5AA

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
Interview – 5AA with David Penberthy and Will Goodings
Wednesday 17 February 2016

SUBJECTS: Nuclear Cycle Royal Commission findings; Negative Gearing

WILL GOODINGS: I wonder if Christopher Pyne or Anthony Albanese have ever written poetry?

DAVID PENBERTHY: I reckon they both would have in their day, we can ask them that and more as part of this segment. But good morning to both of you Anthony and also Christopher, poetry aside we wanted to kick off by getting your views on the Nuclear Cycle Royal Commission, the recommendation has come out that we should look at setting up a nuclear waste dump. The figures in terms of revenue that would bring in are enormous, starting with you if we can Anthony, because Labor’s had the most fraught policy position over the years on uranium mining and so forth, Bill Shorten yesterday seemed to say if it creates jobs and it can be done safely that it might be a good thing, is that a view that the left of the party would share?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Well I’m not a fan of the nuclear fuel cycle and I think interestingly the report yesterday ruled out as an economic Australia expanding into the nuclear industry there are far more jobs and far better economic outcomes by doing what South Australia’s been leading the nation on which is in renewables. With regard to any proposal to take the world’s nuclear waste I would be very cautious about it, we’ll examine the proposals, I haven’t had the opportunity to read the full report, I’ve just read the reports of it, but of course when someone in this case a serious commission makes findings then you should examine it and all the implications and there should be a community debate about these issues.

DAVID PENBERTHY: Because Bill Shorten seemed to be saying yesterday it might actually be a good thing, but historically it’s been, your factional left of the party has agitated the most strongly on this. Bill Shorten seemed to be sort of positioning the federal party so that you guys could almost run dead on this and say look lets almost leave it to the states, let them thrash it out let the community within that state have the discussion but you seemed to be saying well maybe you should be taking more of an interventionist approach?

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Well this of course has been a South Australian Royal Commission not a national one so therefore it’s up to the South Australian government in the first instance to respond. But the community will have a debate, one of the problems created by the nuclear fuel cycle is waste and something has to happen to that waste that is part of the concern is that the externalities if you like that are created as well as the process itself as we saw with Fukushima…

DAVID PENBERTHY: Chris Pyne, sorry Albo, to you Chris Pyne you were a member of the Howard Government when the Pangea Proposal was kicking around in the late ‘90s and John Howard, initially at least, was looking upon that quite favourably. In the end it was steam-rolled and Mike Rann played a pretty important part in killing that off in a ‘don’t turn SA into a dumping ground’ slogan which resonated with people, do you think that times have changed and could you see the coalition supporting this?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well good morning David, and Will, and Anthony, and I think times have definitely changed. Kevin Scarce has done a great job with his royal commission report, no one could accuse Kevin Scarce of being a patsy for either side of politics whether its Labor or Liberal, he has ruled out and said it’s not likely that building nuclear power stations and enriching uranium would be economic, but he has said that South Australia is extremely well placed to be the world’s storage facility for nuclear waste because of our geology, our skills, our stable political situation, our climate, our very large spaces in the north and the mid north of South Australia and he has put a figure on it which says that we could be amongst the wealthiest people in Australia in terms of royalties and support for our state is we were to take up this opportunity so I think he has thrown out a challenge to South Australia’s public and now is the opportunity to bring the community into this discussion and to bring them along, I must say I am very open minded about it and it’s very difficult for Anthony because of course the left of the Labor party have a strong policy position against Nuclear of any kind. But I was very disappointed in the conservation council of South Australia yesterday talking about how this would be the battle of a lifetime, the fight of a generation, all this kind of nonsense they were talking about in the 60’s and 70’s and 80’s, we have to move on from the flower power era of the 60s and 70s when people demonised this kind of energy, because climate change is such that nuclear power is a very clean source of energy, the rest of the world has it, we have the capacity to make money out of storing the waste from it, and as South Australians, regardless of the fact that we have the highest unemployment in the country, we can do something for the world that also earns us revenue and improves our standard of living and creates jobs for young people.

DAVID PENBERTHY: Chris Pyne, can we change the subject matter for a moment and talk about negative gearing and potential changes to it in the May budget, members of your backbench seem to wavering in their support, the property council has run a fairly sophisticated campaign targeting marginal seats and saying that so many of the people who will be affected by negative gearing changes live in those parts of Australia, is your resolve being tested by that campaign?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well I don’t support Labor’s proposals for negative gearing because they want to only apply it to new housing. And the danger in Labor’s proposals is that it will increase rent, because people would have to increase their rent to get the same return that they would have had if they had negative gearing.

DAVID PENBERTHY: [interrupts] what about your position with regard to investment?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Hang on I haven’t finished…

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Remember you’re the government Christopher.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Hang on, Labor are the only people with a policy to change negative gearing there is no policy from the Commonwealth Government to alter negative gearing, let’s deal with the facts.

DAVID PENBERTHY: OK, that won’t change in May then?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well it might, but I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the only policy that’s on the table which is Labor’s policy which will push up rent and depress property prices because it will reduce demand for existing housing. Now what the Treasurer has said and what he’ll outline today at the Press Club is that there probably are areas that we can tighten up negative gearing where it’s being excessively used, but Labor’s the only party that want to attack negative gearing and push up rents and push down property prices and I don’t support that.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Get off the talking points Christopher for goodness sake.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: It’s the truth.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: You’re the government and you’ve just said we have no plans until lunchtime until Scott Morrison addresses the National Press Club.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: But you’re the only party with a policy to attack negative gearing, and that’s the facts.

DAVID PENBERTHY: But is the problem-

ANTHONY ALBANESE: [Interrupts] Scott Morrison will be announcing changes that he supports at lunchtime. I mean, I hope he has something to say and doesn’t just stand there mute you know, you were elected to govern and on every issue, the GST we had months and months of you saying oh we have no proposals, until you did and then you didn’t. There is no leadership under Malcolm Turnbull, the issue of cost and affordability of housing is about supply, if you concentrate negative gearing on new homes you will have additional supply which will therefore put downward pressure on housing costs. It’s not rocket science it’s about demand and supply.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Yeah it’s not rocket science! The Labor party thinks policy is new taxes and increased taxes, that’s always what the Labor party thinks policy is.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Just get off the talking points.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: It’s a lot more sophisticated than that. Now Labor, if Labor’s policy comes in to play-

ANTHONY ALBANESE: [Interrupts] what’s your policy?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: and negative gearing is only-

ANTHONY ALBANESE: [Interrupts] What’s your policy?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I’m talking about, you’re the only one with a policy on the table-

ANTHONY ALBANESE: [Interrupts] you’re the Government, you’re the Government right now.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Your policy wants to increase rent because people will have to get their return-

ANTHONY ALBANESE: [Interrupts] that’s rubbish.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: -On their investment by increasing their rent on existing housing and secondly there will be less people buying existing housing so property prices will be depressed because there will be less demand for property.

DAVID PENBERTHY: We’ll be getting more clarity around this today hopefully when Scott Morrison gives his first address to the Press Club as treasurer. Thanks to both of you this morning.

[ends]