mind-blowingly dumb what Mr Morrison is now doing. And to think that he believes his own political games are more important than the national security of the country he is currently in charge of, beggars belief.

JAYES: One final question. Dennis Richardson also said that the government has a very strong record on national security. Do you agree with that?

BURKE: It's bipartisan. It's bipartisan, the national security issues. So if we were troubled by what they were doing on national security, it wouldn't be a bipartisan approach. And I'm not troubled by those comments at all. We're not the people wanting to weaken Australia at the moment. You know, when we say “against the national interest” think about what that means. That means we have the Prime Minister of Australia in Mr Morrison acting against the interests of Australia because he thinks it suits his political purposes. Australia deserves better, much better than to have a Prime Minister who is behaving this way. His predecessors on either side of politics have not done this.

JAYES: Have you been wedged on this this week, though? Is there a view among the public that perhaps Labor is weak on national security? And if so, how have you allowed yourself to be painted as such?

BURKE: I've got to say I'm not I'm not particularly troubled about what the community thinks because the public have already made a clear decision that Mr Morrison's a liar. That view is out there. It's been endorsed by world leaders, it's been endorsed by his own deputy prime minister. And when you've got a view that the person talking is a liar - you know, does it mean that we're now having this conversation? Sure it means that. But does it mean that people take seriously what Mr Morrison says? He would need to have a level of credibility to have that and he's been viewed as a liar throughout the community for some time now.

JAYES: Tony Burke, we’ll leave it there.

ENDS