E&OE
JONATHAN GREEN:
Australia and Pacific leaders have agreed to disagree around action on climate change. There was a marathon 12 hours of talks between leaders at the forum in Tuvalu overnight. Fiji's Prime Minister, Frank Bainimarama, expressed his unhappiness with the final, the eventual, declaration and he warned that watered down climate language had real world consequences. Now former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has taken a keen interest in these talks, he tweeted that climate action was a key priority of Australia's Pacific Step-Up plan, he launched that in 2016, and he joins us now. Malcolm Turnbull, welcome.
MALCOLM TURNBULL:
Thank you very much, great to be with you Jonathan.
JONATHAN GREEN:
Now Tuvalu, Scott Morrison held firm against greater action on climate change. What did you make of that?
MALCOLM TURNBULL:
Well look these communiques are essentially political documents and it's important to achieve consensus and a resolution around them and I'm sorry there wasn't more consensus around the language.
But the reality is that Australia is the Pacific's best friend, we are by far the biggest donor. The Pacific Step-Up which I launched in 2016 and as part of our 2017 White Paper, in which Scott Morrison is continuing with, is a very, very important Australian initiative. We're putting more money than ever into the Pacific and we're also investing in critically important economic infrastructure.
The Coral Sea cable for example, which is going to provide high speed internet connectivity to the Solomon Islands and to PNG, 4,700 kilometres of subsea cable, was an initiative of my government. We agreed to do that in 2017 and work started last year. You know these are very, very substantial examples of around one and a half billion dollars a year that we spend on aid in the Pacific.
Now climate change and the consequences of it are an existential matter for the Pacific. You know you get characters like Alan Jones and some of the other shock jocks in the media here in Australia going on about climate and saying ‘carbon dioxide is a harmless gas’ and ‘climate change isn't real’ and all of the climate denialism that we see. Well if you are, and Frank Bainimarama reminded us of this, if you are a Pacific Islander and your home is going to be washed away by rising sea levels caused by global warming then this is not a political issue - it's an existential one.
And so it's critically important that we show respect to the Pacific Islanders and that we are seen to be helping with climate change, both in terms of reducing our emissions as part of a global effort and, of course, as we do, providing them with substantial resources to adapt to climate change.
Because the fact is, even if global greenhouse gas emissions were to plummet tomorrow, there is so much warming in the system already that you are going to see continued increases in sea levels and of course continued increases in storms.
JONATHAN GREEN:
Did we show that respect though? I mean the conversation was apparently quite heated, there were tears from the PM of Tonga. The PM of Tuvalu, he was eloquent on this, he said that Scott Morrison was there fighting for his economy, he was there fighting for his people. Did we undermine that good work?
MALCOLM TURNBULL:
Well look I wasn't in the room. I mean I have negotiated those communiques, in fact I've actually drafted them. On one occasion Prime Minister Tuilaepa of Samoa, who's a great guy, once said to me after I rewrote - with their consent, I was being helpful - part of the communique, he said to me “when you were a young man you must have been quite a good lawyer” which I thought was very, very kind of him. But the fact is, the Pacific way is a way of consensus. You've got to deal in good faith and practically I don't know what the... if there was disagreement I'm sure people will get over it.
JONATHAN GREEN:
How much room does Scott Morrison have to move in Tuvalu and what might have restrained him?
MALCOLM TURNBULL:
Well look, I mean he's obviously very alert to the political realities in Australia, that there is a very strong minority within the Coalition, and indeed in the media and in the community, that are ferociously opposed to taking action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, that want us to build more coal-fired power stations, regardless of the economics, and that treat all of this as a political issue not as it should be treated as an existential issue.
Now the reality is that the cheapest form of new generation electricity is from renewables. That's principally solar and wind, PV, photovoltaics and wind, backed up by storage. The government, my government, got underway some huge projects in the area of pumped hydro, which is the biggest and most cost effective form of mass storage of energy at the moment.
So Snowy Hydro 2.0 is underway, that's being continued with, none of my initiatives in terms of energy storage have been abandoned by the Morrison government, and of course the big Battery of the Nation project, which is to turn the big hydro scheme in Tasmania into one that can adopt pumped hydro and store more of the renewable energy that's generated in Tasmania. Now both of those are initiatives of my government and they're both being continued with as are many others.
