SUBJECTS: Government’s low emissions technology fund; electric vehicles; climate change; Labor’s policy agenda; carbon capture and storage; Federal election; lack of trust in Scott Morrison; petrol prices and storage.
 
LEON BYNER, HOST: It’s my pleasure to introduce the Leader of the Opposition, Anthony Albanese. Anthony, good to talk to you and thanks for coming on.
 
ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Good morning, Leon.
 
BYNER: Now look, there is a survey out today showing Australia continues to rank poorly when it comes to climate action. Activist groups claim that Australia sits at 58 of 64 countries included in their assessment. They also include The Australia Institute, which is not exactly a friend of the Morrison Government. Do you think Australia is really doing this badly, given that China, which is an even bigger emitter, has a ranking in the 30s?
 
ALBANESE: Well, we are doing very, very badly across a range of measures. Yesterday, we saw an announcement, a backflip, from Scott Morrison now pretending that he never opposed electric vehicles. But we're under two per cent of new vehicles in Australia being electric vehicles. China's in double digits, as is most of the rest of the world, with countries like Norway being on 70 per cent. We have a Prime Minister who went to Glasgow, one of the few advanced countries, along with Brazil, Mexico and Saudi Arabia, that didn't increase the 2030 commitment. And we have the extraordinary proposition whereby just weeks after the Prime Minister gave a big, showstopping was what it was supposed to be, commitment to net zero by 2050 with no new policies, he is now rolling out some more pamphlets and ideas that he didn't take to Glasgow because, quite frankly, people in Glasgow would have laughed, in some cases, at some of the rhetoric that comes from this Government. The Prime Minister gave an empty speech to an empty room in Glasgow.
 
BYNER: Look, there's a new $1 billion emissions fund. Start-up companies producing low emissions technology can literally apply for government investment in their product. Half the money would be distributed through the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, the other half would rely on the public sector.
 
ALBANESE: No, private sector, Leon. Again, more spin from the Government trying to pretend that the fund is double what it actually is proposed to be. Leon, I've spoken with you about this on the program before, we have a $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund which we committed to as part of a major commitment that we have made to grow new industry, to grow new jobs, to assist that transition to clean energy. This is a drop in the ocean. And again, an announcement a couple of weeks after, allegedly, the Government released its own policy. It's a Government that is arguing against itself.
 
BYNER: Alright. What do you think they should do?
 
ALBANESE: Well, I think that they should be fair dinkum. But this is a Government that now Scott Morrison is saying that everything he said about electric vehicles just two years ago, Leon, 2019, it is now 2021, two years ago, he said electric vehicles would end the weekend. He said you can't tow your boat, you can't tow your caravan. He said that people were trying to take away your rights to choose a vehicle. None of that was true. Now, if Scott Morrison regards his own words as being so worthless and not worth considering, why should Australians regard his words in any higher fashion than that which he regards them himself?
 
BYNER: What do you think we should do? What's your policy?
 
ALBANESE: Well, we should take action. On electric vehicles, we need to lower the price. So, what we have proposed, for example, is to remove the fringe benefits tax. We know that a large proportion, almost half of the vehicles that enter the market in Australia, come from fleets, be they government purchasing or private fleets. And a good way to do that would be to remove the fringe benefits tax. We would also remove the excise on the cheaper forms of electric vehicles entering Australia. We should be supporting manufacturing of factories and other materials here that are components of electric vehicles. We produce everything that goes into a battery, like nickel, lithium and copper. And we're not making enough of them here. This is a lost opportunity. We should be, of course, having more electric vehicle charging stations. But the commitment or the rhetoric of the Government pales into insignificance compared with the commitment, for example, by the New South Wales Liberal Government in this area. Australia is really falling behind the rest of the world. And we run a risk, unless we get serious, that we’ll end up being the dumping ground for vehicles that other countries won't take. And if you look at the commitments that have been made, they're all about trying to play catch-up and the Government trying to distance themselves from their own rhetoric of just two years ago.
 
BYNER: So, if you were to win Government next year, what is it you would do immediately?
 
ALBANESE: Well, immediately we would fix, in our first Budget, we would fix the tax rate for electric vehicles. We would establish the National Reconstruction Fund of $15 billion to support industry. We wouldn't undermine bodies like the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and ARENA that Scott Morrison and every Coalition member has voted to get rid of. They wanted to abolish those programs, like they wanted to abolish the Renewable Energy Target. And we would bring credibility to international discussions and negotiations which take place related to climate change. And we would genuinely support new technology, not come out with this rhetoric but then oppose every bit of new technology that comes forward, such as electric vehicles and such as renewables. There in South Australia, of course, the big battery in South Australia was described by Scott Morrison as as useful as a Big Prawn or a Big Banana. You can't have that sort of rhetoric and that failure of national leadership, and then just pretend that it hasn't happened, come up with style over substance announcements and rhetoric and argue in a dishonest way that, for example, anyone has argued that we will tell people what car they can purchase or drive. That's not the argument here. What's happening is that auto manufacturers, Volvo had ads in the newspaper yesterday about how they've moved to fully electric. General Motors, Ford, all of the car companies are all moving in this direction. And that's just a fact that is happening. And what you have here is a Government that has been in denial about the science, and denial about the facts of the response.
 
