Leigh Sales grills Bill Shorten in election campaign interview

Bill Shorten has endured one of his toughest tests of the election campaign — a forensic interrogation by 7.30 host Leigh Sales.

Bill Shorten has endured one of his toughest tests of the election campaign — a forensic interrogation by 7.30 host Leigh Sales.

For almost 20 minutes, Sales grilled the Opposition Leader on a wide range of Labor’s more controversial policies, starting with its plans to combat climate change.

Mr Shorten has been plagued by questions about the cost his emissions reduction target will have on the economy since the first week of the campaign. It has become one of Scott Morrison’s favourite talking points.

Sales started the interview by asking whether it was true that shifting to a low emissions economy would impose a short term cost on the economy.

To bolster his response, Mr Shorten drew on his meeting with steelworkers in Whyalla earlier on Wednesday.

“There is a cost to investing in new technology, but they’re absolutely convinced that the only way we will keep making steel in Australia is by investing in renewable energy,” he said.

“Let’s just talk to the two million Australian householders who’ve invested in solar power. There is an initial cost, depending on the deals they can get, but most people who go into solar, they don’t go back do they?”

Sales took that answer as an admission that Labor’s plans would indeed impose an upfront cost, even if there would be a net gain in the long term.

Leigh Sales interviews Bill Shorten on 7.30. Picture: ABC

“So if there is a short term economic cost, you have a 45 per cent target for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. What will be the cost of that to the economy over the next decade, not in dollar terms but as a percentage of economic growth?” she asked.

“It won’t have a negative effect on economic growth. In fact, most of the mainstream modelling shows that our economy will continue to grow,” Mr Shorten said.

“But if you have firms that have to be shifting and making the transition to having lower carbon emissions, that may mean that they have less money to spend on other forms of investment,” Sales argued.

“It may mean they have lower profits, so therefore they have less money to deliver in the form of company tax into the government’s coffers. Those sorts of things could have a spin-off impact onto the GDP numbers.”

“The problem with what you’re saying is that you assume that there’s no cost to doing nothing, and there is,” Mr Shorten replied.

“I don’t assume that there’s no cost to doing nothing. I accept your position that there’s a long term benefit. What I’m asking you to do is square with voters about exactly what the short term cost is of getting to that position,” Sales said.

“Well my absolute conviction and belief is that if we don’t change, the cost will be far greater than any initial investments,” he said.

“If you’re asking me to specify what a particular company and a particular factory will have to do, I can’t do that. Nor could you, nor could the government.”

Sales tried to jump in again, but Mr Shorten kept talking.

“No no, let’s be fair here Leigh. Let’s be fair. I’m not going to get caught up in this government game of gotcha, where you’ve got to invent a number, which you can’t possibly,” he said.

“The reason why the government’s trying to focus on how much it might cost to put in a new renewable energy system is that they’re trying to distract from the fact they have no climate change policy.”

“But if we could stick with Labor -” Sales interjected.

“It’s so dishonest, this debate. It’s so dishonest,” said Mr Shorten.

“You say you can’t just pluck a number out of nowhere. You’ve come up with a 45 per cent target. You must have done -” said Sales.

“Well sorry, I didn’t pluck that out of nowhere, that was the Paris Agreement, that’s what the scientists tell us,” he said.

Bill Shorten on 7.30. Picture: ABC

The pair continued to speak over each other, until finally, Sales managed to get her whole question out.

“As a government, you are adopting that as your policy, you must have done some projections, short term, to what that will mean to GDP. Will it take say, 0.1 per cent off GDP, 0.5 per cent off GDP over 10 years?” she asked.

Mr Shorten analysis from Citibank saying “the consequences in terms of cost of policies like ours are immaterial”.

“Both in the short term and the long term, the cost of not acting on climate change is far worse than acting on climate change,” he said.

“The Australian people and business are so far ahead of the political debate, you must be bored by the government’s rhetoric, which wants to simply say we can’t do this, can’t do that. The rest of the world is so far ahead of us it’s embarrassing.”

