ABC Radio: Murdoch and the Green Party

E&OE TRANSCRIPTRADIO INTERVIEWABC RADIO BRISBANE28 APRIL 2020Steve Austin: You may have heard the Greens candidate on Rebecca Levingston’s program this morning suggesting that the Greens would win seven seats at the next state election due on October 31st this year. One of the seats they intend to win, or they claim to win, is the electorate of South Brisbane, currently held by the Deputy Premier of Queensland and Treasurer, Jackie Trad. Well today a former federal member that held that same region, the federal electorate of Griffith – which is the south side of Brisbane – Kevin Rudd, held that seat between 1998 and 2013, I think. Today, former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has described the LNP decision to preference the Greens ahead of Labor as a “hypocritical alliance”, quote-unquote. Former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, good evening to you.Kevin Rudd: Good evening Steve, thanks for having me on the program.Steve Austin: Why is it a hypocritical alliance?Kevin Rudd: Well it’s hypocritical because the Greens party stand for the future of renewable energy and when you look at what the LNP both federally and at the state level have stood for, it is precisely in the reverse direction. And it reminds me so much of the original hypocritical alliance that I had to deal with federally when I was Prime Minister, when the Greens and the Liberal Party joined forces to defeat our government’s legislation to put a price on carbon. I mean it is completely hypocritical for a party which stands, at least theoretically, for environmental sustainability and action on climate to have done that back then, just as it’s hypocritical now for the Green party to do a deal with the LNP, who have tattooed on their forehead a fundamental distaste for the future of renewable energy and significant and substantive climate change action. That’s why I used the term.Steve Austin: Well the LNP look for what they describe as a market-based solution, rather than a carbon price or a price on carbon or a carbon tax, I think. Is there a difference between that and the Greens’ policy on combating climate change?Kevin Rudd: Yeah but the bottom line here is Steve, that this move between the Green party and the LNP is an opportunistic and, in my judgement hypocritical political strategy which has one objective, obviously to get rid of Jackie Trad, a very good local member quite apart from being a good minister. But also, therefore making it easier for the LNP to form government in Queensland, that’s what the bottom line is, because it takes Labor’s overall presence in the parliament down. So therefore, you’ve got to ask yourself, what is the LNP policy on the future of renewables in Queensland and what is it nationally? And I know from bitter experience every time we have tried to act on climate change, by either a) putting a price on carbon, the Liberals have been there waiting to shoot it in the head. Secondly, when we’ve sought to sustain our own national renewable energy target, there they’ve been again trying to roll it back all the time. So, my argument’s pretty simple, if you’re concerned about the future of renewables, concerned about real action on climate change, the bottom line is, we federally introduced the Renewable Energy Target as a Labor government. We took renewables nationally from 4% to something close to 20% of total electricity supply. Here in Queensland, since we got rid of the Campbell Newman government, renewables since Jackie Trad’s been a minister have, I think, gone up from something in the order of about 4% back in 2015 to about 14% last year. So, the real question here is, by virtue of this alliance to get rid of Jackie Trad, this opportunistic alliance between the Green party and the anti-climate change action party, the consequence is to undermine all that good work for the future.Steve Austin: If you were a Green –Kevin Rudd: That’s why I’m quite passionate about it. I’m just quite passionate about it. That’s why I’ve decided to speak out because – it’s not just because I think Jackie Trad’s a great local member, it’s that I’m passionate about something I spent so much of my political career on, which is getting renewables entrenched across our state and across the nation.Steve Austin: Well why wouldn’t they do this deal? The last state election the LNP was going to do the same thing but it was stopped by Tim Nicholls, then leader of the LNP and the result was that Jackie Trad was that re-elected, the Greens didn’t get elected and the LNP didn’t get elected. So, from their perspective in terms of – I haven’t met a politician who doesn’t think that winning means you can actually do something. Unless you get the reins of power you can’t affect change. Every single political party and politician I’ve spoken to seems to think that’s the case. So, all, from their perspective all they’re trying to do is get in a winning position, so