INTERVIEW WITH JON FAINE, ABC 774

JON FAINE: Chris Bowen is the Minister for Financial Services and other matters for the Federal Government. He is also the Labor campaign spokesperson.  Chris Bowen, good morning. 

BOWEN: Good morning Jon. 

FAINE: Depending on which worm you watched, either the debate was clearly a win for Julia Gillard or maybe only just a win for Julia Gillard, but women clearly preferring your candidate. Is that all that matters this campaign? 

BOWEN: Well look, I think the debate is an important opportunity for the two leaders to put forward their plans, and certainly from our point of view, a good opportunity for Julia Gillard to flesh out what she means by ‘moving Australia forward’, to provide some more context to that. To talk about our plans to return the Budget to surplus, invest in the broadband network- 

FAINE: So why the small target strategy? 

BOWEN: Well, she did talk about those things. She did talk about broadband; she spoke about our plans to boost superannuation; plans for health, all of which Tony Abbott opposes. So I don’t think that’s a fair characterisation of our approach, we are talking about these reforms- 

FAINE: It was minimal risk, minimal exposure, and everybody just it safe. It was hardly visionary and bold was it? 

BOWEN: Well, the debate was one outing in this campaign, it is certainly a very important one, but as I say, Julia Gillard took that opportunity to talk about superannuation, to talk about broadband, to talk about health, to talk about the economy. Now, when Tony Abbott was asked to flesh out what he was talking about; to flesh out WorkChoices, he didn’t give a straight answer. 

When he was asked about what he would do about the cost of living, he flummoxed around, didn’t have a straight answer, had no plan to deal with the cost of living, despite the fact that he has been out there talking about it, saying he would do something about it. When Julia Gillard was about the cost of living, she talked about our tax cuts, talked about our education tax rebate, talked about the increase i the age pension, talked about the increase in the childcare tax rebate. 

FAINE: Alright. The citizens’ assembly on climate change seems to be as useless as your clunkers for cash policy, so are you going to abandon that one? 

BOWEN: Well that’s a pretty loaded question Jon. I’m happy to deal with it. On the issue of the citizens’ assembly, look, if anything is clear from last year’s events, it is quite clear that we need to build a consensus in the community, from the ground up. Quite frankly we tried it the other way around; we tried to get a consensus in the political class if you like, we had an agreement with Malcolm Turnbull, we had an agreement with the two largest parties in the parliament, between the Government and the Opposition. That consensus didn’t last very long, it lasted as long as Malcolm Turnbull lasted, then the Liberal Party walked away from that consensus. 

FAINE: So you would walk away too? You would walk away from leadership- 

BOWEN: Not at all, not all Jon, and I reject that completely. The Prime Minister has made it very clear that she will advocate for a price on carbon, she will advocate for action, she will argue for it domestically and internationally, but she is also recognising that you can’t make a major change like this without bringing people with you. You need to build this consensus from the ground up, not from the top down.  

FAINE: Then you will never have it, because you will never get everyone agreeing. 

BOWEN: Well that’s a pretty defeatist attitude Jon. 

FAINE: No, it’s realistic. 

BOWEN: No, we are not saying that everyone in the nation has to agree, we are saying we need a community consensus.  

FAINE: What’s a consensus if it’s not everyone agreeing? 

BOWEN: Well, what you need is Australia’s leaders to be reassured that the community will support what is a pretty significant change. In the meantime, you take action, you put your limits on coal-powered stations, and you put your restrictions on those. You do things like the Green Building rebate; you engage in a major investment in renewable- 

FAINE: That’s right, you show policy leadership and you show that you understand the issues rather than picking 150 people at random and throwing them in a room and pretending that’s consensus. 

BOWEN: Well I just ran through some of the real policy actions that we are taking. These processes have proved successful elsewhere. Jon, I think the case for acting on climate change is compelling. I think the case that climate change is real, and man-made, caused by humans, is compelling. And I think, by running through that process, we will achieve some sort of progress, some sort of consensus, but you will need to build it from the ground up and you need to take the community with you. What we have announced is a program to do so. The alternative is Tony Abbott who says climate change isn’t real, that it’s ‘crap’ and that it was warmer in Jesus’ day. That’s the alternative. You have one leader who is prepared to argue the case and go out and build that consensus from the ground up and you have another leader who says ‘there’s no case to make’. 