Moving on, Sales asked Mr Shorten about the apparent internal conflict within Labor over the Adani coal mine in Queensland.

The Labor Leader himself has sat on the fence, saying only that he will not be beholden to mining companies on one hand or environmental activists on the other. Some of Labor’s candidates, however, have appeared to pick sides.

“If there’s a miner sitting in Rockhampton tonight and she wants to know, ‘Mr Shorten, do you reckon this mine will be a good thing for my industry and for Queensland?’ What would you say to her?” Sales asked.

“I’d say my view on this mine is going to be based on the best science, whether or not it stacks up. And if it stacks up and passes all the scientific tests, I won’t engage in sovereign risk. We won’t arbitrarily upend things,” Mr Shorten said.

Sales pointed out that Mr Shorten had once told he was “a sceptic” and “not a fan” of the project, and asked him whether his opinion had changed since.

“Adani didn’t get the finance, but now they appear to have it. They were talking about a 60 million tonne mine with 10,000 jobs. Now the promises have shrunk,” he said.

“Various Labor candidates and MPs have had differing positions on Adani. What do you say to the suggestion you’ve created the situation by saying one thing to people in regional Queensland and one thing to environmentalists?” said Sales.

“I’d say that’s wrong. Our position’s very clear,” he responded.

Leigh Sales interviews Bill Shorten on 7.30. Picture: ABC

The next topic was Labor’s franking credits policy. Sales confronted Mr Shorten with the case of 83-year-old Chris Phillips, whose comments had aired earlier in the program. Mr Phillips, a retired carpenter, is set to lose $9000 each year under the policy.

“Is your policy driving someone like Chris heavily onto the public purse?” she asked.

“He already is. And this is the real heart of the issue. When you get an income tax credit when you haven’t paid income tax, it is a gift from the government. You’re already on the public purse,” Mr Shorten said.

“Mr Morrison has been most dishonest in this. He says we’re coming for people’s savings. No we’re not.

“It’s costing $6 billion. nearly $8 billion a year in the very near future. It is eating the Budget and it is just a gift.”

Sales quickly moved on to housing, focusing on Labor’s promise to curtail negative gearing.

“Will your negative gearing policy make housing cheaper?” she asked.

“It won’t have an appreciable impact on the price of housing,” he replied.

“What’s the point of having it then? I seem to recall, when it was introduced, it was partly to make housing more affordable?” said Sales.

“What we want to do is create a level playing field,” Mr Shorten said.

“Why should a pair of first homebuyers, supported by their parents - they got to bid for a house, get the deposit together and get the stamp duty together, it’s a lot more expensive than it was 20 years ago. And they’re bidding against someone in the crowd who is getting a taxpayer subsidy. It’s not fair.”

The pair briefly touched on superannuation and tax. Mr Shorten rejected the accusation that he would make super “less enticing” for Australians, and said Labor had no “no plans” to increase the top tax rate to 50 per cent or higher.

Leigh Sales interviewing Bill Shorten on 7.30. Picture: ABC

But Sales ended with a more general, big picture question.

“Is it fair for a viewer to conclude that a Shorten Labor government will be at its core about the redistribution of wealth? That you want to take more from the wealthy and give more to people on lower incomes?” she asked.

“No, that wouldn’t be right. What we want to do is have real change, because frankly, more of the same under this government isn’t good enough,” Mr Shorten responded.

“When we go through your policies, a lot of where you’re getting your revenue from is taxes on wealthy people, closing loopholes, and wanting to spend more money on lower income people. How is that not a form of changing towards a model of redistribution?” Sales followed up.

“If I’m wrong and the core of your government is not about taxing wealthy people to redistribute income to lower incomes, what will be the core of the Shorten Labor government?”

“A fair go for all,” the Opposition Leader said.

“Let’s not dumb politics down to six-second sound bites. I’ll give you, as quickly as I possibly can. We’re going to have real change because more of the same isn’t good enough. We’re going to get wages moving again. We’re going to take real action on climate change. We’re going to look after three million pensioners and senior health card holders with dental care. We’re going to provide a million Australian families with better child care support. And end the chaos.”