Interview with John Stanley, 2GB Breakfast - Monday, 16 December 2024
Topics: MYEFO; nuclear costings; renewable energy; offshore wind farms
E&OE
JOHN STANLEY:
Now of course, on Friday, the Coalition unveiled its plan for nuclear energy. We are talking … this is a, it's rare that you actually get a policy saying, okay, we're looking long term. This is a plan over 10, 20, 30 years – we're talking out to 2050 and they released their costings that have been put together by Frontier Economics. There's been this debate over the weekend on the costings, so I wanted to talk to the Shadow Treasurer about this. But there's also these numbers, which we are going to get on Wednesday from the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers. So there’s a lot to talk about. Angus Taylor joins me now. Angus Taylor, good morning to you.
ANGUS TAYLOR:
Good to be with you, John.
JOHN STANLEY:
Can we just kick off with these numbers that we are going to get on Wednesday? We're seeing that because of the softening Chinese economy, the money that the government's getting from royalties are going to be significantly down, and we are now talking about a very significant … they’re saying for example, the headline, $8.5 billion China slump to rip $8.5 billion from the budget. We're talking about the potential of a very significant budget deficit in prospect.
ANGUS TAYLOR:
Well, $32 billion on the underlying cash balance, actually over 50 or 40 or $50 billion according to Chris Richardson, the headline cash balance, which is all the money that the government is spending. I mean this is a huge amount of red ink. $220 billion over the next four years. That's over $20,000 for every household in Australia and of course, Labor has always blamed any woes on someone else. Vladimir Putin, you might remember, they were blaming him a while back. More recently, they've been blaming Donald Trump. Now it’s Xi. They've decided they're blaming the Chinese. The truth is that they have lost control of spending. The reckless spending goes on and the result of that is that they're driving the budget into a big deficit. Red ink everywhere. And if you want to get interest rates and inflation down, this is exactly the opposite of what you need to do. That's why we've opposed over $110 billion of Labor spending through the Parliament, and we've done it because it's absolutely the wrong thing to do right now when households are really struggling to make ends meet for the government to be out there spending like drunken sailors and the result is we're not seeing interest rates coming down in Australia, even though they are right across the world. Inflation, core inflation, went up in the last data that came out so we are not getting to where we need to do and MYEFO was another chance – that’s the mid-year update that you talked about – was another chance, a fourth chance, after three failed budgets for Labor to fix this problem but clearly they're not going to.
JOHN STANLEY:
The difficulty for you then is you've got, as you say, very substantial deficits over the next three years. You would want to be Treasurer at some stage in 2025 if there's a change of government. So, leading into the election, are you going to spell out how you'll pull that budget deficit in?
ANGUS TAYLOR:
Well, the fact that we've opposed over $110 billion of spending through the Parliament in the last two and a half years I think it's a pretty good indication …
JOHN STANLEY:
So does that mean you might try and revoke some of that spending?
ANGUS TAYLOR:
Well, of course. Of course. I mean, you know, the fact that we voted against it, I think, is a very strong signal of where we will go in the lead up to the election, and every time we oppose one of Labor's big spending initiatives, Labor says, well, you know, that’s terrible. You've got to support all our spending. But it was the wrong thing to do, and we're now seeing the result of it. We've got an economy that is on life support. We've had seven consecutive quarters of household recession. GDP per capita going backwards. Household disposable income, that's our standard of living, has fallen further and faster than any time in our history, more than any other of our peer countries around the world. This is an economic disaster on our hands.
JOHN STANLEY:
Could you give us an example of what … where you'll cut because and of course it lends itself to scare campaigns. But can you tell us?
ANGUS TAYLOR:
Yeah of course. Of course. I mean, I can tell you all of the places where we have opposed Labor's big spending. Of course, you know, and I'll remind everybody that they spent half a billion dollars on a referendum that went absolutely nowhere, that it was dividing the nation, but, but of course, the bigger numbers are in things like power lines to nowhere, I mean and this is why the announcement on Friday was so important. They want to build 28,000 kilometres of power lines, and they want to put billions and billions of dollars into those power lines that are absolutely unnecessary, and in fact, will just add cost for consumers and add a financial burden for taxpayers. They've committed to programs to build houses and manufacturing, when in fact, we're seeing none of that. None of it's working. Because at the end of the day, if you want these things to happen, if you want more manufacturing in this country, if you want more housing in this country, you've got to create the right environment for the private sector to want to invest in housing, to want to invest in manufacturing and when your energy policies are wrong, when your approvals policies are wrong, when the CFMEU is in charge of the construction industry, you just don't get those outcomes.
JOHN STANLEY:
Then the policy that was announced on Friday, which is a long-term policy getting you towards 2050. You’d start building nuclear power stations on your estimates, I think you're talking early as 2035, maybe 2036-37 if you can get everything … all the ducks in a row in terms of the Parliament. What's going to be providing power over the next five to 10 years and how are you going to make that power cheaper?