JONATHAN GREEN:
But that tension, that tension remains within the government.
MALCOLM TURNBULL:
Well it is there, it is. Emissions reduction is a very difficult issue for the Coalition and you've got to cut Morrison some slack on this or give him some understanding. He is not a dictator, he's not a president, he's a prime minister, just as I was and you have to live, you have to sort of manage the political realities within your own party.
JONATHAN GREEN:
Is he caving into that political reality?
MALCOLM TURNBULL:
I wouldn't use that language. I think he has to, he's got to operate in the real world. But the point I was going to make was that we are in fact, and this is why there actually shouldn't be a disagreement with the Pacific, because in reality despite the nonsense you see on Sky News at night, or on 2GB, or in some of the Murdoch tabloids and newspapers, despite all that climate denialism the truth is that we are moving to an energy system that will be either zero or very near to zero emissions. It will be composed of renewables plus storage, and economics will drive us to that as much as anything else.
Now what we need to do, and this is where the failure to get agreement on the National Energy Guarantee was such a tragedy really in terms of energy policy, what we need to do is plan, and we need to get the engineering and the economics right. This transition is going to happen and what we've got to do is get there while keeping the lights on and keeping energy affordable.
Regrettably, the failure of the NEG, because of the insurgency and the coup and all of those things that happened last year, what that means is that electricity prices will be higher and electricity will be less reliable and emissions will be higher than they otherwise would be.
So what the NEG was going to deliver was the reliable investment climate, which the industry craves for, which would see more investment into reliable forms of energy generation which as I said will be a combination of renewables plus storage.
JONATHAN GREEN:
What is the place of coal in that?
MALCOLM TURNBULL:
Look I don't think there is a place for new coal in Australia. Leaving aside the environmental issue, which of course is like saying leaving aside the biggest issue, but let's leave that aside for one second... New coal is simply not cost competitive anymore and I've had hundreds of discussions with people about it. Its advocates are basically arguing from self-interest, whether it is political self-interest or whether it's financial self-interest.
The simple economics of a new coal-fired power station in Australia does not stack up, compared to if you’re talking about dispatchable power that you can rely to turn on and off as you wish, that is going to be a combination of renewables plus storage supported perhaps with gas peakers which of course can come on very quickly. But to build another big coal-fired power station, honestly it doesn't stack up and no one's going to finance it.
JONATHAN GREEN:
One of the great advocates though, of the renewed place of coal, of the continued place of coal, is this government is this Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
MALCOLM TURNBULL:
Well I think you've got to look at what people are saying. I think it's important that we manage the retirement of existing coal-fired power stations carefully. Now you may recall that I tried to persuade AGL to keep Liddell going for a few more years. It wasn't because I like burning coal or because I think Liddell is an industrial masterpiece that needs to be preserved. It was because if it is scheduled to close in 2022, I think now a little bit later, Snowy Hydro 2.0 is scheduled to come on and stream in 2025, and the advice we had at the time was that there was a risk there would be a shortage of dispatchable power in New South Wales between 2022 and 2025.
So the closure, the retirement of these old coal-fired power stations has got to be managed because you've got to be able to bring on the new dispatchable power to replace it. So that's why again, Jonathan and those of your listeners that remember the politics of the last few years will recall I used to say repeatedly ‘energy policy should be guided by engineering and economics not ideology and idiocy’ and regrettably....
JONATHAN GREEN:
It's a good quote, Malcolm.
MALCOLM TURNBULL:
Well it's a fact of life. I mean we know where we're going, we know where we're going to end up and we'll either end up... We'll either get there, which is to say with renewables plus storage, efficiently, cost effectively, reliably and or we'll get there with much higher electricity prices, unreliable power and all of the adverse consequences. But my point is that Scott is able to say that Australia is moving to lower emissions, that it is moving to a lower emissions energy system, he would be able to say that because it's true. But what he has to live with is the politics of coal and the politics within the Coalition.