that from their political point of view they can affect the change they’re hoping to garner.Kevin Rudd: Yeah, but the bottom line is this: in the Queensland parliament, like in the national parliament, there are only two parties capable of forming a government. Either the Liberal and National Party coalition or the Labor Party. The Green party, federally has what, one seat out of a parliament of 150? In Queensland at present they have zero seats (sic), let’s just be absolutely brutally honest here; this has got nothing to do with the Green party forming a government and delivering an alternative renewable energy strategy or climate change action plan for the benefit of Queensland and the country, this is just about them getting a toehold in the parliament. So, therefore the argument that it’s, you know, they’ll be in a better position to advance green policy, well pigs might fly. If the LNP get in, this state goes backwards at a hundred miles an hour in terms of climate change action and renewable energy, whereas frankly, Jackie Trad as the local member and as the Treasurer and as the Deputy Premier, has been there batting hard to lift this state’s renewable energy performance. So, for me, from a climate change perspective alone, Steve, it just makes no sense, apart from being as I said just absolute hypocrisy if you’re called the Green Party.Steve Austin: My guest is former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. He was also the federal Labor member for the electorate of Griffith on the south side of Brisbane. This is ABC Radio Brisbane. A question unrelated to this just before I let you go, Kevin Rudd, and that’s the issue you may or may not have heard just before the news. But the news is today that advertising revenue for media organisations has plummeted so much that News Corp, Seven West Media, Nine Entertainment – the publishers of the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and the Brisbane Times – have lost as much as 50% of their revenue due to the coronavirus pandemic and News Corporation is having to call in consultants to work out who they sack and what they cut just to stay alive. You’ve been a regular combatant, particularly with News Corporation. If not News Corporation, in other words, what’s left? In other words, if things are so dire for the media in Australia, and that’s a massive decline in advertising, what do we have? Where do we get alternative sources of news from?Kevin Rudd: Well it goes back to the essential, importance, Steve of the institution you work for and why I’ve been such a passionate supporter all my career, including when you guys have gone for my jugular in the past politically, for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Public broadcasters make the difference. Where would Britain be today in the midst of its coronavirus crisis were it not for the BBC, the platform where you get objective information. It’s like Dr Norman Swan being this sort of source of objective medical advice, when there’s so much confusion, particularly in the early period of the unfolding crisis here. And as for Uncle Rupert, for God’s sake. Here in Queensland, here’s a question for you: which papers, newspapers in Queensland, are not owned by Rupert Murdoch? One out of fifteen daily newspapers in this state are not owned by Rupert. Fourteen out of fifteen are. We’re in a Murdoch monopoly state and one of the reasons why it’s so hard to get a politically progressive narrative up in this state of Queensland is because Murdoch in partnership with his political coalition party, the Liberal and National Party, basically are rowing in exactly the reverse direction so –Steve Austin: But you’ve got The Guardian, you’ve got the Brisbane Times, you’ve got a whole range of online sources where people are getting their other news sources from.Kevin Rudd: Yeah, but the Murdoch operation are also online. But let me go down the coast. The Cairns Post, The Townsville Bulletin, The Mackay Mercury, The Bundaberg NewsMail, The Sunshine Coast Daily, The Gold Coast Bulletin, the Brisbane ‘Curious’ Mail. Frankly, these are all now owned by one man, that’s not healthy in any democracy, let alone in Queensland. But when I heard the other day on this question of how do you bail out companies, Prime Minister Morrison and others saying, and Frydenberg, saying ‘but we couldn’t possibly act on Virgin’ to save ten thousand jobs, five thousand of which are by the way in Queensland, because ‘we’re not going to help foreign companies which have billionaires behind them’. Well, guess what? Rupert Murdoch’s an American citizen and he’s a billionaire many times over. So, the idea that we should be dipping into the taxpayers’ pocket to bail out Uncle Rupert, frankly, is something that strikes me as passing strange. Why doesn’t he use his own personal fortune given that that’s the principle established by others?Steve Austin: Kevin Rudd thanks for your time.Kevin Rudd: Good to be with you.