ANGUS TAYLOR:
Well you’ll continue to see the growth of renewables in this country. People are putting household solar on their rooves and will continue to and you know, there's no problem with that. Knock yourself out if you want to do that. It's a good thing to do. But we also need to make sure that …
JOHN STANLEY:
When you say it like that, knock yourself out. It's a smart thing to do, isn't it?
ANGUS TAYLOR:
Yeah, yeah. That's what I mean. I mean that's the point I'm making. I don't think there's any problem with that. If people want to put solar on their rooves, go for it. Absolutely. I use solar panels at home on our farm for pumping water, and it's been a very successful system for farmers for many years. So, you know, they're all good things, and we'll continue to see that. Renewables will be part of the mix. But importantly, we need more Australian gas working for Australians. We had that working for us when we were in power. We saw a 10% reduction, eight to 10% reduction in prices for consumers when I was in power at the same time as we saw emissions coming down.
JOHN STANLEY:
So you could reduce power … what … by getting more gas into the system pretty soon?
ANGUS TAYLOR:
More gas into the system is absolutely essential, and ensuring that we don't get premature closure of coal fired power stations.
JOHN STANLEY:
But how would you get the gas into the system?
ANGUS TAYLOR:
Well, exactly as we did when we were in government and we sit with the major exporters and say, hey, here's the deal – if you want to export Australian gas, then there's got to be enough Australian gas going into our network.
JOHN STANLEY:
And they'll be getting a lot less for the gas that they sell here so we'll have cheaper prices.
ANGUS TAYLOR:
But at the end of the day, the exporters export the vast majority of the gas that they extract, and it's reasonable to ask them to put enough into the Australian system.
JOHN STANLEY:
You’ll force them to do it at a lower price because that's the only way the price is going to come down, isn't it?
ANGUS TAYLOR:
But we also say to them, we will work with you to get more supply out of the ground and this was the understanding I always had with gas producers. We’ll help you to get more out of the ground but at the same time, we need more going into our domestic network. Now that's good for everybody and Labor, Chris Bowen, the week he became Energy Minister, completely walked away from that arrangement, absolutely walked away from it. And because he has absolutely no understanding of what drives our energy system, what delivers affordable, reliable and sustainable energy and so he's got it wrong. And you see that in this policy that we announced on Friday. A 44% reduction in the costs that will be paid for, ultimately, by Australians.
JOHN STANLEY:
But what sort of … what sort of reduction in power prices would you promise, say, in the next three years because in the end, that's what people are going to want to know.
ANGUS TAYLOR:
We'll announce more detail on our shorter term policies as Peter and Ted have said over the last week or so, in time. But the one thing I can absolutely assure you of is getting more gas into the system, ensuring we don't have premature closure of coal fired power stations as we continue to see investment in renewables. We’ll deliver lower costs.
JOHN STANLEY:
Because I'm just looking, you were the one, and I’m right aren’t I? You introduced the legislation for offshore wind farms, the biggest one off Gippsland off the south east of Victoria and so is that still your view?
ANGUS TAYLOR:
You know, let's be clear about this. We put a framework in place where with appropriate consultation with the local communities, it would be possible to build wind farms. I mean, preventing development of any energy is the wrong thing to do. But that doesn't mean every project is going to be a good one and this is where Labor's got it absolutely wrong.
JOHN STANLEY:
But you still think the idea, the principal of offshore wind farms are a good idea?
ANGUS TAYLOR:
You know, if an offshore wind farm is in an area where there's no coastal community that's concerned about it and the economics work, go hard. Look, this is the point. Our approach to energy is we don't want to exclude any technology that might make a contribution, but each technology has to do its bit. The economics obviously have to work. They have to work with local communities to make sure that there are appropriate arrangements in place with that local community and this is where Labor has failed. They are absolutely … Chris Bowen is an ideologue, first, second and third and he couldn't care less about those local communities. He couldn't care less about what it's going to do to the cost of power and we've seen the results. His $275 reduction. We've got 15 days left, John.
JOHN STANLEY:
That’s right. It was meant to be 2025. Well that’s gone a long time ago.
ANGUS TAYLOR:
Prediction for you. We're not going to get the $275.
JOHN STANLEY:
That's right.
ANGUS TAYLOR:
We pay for it as taxpayers or consumers, one way or another, when he fails and he has failed.
JOHN STANLEY:
All right. I appreciate your time. Have a good Christmas. Good New Year, and we'll talk to you, I'm sure, a lot in 2025.
ANGUS TAYLOR:
Good to be with you.
JOHN STANLEY:
The Shadow Treasurer, Angus Taylor there.
ENDS