FAINE: One more question on climate policy Chris Bowen, if you believe in climate change and you want to give people money to take old, polluting cars off the road, why do you rob Peter to pay Paul? Why pinch the funds from a solar program to finance it? 

BOWEN: Because you need to be fiscally responsible. We said that every commitment we make in this election campaign will be paid for; we will not add a dollar to the budget bottom-line in this campaign. We will put all our policies through the Charter of Budget Honesty and Tony Abbott should be doing the same. We are not going to make unfunded promises in this election campaign. This is not the time or the place to do that.  

FAINE: Okay. 

BOWEN: Every election commitment we make will be paid for by changes elsewhere.  

FAINE: We’ve got to keep moving along. I’ve got Michael Kroger, former President of the Victorian Liberal Party joining me in just a moment; a couple of other quick things still with you Chris Bowen, Minister for Financial Services from the Labor Party in the Federal Government.  

Yesterday, Tony Abbott scored well with the worms on both 7 and 9 when he was prepared to get rough and dirty about the way you lot got rid of Kevin Rudd.  

[Plays excerpt of Tony Abbott from the election debate] 

This is an issue that’s not just going away for you Chris Bowen. 

BOWEN: On the issue of the change, Julia Gillard I thought, did a good job in explaining what a difficult decision that was for her and for the Party. I think people realise that political parties go through this from time to time. It’s not that long ago that Tony Abbott felt the need to remove Malcolm Turnbull from the leadership.  

I think, at the end of the day, that people will be voting on issues: they’ll be voting on health, on education, on economic management, on superannuation, on broadband. They’ll recognise that from time to time, political parties need to make very difficult decisions and I think Julia, last night, did a good job at explaining just how difficult that decision was for her. 

In terms of Tony Abbott’s comments there, well, it’s just more dissembling from him, talking about things that are just not right. We have one of the lowest debts and deficits in the world. We have a lower debt and deficit by historical standards. That was what we had to do to get Australia through the global financial crisis, one of the few economies in the world to avoid a recession. I’m sure Tony Abbott wants to airbrush all that from the past, but we did what we had to do, and we’ve kept our AAA rating while doing it. 

FAINE: I note that you have yourself have complied with your own advice in this interview today. In an embarrassing slip-up, an email from you to be distributed within the Labor Party instead was sent to AAP, in which you said that the Prime Minister should be claimed to have won the debate because ‘she had more positive plans to take the country forward, whilst Mr Abbott just played his usual negative politics’- 

BOWEN: And that’s right that’s- 

FAINE: This is an embarrassment of a slip-up, isn’t it? 

BOWEN: That’s exactly what happened John, and look- 

FAINE: Your own internal emails being leaked to the media? 

BOWEN: No, look, it’s unsurprising that I’m the Labor Party Campaign spokesperson. It’s unsurprising that I would consult with senior people in the campaign about what I say on the campaign’s behalf and what I said was that Julia Gillard won the debate because she had a positive plan for the future and that’s exactly what happened, those remarks are mine.  

FAINE: You’re not embarrassed by the leaking of this email? 

BOWEN: Obviously, I’d prefer it didn’t happen because we’re not talking about our positive plans to go forward in health and in education; we’re talking about internal campaign mechanics. What happened is an email with news about who won the debate was sent out inadvertently, but that email reflects what I see as the fact that Julia Gillard won the debate because she was much more positive and Tony Abbott relied on his normal, negative one-liners and his cheap grabs. 

FAINE: Can you put me on your email distribution list in future please? I’d be grateful. 

BOWEN: [Laughs] Well Jon, I’m more than happy to talk to you face-to-face or over the radio any time, and I’m more than happy to communicate with you by email if you’d prefer. 

FAINE: Well, just it would be handy in future; it would cut out the middleman, thank you for your time today. 

BOWEN: [Laughs] Nice talking to you Jon.  

FAINE: Chris Bowen, Minister for Financial Services in the Federal Government and ALP Campaign spokesperson.

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