Subjects: Election 2019; Labor NT roads announcement; Bill Shorten; Labor super policy; Labor Emissions Renewable Target policy

HOST: Middle of the first full week of campaigning. It's time for Two Tribes - Chris Pyne and Anthony Albanese. Good morning to you both.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Good morning gentlemen.

ANTHONY ALBANESE: Good morning from Darwin, or more specifically, from Noonamah.

HOST: Noonamah? Where’s Noonamah Albo?

ALBANESE: Noonamah is just south of Darwin. It’s where the mango industry is based, and we’re making a roads announcement for the whole of the Territory, but specifically for the mango industry - roads that are a major exporter up here, but they still have dirt roads, so helping the economy here.

HOST: Good stuff. We're going to kick off with you today Albo. I’m sure Chris won’t mind, because the question is Bill Shorten.

ALBANESE: He’s gone. He’s asleep.

PYNE: No I’m not.

ALBANESE: He had a sleep-in this morning.

HOST: The question for you Anthony Albanese, is Bill Shorten wouldn't want too many more days like yesterday on this campaign would he?

ALBANESE: I think we're having a very good campaign, and Bill's having a great campaign getting around the country, talking to people, outlining the policies that we've been putting forward over the last five and a half years, not just for this term, and we'll continue to do that. We've got Shadow Ministers out and about around the country.

HOST: But it was on the policy stuff that you could really hear the clutch slipping. Yesterday he stumbled on negative gearing, the renewables targets, and also the question of superannuation taxes, which is a pretty unpleasant hat-trick in the middle of a campaign.

ALBANESE: Well Bill Shorten - take super for example. What he was saying is that we didn't have any additional announcements to be made. We've already made our announcements more than 12 months ago, and that's unlike previous Oppositions. Remember Tony Abbott saying “no cuts to health, no cuts to education, no cuts to the ABC” just a couple of nights or the night before the 2013 Election, and we know what everyone got in 2014. People will know what they'll get from Labor across the board.

HOST: What did you make of it Chris Pyne?

PYNE: That’s not what you’re going to get from Labor. Bill got off to a very bad start in this campaign, and to pretend yesterday that Labor wasn't going to introduce superannuation taxes, and just conveniently forget $34 billion worth of superannuation taxes and pretend that this was announced 12 months ago so it's not relevant. I mean they're in Opposition. They haven't actually introduced any of their policies yet. Hopefully they won't get the chance to do so. But Bill had a shocker of a day.
The other thing that was startling was that he had a stoush with a journalist who simply wanted to get an answer to a question about what impact Labor's Emissions Reduction Target of 45 per cent will have on the economy. It will put a wrecking ball through the economy. And Bill Shorten you’ll find doesn’t do any long form interviews. You won't see him on the 7:30 Report or Neil Mitchell in Victoria, or any of those longer radio or television interviews because he is not across the detail of what he's doing. And when he doesn't like the question, he simply tries to go to the next one, and yesterday, Jonathan Lea from Network 10 wasn't going to let him, and Bill got into quite an unpleasant row.

HOST: Let's put that question to Albo, and see if he does a better job than the Labor leader, than Bill Shorten. Albo, what is the impact on the economy, of your environment policy?

ALBANESE: Well the modelling that was done by Warwick McKibbin show that it would be a very similar impact on the economy to the Government's own 26 per cent target, and that's because there's also economic activity generated by having a higher target in terms of renewables. There’s stimulation to the economy in addition. So that showed that during the 2020s, the growth would be 23 per cent of growth over that decade – whether Labor's policy, which is of course 50 per cent renewables by 2030 and a 45 per cent reduction in emissions, or whether it was the Government's targets. But in addition as well, with our fuel emission standards – modelling has shown a $550 saving on average for every driver as a result of having those emissions standards.

HOST: It’s a good answer. Why didn’t Bill know it?

ALBANESE: That modelling was done by the Government by the way – by the Government.

HOST: Yeah.

PYNE: Actually the modelling by the Government indicated from independent modellers called BA Systems, sorry BA Economics, showed that it would cost 360,000 jobs – an effective $9,000 tax on every single household in Australia, and it’ll put a wrecking ball through the economy. That's what Jennifer Westacott from the Business Council of Australia said. Now, Bill didn't want to talk about that.

ALBANESE: Well the Business Council used to support policies on climate change.

PYNE: He wanted people to forget about that. He wanted people to forget about Labor’s $387 billion worth of taxes, and Anthony just tried to do a better job of explaining their policy. But Bill's not going to be able to skate through the next five weeks avoiding questions on his $387 billion. The superannuation tax of $34 billion by the way doesn't even include the retirees’ tax which is $55 billion. So I think Bill's going to have a few questions to answer, and I can't see the media just letting him get away with it.

HOST: Christopher Pyne, Anthony Albanese. We'll leave it there. We’ll do it all again next week. Thanks for that guys.
ENDS

WEDNESDAY, 17 APRIL, 2019