E&OE……………………….…………………………………………………………………

 

 

Joining me with more is Opposition Leader Tony Abbott. Good morning to you, Mr Abbott, happy New Year.

 

 

And to you as well.

 

 

Well, it is not a very happy new year for a lot of Australian workers. If you have a look at the headlines, they’re not good. If you become leader, can you stop these job losses?

 

 

Well, I can stop the carbon tax, Lisa and that is a factor in so much of this.

 

 

But the carbon tax doesn't exist yet and these numbers are happening without a carbon tax.

 

 

But as we have already seen, the threat of a carbon tax is pushing up prices. We saw Qantas and Jetstar announce increased prices yesterday. What that means is you turn on the lights, you pay. You open the fridge, you pay. You go to the airport, you pay. You get on a plane, you pay. Everything is going up with this carbon tax. It's bad for families, it’s bad for jobs and it's bad for holidays, we learnt yesterday.

 

 

Even if you were to stop the carbon tax, can you really stop a company like Westpac with more than $6 billion in profit sending jobs offshore to places like India. How would you stop that?

 

 

What we can try to do and what we will do is ensure that the conditions for business in Australia are as good as they possibly can be and that’s where the carbon tax and the mining tax will go and they'll make it easier for business. But my message to the workers of this country is your job won’t be safe until Julia Gillard loses hers and this Government is gone.

 

 

You can’t stop the Aussie dollar being as high as it is though and that's got a lot to do with it. Is there anything you have got planned?

 

 

It is part of it Lisa but as we saw Toyota say yesterday, the Fair Work Act is one of their most significant difficulties. We know that the carbon tax is going to add more than $400 to the price of domestically produced cars. There are some things we can't fix. There are other things we can fix. The extra taxes, we can take them off. The red tape, we can reduce it. The Fair Work Act, we can make it more business friendly, more jobs friendly. That's what we want to do and that’s what we will do.

 

 

The headlines this morning are that confidence in this country is at an all-time low. Would you consider a stimulus package to get more money into the economy?

 

 

Well, I don’t think people want more government spending. What they want is a government which is competent and the best way you could boost confidence in this country is to get rid of the incompetent government. If people have no confidence in the government, it's very hard to have confidence in the country.

 

 

Alright, in your address to the National Press Club earlier this week you promised smaller government, fewer taxes and plenty of savings but you actually skirted a lot of the detail on this. Will you be delivering tax cuts in your first term in office?

 

 

With Labor there'll be tax cuts and a carbon tax. With the Coalition there'll be tax cuts without a carbon tax. So taxes will be lower in the first term of a Coalition government than they are now.

 

 

But forgetting the carbon tax completely, just looking at the taxes as they are at the moment, will you deliver tax cuts should you become Prime Minister?

 

 

Personal income tax will be lower under a Coalition government in its first term than it is now, only without a carbon tax.

 

 

So why then did Julie Bishop only call it an aim?

 

 

We were then saying, by the end of the first term of a Coalition government, further tax cuts would be in prospect. That's what I said at the Press Club.

 

 

Next Tuesday the Reserve Bank is likely to lower interest rates. What will you do to ensure that that interest rate cut is passed on to consumers?

 

 

Well, the interesting thing is that when the Coalition was in power, interest rate cuts were always passed on to consumers and that is why interest rates were consistently lower under the Coalition than they have been under this government despite the fact that this government was in power during the global financial crisis.

 

 

Alright, we have to leave it there but I can't let you go without asking: do you think Kevin Rudd is about to make a move on Julia Gillard?

 

 

Look, all the signs are there. It is a very, very restless caucus. In the end it's up to the Labor Party to choose which failed leader it wants to take into the election.

 

 

Do you think they'll make a move?

 

 

Look, my instinct is that he'll make a move before the Queensland state election because if Kevin is such a miracle worker in Queensland, you'd think they'd want him there before the state election.

 

 

Alright, Tony Abbott, it is going to be a big year in politics, we have no doubt about that. We'll be seeing you here every Friday.

 

 

I look forward to that Lisa.

 

Thanks very much.

 

[ends]