BYNER: So, if you became PM, would you then give some sort of consumer encouragement or subsidy to engage with electric vehicles?
 
ALBANESE: Well, what you do by removing the tax, that tax regime and those two taxes, is you encourage consumers to take up these choices. Electric vehicles, as you expand in terms of volume of production, are coming down in price. And it's expected that within the next two to three years, there'll be price parity. Now, if you have the same price for a vehicle, of an electric vehicle or a petrol vehicle, because electric vehicles are so much cheaper to run, then all of a sudden, guess what? There's this massive incentive to shift. And that is what is going to happen. And that's why the Government yesterday made this prediction of around about 1.7 million electric vehicles over this decade would be in the marketplace. There's no doubt that this shift is happening. But there's no doubt either that Australia has fallen behind. We are less than two per cent of new vehicle sales in Australia have been electric vehicles. There are good vehicles out there available now like the Nissan LEAF and others that are becoming increasingly popular but will be more popular as we reach that price parity level.
 
BYNER: I’ve got an email here from a listener, it's Michael, who says, can you ask the Opposition Leader if he would invest in nuclear power to have zero emissions and will he produce everything he mentioned locally?
 
ALBANESE: No, I wouldn't, because it doesn't stack up. And that's why, in spite of the fact you have the occasional commentary pieces, you don't have people queuing up to invest in nuclear power because it takes such a long time to come on board. The costs are not as cheap as clean energy, as renewables. And that's why renewables with battery storage and the use of that new technology over a period of time has come down massively in price. And that's all about volume. As renewable energy has become more ubiquitous throughout our economy, then it is where the market is going.
 
BYNER: What's your observation that the price of fuel now is about $1.89 per litre, which is damn high? What do you reckon that's going to do to those who are now looking at electric vehicles?
 
ALBANESE: Well, I know last week, Tony Zappia got in touch with me when petrol in Adelaide was over $2.
 
BYNER: Yes.
 
ALBANESE: It makes an enormous difference. I drive a hybrid. I get a thousand kilometres with a tank of petrol. And it makes an enormous difference in terms of the cost of running that vehicle. As we move towards fully electric, particularly if you can just plug in and use solar with batteries, whether it be individual batteries or community batteries that we have also said we will support, that will make an incredible difference in terms of the affordability of running a car.
 
BYNER: Tell me, do you think that if we have this continued swing to other forms of vehicles using different forms of energy, i.e. electricity, we're going to see quite a reaction from the traditional fuel families of business where they've relied so much on being able to set the price and force us to pay it, where you can pay over $2 a litre? What do you think about that?
 
ALBANESE: Well, I'll tell you what, fuel security in this country has been another issue, of course. This is the Government where Angus Taylor spoke about fuel security and having fuel reserves and they’re in the Gulf of Mexico.
 
BYNER: Well, that's no good to us, is it - 12,000 kilometres away is hardly storage.
 
ALBANESE: It's just absurd. And this is another area of failure of this Government. We don't have the reserves which the international experts at the IEA stated we should have.
 
BYNER: You've talked about this for a while. So, are you telling us that were you to get into Government, you would fix that reserve issue? Would you do it?
 
ALBANESE: It's got to be addressed. Of course, it does. We're in breach of international standards and best practice. And what we should be doing in this country is making sure that we are, as we are in so many areas of life, at least as good as anywhere in the world. We can be that, Leon. We can be optimistic. We can be forward-looking. But we can't be that if we have a Government that is scared of the present and terrified of the future. And that's what we have with this Government. A Government that's incapable of shaping the future in the interests of ordinary mums and dads out there listening to your program, and their kids, most importantly, as well. Because if you don't plan for the future, you'll be a captive of it.
 
BYNER: Anthony, thanks for coming on. We will no doubt talk again. Interesting, isn't it, that I've talked long and hard about storage and I've been talking about storage, remember, even the former Senator, Nick Xenophon, same thing, for years. And there have been those who have said, 'No, no, no, no, we'll just do just in time'. Well, look what that's done to the price for a start. One little weather event in an ocean that carries a ship with fuel and we're in all sorts of trouble. One little thing, let alone a supply issue itself.
 
ENDS