JONATHAN GREEN:
One of the subtexts of the forum conversation was that Australia should take global responsibility for the emissions that come from it exports of coal and gas. Does that argument make sense?
MALCOLM TURNBULL:
Well I mean, look, it's an argument. The reality is you can only count emissions once, so if you were to count for example, the emissions that will be created from Australian coal when it's burnt in South Korea for example, then you would have to say South Korea is not going to be responsible for the consequences of burning Australian coal.
I think it is better frankly, for us to account for emissions in the country in which the emissions occurs. So with coal and gas for example we account for what's called fugitive emissions, which are the emissions of methane that occur as you are mining coal that escape from coal mines and also of course the emissions of gas which occur in the whole process of extraction and liquefaction before it’s exported, but these are accounting questions.
JONATHAN GREEN:
Of course.
MALCOLM TURNBULL:
The critical thing is to get to a zero or near zero emission energy sector and we now have the technology to do it. I mean it's simply a question of engineering and economics, and unfortunately, there used to be a time when people said the advocates of renewables had rose coloured glasses and were sort of fantasizing about what was feasible.
We absolutely know now renewables are the way to go. Storage is affordable and feasible, but you've got to build it and plan for it, and so we can be a zero emission energy country. We've got phenomenal solar resources, phenomenal wind resources and so we can do all of that. We could become a cheap energy country, a clean energy country but we've got to plan it and I think we should be planning and be proud of it.
My point is the problem with the climate denialists, of which there are so many, or too many, is that what they are basically doing is ensuring that we have less reliable, higher emissions and more expensive energy. So that is the price of their political games.
JONATHAN GREEN:
One of those the denialists, Malcolm Turnbull, is Alan Jones and you've had your own confrontations with him. You will have heard that the things that he said in respect of Jacinda Ardern yesterday, is that a last straw? Should Alan Jones be taken off air?
MALCOLM TURNBULL:
Well that's a matter for I suppose his employers. But I think his pattern of using abusive and violent language against women, particularly women politicians, is disgraceful. He is an appalling misogynist in the way he talks about women. This is the man who said that Julia Gillard should be put in a chaff bag and dropped off the heads. Then he goes on to urge Morrison to shove a sock down Jacinda Ardern’s throat. I mean this is appalling language and at a time when we are doing everything we can as a national priority to stamp out violence against women and children you have this broadcaster who uses the language of violence against women as part of his regular rhetoric, I mean it is disgraceful.
JONATHAN GREEN:
Just a couple of quick points before I let you go, Malcolm. Press freedom - the balance of interests between national security and freedom of the press is a pretty contested space. Issues raised by recent police raids on journalists, do they suggest that we're getting that balance right?
MALCOLM TURNBULL:
Well look it is a balance, Jonathan, and I think there is probably… we probably don't have enough time to deal with it properly. I've had every position in this I guess, other than being a policeman, I've been a journalist, I've defended journalists and authors, people's right to write what they want about national security and the Spycatcher case…
JONATHAN GREEN:
You do have a record there, yes.
MALCOLM TURNBULL:
...as a Prime Minister I've been responsible ultimately for the country's national security. You've got to get the balance right. I think a free press is absolutely critical and I'd just say, perhaps by way of summary, that the work that journalists do is as important in our democracy as the work that politicians and judges and distinguished public servants do, it's absolutely critical.
But equally there is work that in the nation's interest, we all understand this, has to be done protected by confidentiality. National security has the function of keeping us safe and of course it is thanks to that security, and that safety, that we are able to exercise the freedoms, including freedom of the press, in our democracy.
JONATHAN GREEN:
There’s a small flurry of books from journalists - David Speers, Niki Savva, David Crowe - detailing the end of your prime ministership. The question in that, I mean was Scott Morrison an accidental PM? A sort of political Steven Bradbury or did he plot your downfall?
MALCOLM TURNBULL:
I was happy to talk about the Pacific.. I'm writing my own book so I'll deal with some of those matters in that. But honestly, I'll leave all that for another time, Jonathan.
JONATHAN GREEN:
Malcolm, thank you so much for sharing these moments this evening.
MALCOLM TURNBULL:
Thank you so much.
[ENDS]
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