Transcript - Television Interview - Sky News NewsDay with Tom Connell, Thursday, 4 November

TOM CONNELL, HOST: Joining me live now, my panel, Liberal MP Jason Falinski, from the Labor Party, Patrick Gorman. Thanks both for your time. Jason, I'll start with you on this. Australia didn't sign up to the pledge to reduce methane by 2030, Australia did not increase at all its target by 2030 of reducing emissions compared to similar countries, are we now a laggard?

JASON FALINSKI, LIBERAL MP: Well, which similar countries are you referring to, Tom?

CONNELL: UK, US?

FALINSKI: Well, with respect the UK, sorry, UK, what else?

CONNELL: US, many other countries in Europe.

FALINSKI: OK, so the UK is nothing like Australia. Australia has three very key sectors which are our mining, energy and agricultural sectors. We have unusually large, they form an unusually large parts of our economy. The capacity for us, therefore, to reduce our emissions is hampered by that fact, that our economy is so dependent on those three sectors. The UK has nothing like that, so it's not fair to compare Australia to the UK, despite, well, similar countries, there isn't actually.

CONNELL:  US?

FALINSKI: In energy, you would look at Saudi Arabia, in mining, you would look at South Africa, in agriculture, you might look at Chile or Argentina. These are, you know, we have, we are quite unique. Despite that, we have reduced our emissions by 20 per cent, which is more than double of Germany, more than double of France, more than double the United States …

CONNELL: 2030 is the focus, we have beaten others by land use.

FALINSKI: And so many of the nations that now seek to sit on us in judgment.

CONNELL:  And its land use and land clearing alone that gets us there.

FALINSKI: Sorry Tom, I was interrupting you interrupting me. What was that?

CONNELL: 2030 is the focus here, though, that's what we're talking about, how many, how much will be out there in the future.

FALINSKI: Yes, sure. So we've updated our projections to 35 percent. I know your next question is going to be, but what about a target? We took a target to the last election of 28 percent. The Labor Party took a target of 45 percent. It's the view of the Prime Minister of the Cabinet that we should stay true to the promises that we made to Australia at the last election. Despite that, we are now exceeding our targets and hopefully we can actually get those projections even higher or lower, depending on which way you look at it.

CONNELL: Pat, do you see Australia as a laggard?

PATRICK GORMAN, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR WESTERN AUSTRALIA: I believe Australia is missing out on a lot of opportunities. If we do more in terms of moving with the world to act on climate change, that would mean more jobs for Australia, and a bigger economy for Australia. And I've got to pick up Jason, we talked about the big part for the Australian economy. The big one that he missed out was, of course, education, a huge export for Australia, where under this government over the last few years we've seen 40,000 job losses. And of course, education and working with our academics, our researchers, our innovators is part of how we are going to find all of the solutions to this climate change challenge that we have. So, look, I think the real problem that Australia had during these … I will let you interrupt, Tom. I don't mind. It's your show.

CONNELL: Oh, look at that. Patrick's trying to get extra points. Well, let me ask you this. You mentioned there, doing more, Australia should be doing more. Does that, by definition, mean a higher target in 2030 than the government is projecting it will get to?

GORMAN: Well, we've always said, Tom, that at the conclusion of the Glasgow Conference between then and the election, Labor will outline our plans. I'm not in a position to do that today, but we're watching this closely. My colleague Pat Conroy is there in Glasgow now. Unlike the Prime Minister, he hasn't flown out early. Patrick is there. He's representing us saying what the global commitments are, and working on how we make sure we integrate that into the policy that we will take to the next election.

CONNELL: OK, but you said doing more, doing more would have to be more than the Coalition. Is that what you're saying?

GORMAN: Well, I believe, look, let's be clear here, it's been just a week that the Coalition has had the commitment of net zero by 2050.

CONNELL: Sure, but you were the one saying doing what?

FALINSKI:  It's a good question, Tom. You should keep asking questions like that, Tom.

GORMAN: Here's some things that we've already outlined. Labor has already outlined that we will legislate to net zero by 2050. That's more than what the Coalition will do. We've said that we'll put a $20 billion financing facility together to rewire the nation so that we can actually plug in more renewables into the grid. That's doing more than the Coalition. We'll cut taxes on electric cars, something that you know, Jason normally runs around saying that he wants to cut taxes everywhere. But the only place they don't want to cut taxes is electric cars, and I want to know why.

