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April 11, 2025
Transcript – ABC RN Breakfast
11 April 2025
E&OE
SALLY SARA:
Well the Coalition has promised another rolling back of Labor's climate policies if elected, declaring it will abolish penalties under the Fuel Efficiency Scheme. This scheme is due to take effect in July and is aimed at increasing the availability of electric vehicles and also, of course, lowering emissions. Coalition Campaign Spokesman and Shadow Home Affairs Minister James Paterson is my guest. James Paterson, welcome back to Breakfast.
JAMES PATERSON:
Good morning.
SALLY SARA:
What's the Coalition's proposal here? You want to keep the efficiency framework in place, but scrap the penalties to enforce it? Is that correct?
JAMES PATERSON:
That's right. If you vote Liberal or National at this election, a Dutton Coalition government will deliver both cheaper petrol and cheaper cars. If you vote Labor, Green or Teal, you'd be paying more for petrol and more for cars. The carmakers estimate under Labor's scheme that the best selling car in Australia, a Toyota Rav4, will cost $9,000 more and the best selling ute will cost $14,000 more, the Ford Ranger. And so we will repeal Labor's family and ute tax.
SALLY SARA:
So what about this efficiency framework? Why keep the framework if you're getting rid of the penalties?
JAMES PATERSON:
Well, we strongly support choice for Australians when it comes to the car that they want to buy that's suitable for them and their family. We think the uptake of EVs is a good thing and Australians should buy that if it suits their family's needs. But it doesn't suit every family's needs. And some families want to buy a truck or a ute. Some families want to drive a petrol or diesel powered car, and there already are pretty powerful incentives to buy an EV in the system. For example, you don't pay fuel tax, which funds the road infrastructure that we all share. So we think the incentives in the system are already strong enough to drive EV uptake, and that's what we're saying.
SALLY SARA:
If there's a concern about timeframe with this, why not extend a grace period until penalties take effect, as car companies such as Mitsubishi have suggested?
JAMES PATERSON:
We don't support taxing people who want to choose a car that is suitable for their family's needs. We don't support making a Toyota Hilux, another best selling car, $11,000 more expensive for Australians, because this is not the time to be making anything more expensive. Australians have had a hard enough time over the last three years of cost of living, with groceries up 30%, electricity up 32%, gas prices up 34%. We don't need to make cars more expensive as well.
SALLY SARA:
Let's have a look at the broader issue of emissions. I just want to clarify, if possible, the Paris Climate Accord has obligations. Will the Coalition set a 2035 emissions target which Australia is required to do?
JAMES PATERSON:
What we've said is that we don't believe that Labor's 2030 target, of 43% emissions reduction on 2005 levels, is achievable because in the last three years, Labor has made very little progress in emissions reduction. When we left office, we had reduced emissions 28.5%, and they’ve only just increased a bit over 29%. So to achieve a further 14% by 2030, we don't think is realistic. In government, we would seek advice about the best achievable target for 2035, and we remain absolutely committed to zero emissions by 2050, consistent with our Paris Agreement obligations.
SALLY SARA:
There has been some mixed messaging, particularly in the past day or so, from multiple shadow frontbenchers. Why is the Coalition not clear on its own climate policy?
JAMES PATERSON:
We're very clear. We think that Labor's target in 2030 is unachievable and unrealistic. We will achieve net zero by 2050. It's the reason why we are transitioning the Australian economy, if we win, to an emissions free, reliable, proven technology nuclear powered economy, we believe that's the only way to sustainably reduce emissions and achieve our targets.
SALLY SARA:
So in your view, if the policy is clear, why have some of your frontbenchers not been able to communicate that clearly? What's happened?
JAMES PATERSON:
Well, I just think it's been misinterpreted. I thought Ted O'Brien was very clear yesterday at the Press Club that we're committed to net zero. If we weren't committed to net zero, we wouldn't be doing something as ambitious as transitioning to nuclear powered energy in Australia. But we are committed to it and we will achieve it.
SALLY SARA:
On your gas reservation policy, we spoke to Samantha McCulloch, who's the Chief Executive of Energy Producers Australia. She had this to say. [CLIP START]
SAMANTHA MCCULLOCH:
It's not clear how this policy works. We've looked at the modelling. It doesn't explain, firstly, those practical issues around how we move that gas around and the pipeline constraints. It doesn't provide the detail in terms of this, this $10 a gigajoule price that the Coalition's been pointing to, how that arrived at, how that would be implemented in practice, and of course, how that will actually flow through to households and electricity bills, sort of via retailers. [CLIP ENDS]
SALLY SARA:
That's Samantha McCulloch, the Chief Executive of Energy Producers Australia, speaking on breakfast this morning. James Paterson, why are there so many outstanding questions this far into the campaign?
JAMES PATERSON:
I don't accept that there are, and I understand why gas companies want to make it sound like there are, because they themselves have admitted this will drive down prices. That's why they're opposed to it. They don't want lower prices. And energy users have also said that it will drive down prices. That's why they support it. I think Australians are paying too much for gas. We're a gas producing nation. We export billions of dollars of gas every year, and that will continue under a Coalition government. But we can't have a situation where the Australian domestic gas price is pegged to international prices and smashes Australian business and households every time there's a global spike. So we're going to decouple it by forcing more gas onto the east coast into the domestic system.
SALLY SARA:
We had your Energy Spokesperson, Ted O'Brien, on the program yesterday, and it took quite some time to get an answer as to when consumers may see reductions in their power bills from this policy. Why is it so hard to get a clear answer on some of these questions?
JAMES PATERSON:
Well, we'd like to be able to fix up the mess that Labor has created in our energy system, particularly on gas, as soon as possible. We'd like to be able to flick a switch, but we can't do that. What we will do is commit to acting straightaway. In our first hundred days, we'll sit down with the gas companies and we'll make our expectations clear to them, if it's not already clear to them already. And we will legislate to force more gas into the domestic market. And that will have flow on benefits straight away. Over time, those benefits will get greater and greater as contracts roll over, and lower prices can be delivered both to industry of about 15% and to households of 7% on gas and 3% on electricity.
SALLY SARA:
We were speaking to the Coalition's Government Efficiency Spokesperson, Northern Territory Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, yesterday. There weren't clear details on which government departments would be in the Coalition's sights for reductions in jobs and cuts. Why are voters not being told that detail at this stage?
JAMES PATERSON:
We've been very clear about that detail. We will cap the size of the Australian Public Service and reduce the numbers back to the levels they were three years ago through natural attrition and voluntary redundancies.
SALLY SARA:
That has changed along the way, to be fair.
JAMES PATERSON:
No, it hasn't, our policy has always been based on natural attrition and voluntary redundancies. That's what our costings are based on. That's what we've sought advice from the PBO on, and that's why we will achieve the savings once it's mature of $7 billion a year. What we've very clearly said is that front line service roles will be exempt, as will defence and national security.
SALLY SARA:
But you don't know which departments will be targeted.
JAMES PATERSON:
Well, because it's a process of natural attrition and a hiring freeze. What that means is that as people leave the public service, if they're not in a front line service role, they won't be replaced. And so over time, those numbers will come down.
SALLY SARA:
James Paterson, thank you for your time on Breakfast this morning.
JAMES PATERSON:
Thanks for having me.
ENDS