CONNELL: Jason?

FALINSKI: I agree with Pat, on two of those things there. One is I do you think that there is a lot of work we can do on our transmission network, and you know, I think that's something that we should be looking at. And look, I'm on the record as saying that I think we should take EVs, or electric vehicles and also hydrogen cell vehicles out of the luxury car tax net, to encourage and incentivize people to purchase those cars sooner rather than later. Be early adopters, if you will.

CONNELL: I want to get on to another topic. Of course, this is totally hypothetical, nothing to do with what's happening at the moment, but Jason, is it a good idea for a world leader, if they are struggling to maybe prove their point on something to leak text messages that have been sent between them and another world leader?

FALINSKI: Well, hypothetically speaking, Tom, I think you would also have to add to that, do you think it's a good idea for one world leader to call another a liar just because they lost, potentially, I don't know, a deal because they weren't delivering what they promised they would? Do you think that, hypothetically, it's a good idea? Well let's reverse this, do you think it's a good idea for the Australian ambassador in Paris to go to the equivalent of the National Press Club and just, you know, give a giant spray about the government of France? I mean, it is quite extraordinary, but it's not matched, frankly, by the extraordinary fact that the Australian media has been cheering them on as they did it.

CONNELL: And what about the question I asked? So you're saying,

FALINSKI: And the behaviour of the Australian media, while an ambassador in our country, whose job is to actually engender good relations with the government, and just slags off that government! 

CONNELL: Alright Jason. So given what Emmanuel Macron said, Scott Morrison, you're saying, was entitled to leak text messages?

FALINSKI: So we've moved off hypothetical, have we?

CONNELL: Of course we have.

FALINSKI: Okay, look, yes, I do. I honestly do. I mean, there comes a point where I think the Australian government for about a month said, look, we understand that the French are upset. We understand that they're going to have some negative things to say about us. But I think when Emmanuel Macron goes off the deep end and proceeds to say, oh no, they lied to us and it wasn't, you know, I know the media is trying to paint this as, oh he was just talking about Scott Morrison, he was talking about the entire Australian government, the military establishment had lied to them, even though there was publicly available information.

CONNELL: All right.

FALINSKI: That we had been unhappy for some time. 

CONNELL: He was very clearly saying it wasn't the Australian people, which the PM did say he won't cope it on behalf of all Australians, so, you know.

FALINSKI: Oh, when you're attacking our military and that's … you know, anyway.

CONNELL: All right, Pat, is an Australian Prime Minister entitled to go public when they're called a liar?

GORMAN: Well, I think Scott Morrison's acting a bit like a sulking teenager. He's running around refusing to wear his mask. He's leaking text messages from people who used to be his friends. I mean, it's pretty immature stuff. And that's my biggest concern, is that here we have an Australian Prime Minister on the world stage behaving like a sulking teenager because people are saying mean things about him. And some of those seem to be demonstrably true, because it's not just what the French are saying about our Prime Minister. It's what Malcolm Turnbull is saying about our Prime Minister. That was an extraordinary intervention from the former Prime Minister yesterday, where he said that he knows that Scott Morrison is a liar and has a reputation for lying. I mean, this is a pattern of behaviour as opposed to a one off spat. So look, I don't know if it was the right decision. It's the Prime Minister's phone. He can cancel subcontracts on his phone. He can leak text messages. That's up to him. But it's a pretty weird standard that he's going to sit in his own party room. That he's now basically said, yep, everyone, let's leak our text messages. Let's get it all out there. It's got to be a wild ride for the next few months.

CONNELL: Sounds like an excellent policy to me. Leaked messages always welcome on the NewsDay program, if you're out there politicians, you probably know my number. We'll have to leave it there. I should point out I think it's a Polish flag, not a French one in your background, Jason.

FALINSKI: No, no. It's French. It's French.

CONNELL: It is French? You've got the French flag up?

FALINSKI: There's a story behind it, if you want to know, but I know you've run out of time.

CONNELL: I'm going to get in trouble. Well, we'll detail it next week. You'll hear the story behind the French flag in Jason Falinski's office.

FALINSKI: Tune in, tune in! You won't want to miss it.